Ben Wilson – Strange Dogs | The Beachside Resident

By: Tobin Bennison

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Ben Wilson
Strange Dogs
CBJS; 2009

“Easy Listening,” within the parlance of music criticism, is usually invoked with snobbish derision and aimed at the unchallenging, watered-down compositions of John Tesh or Yanni. It has however become a legitimate genre unto itself, one in which several honest musicians have flourished. Local singer/songwriter and guitarist Ben Wilson isn’t one of their ilk, at least not in the strictest sense, but his latest CD, Strange Dogs, could definitely be called “Easy Listening,” even though it’s wholly free of the style’s dumbly followed directives.

With the lyrical insightfulness of a James Taylor or Jackson Browne and equipped with Jim Croce’s receptive ear for a hook, Wilson makes few diversionary demands of his listeners, the better to allow his soothing vision to unfold. But the result isn’t so much anesthetizing as it is calming, and the relative lack of fretboard fireworks draws attention to both his poetic lyrics and finely crafted songs as a whole.

The music world, now more than ever it seems, is crowded with desperate alpha personalities, those who value shock and pointless noise over content. Refreshingly, Wilson strums away in the darkened corner of the room, playing for those who are rewarded for their patience with some stellar original tunes. Track 1, “I’m So Crazy,” comes wrapped in the warmth and catchiness of a treasured ’70s television theme adorned with some decidedly contemporary personal insights as a colorful ribbon. The rest of the album is no less pleasing, bouncing jauntily as it does between the sun-drenched, low-key reggae of “It Came To Me In A Dream” and the vintage, Grateful Dead-like arrangement of “Moonlight In The Middle.”

The “easy listening,” then, comes in the form of looseness rather than diluted vision. Ben Wilson is clearly a thoughtful and very talented artist, and it shows throughout Strange Dogs, an album that deserves attention far beyond the limits of its local scope.

Visit Ben Wilson online at www.benwilsonmusic.com. Ben plays on Friday, February 12 at the Shamrock Room, 105 Harrison Ave. in Cocoa Village. Call 64-5555 for more details. Ben will also perform as part of the Love Haiti Benefit Concert on February 6 from 4 p.m. till? at the Space Station in the Clarion Hotel, 260 E. Merritt Island Causeway, Merritt Island. 100% of all proceeds from the concert will go directly to aid the Haitian people via the Harris Rosen Foundation. Check this issue’s “Word On The Street” section for details on the event.