Ben de la Cour
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Cafe Carpe, Fort Atkinson 18 S. Water St., Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin 53538
$8. Please call to reserve. 920-563-9391
BEN DE LA COUR has lived a different kind of life. After growing up in Brooklyn, he set out to see the world as an amateur boxer, janitor, bartender and agricultural worker living in Havana, Paris, Los Angeles, London and New Orleans before settling in Nashville.
His travels have taken him to some strange and sometimes dark and desperate places, places he documents so eloquently in his second release,Midnight in Havana. The record contains eleven songs of perfectly crafted Americanoir. Songs filled with tales of substance abuse, murder and mental illness sit in perfect juxtaposition with playful lightheartedness and an ever-present glimmer of hope. However, upon closer inspection, darkness almost always wins…an unlikely hero, but one that suits de la Cour.
Influenced by songwriting giants such as Townes Van Zandt and Warren Zevon as much as by bands like Slayer, The Gun Club and Thin Lizzy, Ben de la Cour has somehow managed to fuse all of these influences naturally into his Americanoir canon, delivering a uniquely modern, haunting and darkly humorous sound that is all his own.