For singer/songwriter Ben Danaher, carrying on a family tradition of storytelling has often led him down darkened roads to haunting, painful reflection on his journey thus far.
But Danaher is no longer standing in shadows. The Texas-native is back in a glorious new season of self-reflection with a brand-new, astute and sincere lease on life and love
Danaher’s latest effort, The Actor, packs and powerful punch, rolling along with a tender and restrained edginess. Taking center stage are the raw musings of a man shifting gears and looking deeply inward in a way he’s never done before, focusing on the man in his reflection and sifting through the layers with an astute and sharp self-awareness.
Produced by Sean McConnell at his rural farm retreat and home studio in Nolensville, Tennessee, The Actor not only ushers in a new arc in storytelling for Danaher, but also a new method in production.
“It’s about realizing that a circumstance doesn’t define you. I many ways, that became a battle cry for me,” he says. “Love Enough to Leave Somebody” also brings Danaher to steady, up-tempo territory, with a sobering twist on the heartbreak scenario as a confessional of leaving, not for lack of love, but because you aren’t ready to meet a great love in the moment.
Overall, the album represents a slow-burning, humble awakening. If Danaher’s last record begged questions of fate’s unforgiving hand and life’s cruel plan, pain and heartbreak, his newest works sees him realizing that he might have held the answers within all along.
ABOUT KENNY ROBY
When you close your eyes and listen to Kenny Roby’s self-titled album, you can imagine an alternate world where the singer/songwriter channels Leonard Cohen. Only in that dimension, Cohen is moonlighting as a southern culinarian where his deft touch knows just how much vinegar is needed to keep things from getting too sweet. He keeps the ingredients simple and lets them simmer precisely as long and slow as needed.
In more literal terms, Kenny Roby has become quite adept at finding the quiet space between beauty and sadness in a song. From Roby’s earliest days as a musician fronting 6 String Drag, he was labeled an “old soul.” Someone who had lived count-less lives and regaled listeners with stories of those adventures. Or in another reality, Roby is the troubadour version of Hermes in Greek mythology (or Mercury in Roman tales), carrying souls to their final resting place, but learning some of their secrets along the journey and carrying their tales in his songs.
Written and recorded in Woodstock, NY where Kenny Roby relocated from Raleigh, NC in 2019, he embraces the spirits of songwriters like Fred Neil, Van Morrison, Tim Hardin, Karen Dalton, Bobby Charles, Levon Helm and, of course, Bob Dylan who once inhabited the very same hills. While he’s a fairly recent resident to the Catskill Mountains, Roby speaks of the area with the reverence of a long timer. He’s acutely aware of his surroundings and he knows there are things he can’t explain, which is okay with him. He’d rather spend his time feeling it.