Benjy Ferree – Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee Bobby Dee

My friend Hope L. in Washington, DeeCee, emailed me last week about Benjy Ferree just as I started listening to his great, sophomore album, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee Bobby Dee. She saw Ferree perform an acoustic set at the legendary Crooked Beat Records in the Adams Morgan neighborhood (where, according to local lore, Fugazi played their first show, upstairs. Or at least that’s how I heard it).

Hope had lots of praise for the show and some good insights, but this is my favorite: “He also has crazy hair, which seems to be a prerequisite for me liking a person’s music. (Hello, Mozart?)”

I wish music writing in general was more honest like that.

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee Bobby Dee is loosely conceptual–the titular Bobby Dee is Bobby Driscoll, a child actor of the 40s who met his end in his early 30s without a dime to his name–perhaps the first tragic child star story in a line that continues to this day. Although I’m sure that a close examination of the lyrics alongside the bio of Driscoll would yield interesting interpretations on the sad story of Bobby Dee, it’s lucky that no such examination is necessary to enjoy this musically upbeat album.

Ferree’s influences are plain, and many of his songs are catchy especially because he’s working with well-established pop forms that everyone knows, along with the fact that his voice could be mistaken for Marc Bolan’s at some moments, Jack White’s at others. But the strength of the songs is not that his influences are plain to hear, but that he utilizes and mixes the forms so well. Anyone can make a Long Island Ice Tea, but not many can make one so good and perfectly mixed that you’d be apt to give it an entirely different name because it’s like no other Long Island Ice Tea you’ve ever tasted.

The slow build and Motown harmonies of “Fear” surround its cautionary, sad lyrics with music that impels you to grab a partner and slow dance under low lights in some dingy bar. The bluesy guitar riffing along with a voice that sounds and sings like Jack White makes “Blown Out” and “Christopher Pisstopher” songs that you could sneak on a White Stripes mix and completely fool anyone but the most knowledgeable Stripes fans. “The Grips,” one of the album’s highlights, makes a 50s soda-pop tempo and arpeggio sound modern and heartfelt where it could have felt tired and careworn by an artist of less able abilities, sounding much like the kind of song The Kinks would have written in their mid-70s Preservations/Schoolboys in Disgrace period (btdoubleu, I think this period the most underrated of the Kinks’ catalog, so this is a big compliment).

“When You’re Sixteen” is the most surprising track, because it starts so simply and just a bit blandly, making you assume it’s a throwaway when, in fact, the slow start sets up a slow build, leading to a heart-rending chorus. You can really feel the ardent wish to express what he has inside when Ferree sings “There’s a whole lot of feeling in my heart,” a phrase that doesn’t come off as banal in the least bit, for such a simple statement.

Perhaps Come Back’s greatest pleasures lie in its nods to music of the past, but I don’t think I would have made it past a second listen if Ferree hadn’t produced an album that is much more than the some of its influences.

Buy Come Back to the Five and Dime Bobby Dee Bobby Dee from Domino Records.

“Fear”

“The Grips”

Benjy Ferree Tuesday with Tim Fite at The Crofoot.