Description
Label Review.
2017 album.
Our Overview.
The New Orleans-based singer, songwriter and guitarist cites The Gun Club, Blind Willie Johnson and T.Rex as some of his many influences. His music has been described as "a raw brand of blues/boogie/soul," (Chicago Tribune), as "frenzied guitar-strumming and raw, soulful vocals that are hair-raising in intensity” (The Independent) and as "bright, furious, explosive garage rock.” (Spin)
Benjamin’s previous albums favoured a sound like the blues, soul and rock 'n' roll mixed with gasoline and a lit cigarette, ‘Witness’ leans into more explicitly gospel territory here, letting his strepitous guitar take a backseat to an upright-piano melody and choral harmonies. On ‘Witness’ Booker has created his most ambitious work yet by digging deep into his passion for eccentric soul, R&B and blues, while never straying too far from the garage-punk intensity that made his self-titled 2014 debut such a creative breakthrough. The album’s ten new, original tracks were all written by Booker, produced by Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby), mixed by Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes) and recorded at The Isokon studio in Woodstock, NY and New York City’s Red Delicious studio.
Booker’s self-titled 2014 album earned him festival appearances and tour dates supporting Jack White, performances on Jools Holland, Letterman and Conan and features in the Sunday Times, MOJO, New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, GQ and more. The Times hailed the album’s “raucous, unruly mix of punk, blues rock and soul,” and Q Magazine heralded “a rush of raw blues-rock abandon,” The Independent made it their Album Of The Week, calling it “a mainlined shot of unrefined, blues-based rock’n’roll spirit that cuts right through’ and SPIN simply called it “contender for rock record of the year.”