Ben de la Cour

Ben de la Cour’s visceral songwriting grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go. Weaving evocative stories of desperate characters with his signature “Americanoir” sound, de la Cour shines an empathetic, raw, and at times bleak light on the human condition. New Roses, Ben de la Cour’s sixth album, is a claustrophobic yet hopeful record that is by turns gritty and bleak and soaring and beautiful, building to a heart-wrenching story of reckoning and resilience.

Grammy shortlisted in 2023 for his fifth record Sweet Anhedonia, de la Cour has drawn praise from critics, colleagues, and listeners alike while receiving accolades from American Songwriter, The Telegraph, NPR and more. Heralded as a “prodigious storyteller” (Twangville) and “a standard bearer for Southern Gothic Americana” (Folk Radio UK), de la Cour has been praised for his vivid and powerful lyrics. “Ben de la Cour is hands down one of the best songwriters around,” singer-songwriter Jim White, who produced de la Cour’s last album, says, “he’s a true raconteur, which elevates him to full troubadour status.”

Raised in Brooklyn, de la Cour lived in London, Cuba and across the United States before making his home in the American south over a decade and a half ago. Drawing on inspiration from writers and musicians alike—Townes Van Zandt, Jimi Hendrix, Nick Cave, Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen, James Baldwin and Carson McCullers among them—de la Cour’s gothic folk songs are as heartbreaking as they are beautiful.

While Sweet Anhedonia felt like ”the American heartland witnessed through the window of a car going 80mph” (American Songwriter), New Roses feels like being stuffed into the trunk and driven into an imploding star. The album grew out of late-night writing and recording sessions at his home, where he experimented with layering synthesizers and looping sounds, snarling electric guitar and his expert acoustic fingerpicking. “I didn’t even set out to make an album, but I started recording these songs on GarageBand with one microphone and this second-hand synth I bought and then it sort of evolved that way,” de la Cour says, “I just experimented with different approaches to songs and kind of let each song go where it wanted to go.”

New Roses is a singular and personal vision, with de la Cour playing every instrument except fiddle (handled by long-time collaborator Billy Contreras) and trumpet while also delivering his strongest vocal performance yet. The result is a razor-sharp album full of what he calls “night songs”— haunting, impactful songs that feel like the witching hour.

De la Cour is a natural storyteller. His lyrics create entire worlds, fully realized and three-dimensional, full of down-and-out characters trying to make it through. “Ben has refined and enriched the sweet, savage way he pulls your heart up through your throat with his quietly tragic characters in devastating scenarios. It is somehow gruesome and viscerally moving, a fine line he manages to amble along with nary a stumble” (The Telegraph). And he doesn’t shy away from writing tragedy. “There is nothing more isolating than happy, everything-is-great music,” de la Cour says, “because then you’re like… well, I really am alone.”

Ben de la Cour’s music is filled with juxtaposition and duality. He balances doom and optimism, seeking out kernels of hope in the darkness. New Roses finds this balance and acceptance in the dualities of life, ringing true for anyone who has ever felt the need for both light and darkness—for anyone who has learned the hard way that one cannot exist without the other.

And while much has been written of the darkness that permeates de la Cour’s music, he finds this emphasis exaggerated: “It is an optimistic record,” he says of New Roses. “You can’t be hopeful if you’re not willing to acknowledge the spectrum of the human condition. You can be overwhelmed by beauty and you can be overwhelmed by the horrors and you can be overwhelmed by both.” De la Cour remains an optimist, hopeful that his tales can help the lost, the lonely, the doomed.

New Roses, de la Cour explains, feels like a moment of relief before a tragic end. No one gets out of these stories alive, but there are moments of beauty along the way. “It’s like being drawn and quartered,” he says, “if you’re being pulled apart by horses, there is probably a split second where it feels amazing.” On this record, de la Cour’s tragic songs of lost love and apocalyptic doom are interwoven, always, with an appreciation for the pain—it is, after all, how we know we are still alive.

Learn more at https://www.bendelacour.com/

Ben de la Cour

Jodi Hildebran Lee and Jordan Crosby Lee are both law school graduates, but they didn’t meet in a courtroom.

They first met in Winston-Salem in 2013 at an old-time music circle that gathered once a month to share music, food, and company to decompress from the rigors of ordinary life. A career opportunity sent Jordan to Texas and separated the two friends until they serendipitously reconnected a year later. This new connection was different, and it was strong. So strong that Jordan packed up his dog and guitar and left both Texas and the practice of law for a life of music with Jodi in North Carolina.

Now they’ve got four dogs and a band together, and they couldn’t be happier.

The name says it all. Energetic and quirky, Couldn't Be Happiers is a folk-rock/Americana duo that enjoys every moment of their second chance at happiness. And it’s pretty damn contagious. Described by Doug Davis of Flytrap Studios as “Violent Femmes meets Johnny and June,” this married songwriting duo joyfully blends rock, pop, bluegrass, and folk into a sound that is uniquely their own. The CBH songbook includes stories about the obsessive drive of a Bigfoot hunter, the life cycle of a plastic bag, the end of the world from global warming, the untold perspective of the first woman hanged in North Carolina, and the acrobatic feats of strength performed by a Cajun burglar feeding his gambling habit.

But aside from the stories, what you’ll notice first is the voices — and in particular the beautiful homespun harmonies. Those voices will take you from church to holler to Opry and back again all in one song, thanks to the exhilarating power of Jodi’s vocals and the smoothly classic twang of Jordan’s. With Jodi on drums & harmonica, and Jordan on guitar, Couldn’t Be Happiers roll out an incredible sound, a set of great original songs, and a live show that all but dares you not to enjoy yourself.

• Tuck Satterfield of The Simple Joy

Learn more at https://couldntbehappiers.com/