It's always worth a trip into Los Angeles to hear a set of songs that maintain the same spirit as their recorded selves, but within the context of a quartet.
The set of songs belonged to Detroit native Brendan Benson's show at the El Rey Theater this past Tuesday.
Benson's albums carry immense musical charm and that is enough even if you don't get to hear the sound of a school bell in his song "Spit it out Now" - its video I recently saw broadcasting in Nordstrom's juniors department - or the patchwork of vocal patterns at the end of "The Alternative to Love," which is the title track to his new album out on V2 Records.
Benson is currently plowing through the last leg of a long-winded tour promoting his new record.
He played tunes ("Tiny Spark," "Metarie," "You're Quite") off his last album "Lapalco" released in 2002 (StarTime Records). He recorded his major label debut "One Mississippi" in 1996 under the Virgin Records label and was subsequently dropped.
According to legend, Benson used the last of his advance money courtesy of Virgin Records to buy a house in Detroit, turning part of it into a studio and pockets of creative spaces where the keys might stand.
The tiny Benson, wearing a V-neck white T-shirt, reflected off the crowd like a well-tuned jazz man, although not as tuned up on his acoustic guitar - the crowd waited dizzyingly as he fixed it.
The group of men playing bass, keys, two guitars and drums also played "Metarie" - the delicate drumming on the chorus had a little more meat on its bones that the recorded version.
Benson did give a "shout out" to Los Angeles with the line "I know a guy, lives in Los Angeles," and then substituting the next line, "Sometimes his life there makes me so jealous" with "I can't figure out why" on the song "Metarie."
Benson continues with a progressive maturity in the department of love in all different forms - from the demise of a relationship to a friend's betrayal to the delusions of an obsessive fan - with "The Alternative to Love" compared to "Lapalco."
Benson has a talent just like Joni Mitchell for creating a sense of identity between their music and the listener through a brilliant rush of lyrics that voice applicable situations, tendencies and personalities expressed by relatable characters speaking in first-, second- and third-person musical narratives. When Benson stands up in front of a crowd and sings, you can't help but feel compelled to stick around after a show and ask him which tunes are actually autobiographical. He so easily slips into the perspectives of various human creatures with all of their flaws and virtues. Like a good piece of fiction, he evokes sympathy in the unsympathetic.
Aside from the lyrics, Benson has also shown his knack for basic composition, writing songs that are brimming with melody, and as once again evident on the new album, the beauty of a rousing arrangement.
Benson, born in 1970, left his birthplace of Detroit with his mother and settled a poor neighborhood in New Orleans. He left for Los Angeles when he was 18 and returned to the Big Easy to record "One Mississippi."
If you like Benson on record then you'll probably dig him live and at the end, only wish he played longer.
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