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Josh Ritter: The Cheat Sheet

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: May 19, 2011
Category: Rock

Josh Ritter is a poster child for this site — a great talent who produces real art and deserves to be better known. I’m a fool for his songwriting, his CDs and his performances, which is why I’ve written about him more often than I have about any other musician. And some of you have paid attention: T. flew from Lake Tahoe, California to Portland, Oregon to see Josh in a tiny club. A diplomat took a group to hear him in Brussels. I routinely get mail on other topics that ends with, “Oh, and for Josh Ritter….big thanks.”

Josh has a cult. If you’re reading this, you’re probably not in it — yet. Here’s a cheat sheet.

The facts you need are few. Born in Idaho. Oberlin College. Endless touring. A first CD, made for $1,000. More touring. And then the cheering started.

What’s the cheering for? First, that he’s a Serious Artist. But very quickly add to that: a Serious Artist who has a great time at his own concerts. Happy? Onstage, he’s overjoyed. And, often, a total goofball. Near the end of a song, he is fully capable of making a perfectly timed but totally inept 360-degree twirl on one foot, like a kid who has just picked up a guitar and thinks he’s cool because he can play the opening notes of “Satisfaction.” He has a lovely way of laughing at his own stories. And then there is the occasional off-the-wall song — like the ditty about a man and woman who fall in love guarding a Minuteman missile in a silo. No wonder he sometimes describes his music as “nerd rock.”

The CD that newbies should start with is “The Animal Years,” which refers to the years of unending touring. Most of the Ritter “classics” come from this CD; it’s nothing if not accessible. [To buy the CD of “Animal Years” from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]

If you watched watch “House,” you may have heard “Good Man.”

Also from “Animal Years” — if you listen to alternative radio, you cannot have escaped “Wolves.”

Now, if you will, compare “Animal Years” to his next CD, “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter.” Night and day. Here the lyrics are less important than the music. “It feels like a leg-breaker —- like a guy you send out to collect debts,” Josh says. No fooling. The drums thunder. The guitars slash. The string section, to steal a line from one of the songs, is “screaming like horses in a barn burning up.” None of it’s quite sufficient: “I put a whip to the kick drum/But the music’s never loud enough.” And, yet, for all that, it’s a pop album. [To buy the CD of “Conquests” from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]

Next: “So Runs the World Away.” It’s lush, intensely produced, complicated, poetic. You may not get it on first listen. But if you give it time, it grows on you; you see colors you missed, lines you didn’t hear. And then you can’t do without it. [To buy the CD of “World” from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]

I moved “Four Songs Live” to my iPod and listened to it at maximum volume. It took me until the second song to understand what was happening in that Irish club — the crowd knew all the words (and there can be quite a lot of words in a Josh Ritter song). These kids weren’t just singing along; they were shouting. Thrilling. [To buy the CD of “Four Songs” from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]