Ben Rector: Symphonies Across America with Jon McLaughlin

Hello there, it's me, Ben Rector. People that work with me told me it wasn't a great idea for an artist to write his own bio, but I figured if there was going to be someone introducing me to you, I'd just as soon have that someone be me. I grew up in suburban Oklahoma and moved to Nashville after college. It is strange and wonderful to me that I get to have a job writing songs and singing them. This part of a bio is where having someone else write it is a real bonus, because they go on and on about how great you are and how great things are going for you (not something I'm too keen at or fond of). I figure you'll be the judge of whether or not you think my music is any good regardless of whether someone that was hired to write a bio tells you it is, and as far as how things are going for me, I'd say I'm not really famous, but my mom isn't quite as worried about me being a musician as she used to be. In the past couple years, I’ve found myself spending more and more time on airplanes. I was thumbing through an airline magazine a few months ago and read an article that took the way I’d been feeling about making my new record, The Walking In Between, and put it (eloquently) on a page. A man who owns a distillery was talking about his craft and said, “In an age when everything is less than authentic, here today and gone tomorrow, we stay true to the craft. We are not a flash in the pan.” I hope you can feel a little bit of that sentiment in the songs and performances on the record. I hope you turn “Ordinary Love” and “Beautiful” up too loud and after the second or third listen understand and feel what about those words made me want to sing them. I hope “Sailboat” says something that you’ve felt deep down but haven’t been able to express clearly, and that you feel better knowing everybody feels that way sometimes. I hope you can close your eyes and see a timeless first dance under strings of big globe lights listening to both versions of "Forever Like That", and I hope you don’t hate me too much for being a little honest and a lot sarcastic in "Making Money" (which was actually one live take). I hope that you’ve loved someone long enough for “I Like You” to make sense and make you smile, and if you haven’t, I hope you just think it’s catchy. Most of all I hope you enjoy the record and that in some small way it becomes a part of your life. Thanks for reading this, and I hope I see you at a show sometime soon. For the official press bio click here: http://budurl.com/pdv8