Album Review – Benjamin Tod – “Shooting Star”

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#510.1 (Classic country) on the Country DDS.

One of the signs that it’s a new day in country music is how a host performers who started as street buskers, train hoppers, and hitchhikers have now become some of the premier names in genre, even finding more support and traction than the overly-preened and well-rehearsed up-and-comers of major labels. You don’t want to go as far as saying true meritocracy is finally afoot. But there are now examples of those starting at the very bottom rung of music ascending the ladder to respectable sustainability, and even stardom.

Charley Crockett, Sierra Ferrell, and Benjamin Tod are excellent specimens of this phenomenon. With technology now equalizing the playing field and opening the world up as an audience, and video capturing the musical magic that these performers refined on street corners crowing for crumpled dollars, it’s satisfying the voracious appetite permeating society for true-to-life stories gleaned from lived experiences, and untouched by the big corporate music machine.

Benjamin Tod’s primary gig called The Lost Dog Street Band is not exactly what you would label as a conventional country music project trying to recapture the sounds and grandiosity of the genre’s Golden Era. It’s more of a street folk and Appalachian string project underpinned with a DIY punk attitude. How Lost Dog and Benjamin Tod became anything more than underground heroes is by the accident of so many searching for something real, and Tod’s stubborn-nosed refusal to give up.

Even in previous solo efforts, Benjamin Tod remained true to his hobo roots, penning cutting and unvarnished odes about navigating tough terrain, terrible addictions, poverty, and afflictions of mental health, all served through lo-fi grit to not in any way sugar coat the message or moral. It was blood on vinyl. But that’s decidedly not what Shooting Star is. Some of the stories are still gleaned from his time hopping trains and traveling the country. But this is his very intentional classic country music project.

Having grown up just north of Nashville and spending ample time in the city growing up, Benjamin Tod is one of the very few who can claim a native status to the city. Now some 15 years in the business, he’s seen how classic country has gone from the orphaned kid kicking cans on an abandoned Lower Broadway, to East Nashville’s hottest commodity, to the hippest thing in town, to now even the mainstream guys perfecting their twang. As cool kids and posers do their best Brooks & Dunn impersonations, Benjamin Tod decided he wanted to enter the chat as what passes these days for a true Nashville native.

Instead of picking a specific style or era like so many of today’s throwback country artists, Tod instead decided to showcase the breadth of his skill and knowledge of classic country by interpreting a host of eras in Shooting Star‘s ten tracks. Aiding in this effort is the individual who is just about as good as any understanding not just the style, but the nuance of country music’s seasons, producer Andrija Tokic, who tends to be one of the guilty parties whenever these kinds of projects emerge victoriously.


From the the Bakersfield honky tonk of “Mary Could You,” to the Western Swing of “Satisfied With Your Love,” to the Countrypolitan of “Nothing More,” Tod gives classic country aficionados something to enjoy, no matter their preferred poison. But the message here goes beyond mere entertainment. Benjamin Tod sings in the chorus of the title track,

Music City on the rise, but I’ve always been denied.
Wedged between the railroad and a gun
And the gate is shut up tight, I’m a stick of dynamite
And I’ve paid every due that’s ever come.
But I don’t kneel for you or anyone.

The irony here is that in the last few years, artist no longer have to go knocking on the doors of the gatekeepers on Music Row looking for a deal. Now when a performer like Benjamin Tod comes to the city seeking distribution, he does so from a position of strength, and with a strong gaggle of fans already in his back pocket.

Benjamin Tod is not a crooner. He’s not a faker either. He might be a Tennessee native, but there’s never really been any heavy drawl to his delivery. Instead, his singing is rather stern and dry, which does him well in the realm of aggressive and earnest folk. For enacting classic country, it may come across as a bit harsh and hard to warm up to, even if you can’t help but give him credit for not falling into phony affectations. If nothing else, Benjamin Tod shoots straight.

Benjamin Tod can also be a little quick in assigning himself praise and superiority. But that comes with the territory. He’s stubbornly proud from refusing handouts or shortcuts, and wants to make sure every damn penny he has coming to him was earned. He’d rather spin his tires at his homestead in Kentucky than bend a knee to some suit on Music Row. After flirting with quitting a couple of years ago, here he is expanding his repertoire with Shooting Star.

This album aptly concludes with Sierra Ferrell joining Tod on the song “One Last Time,” similar to how the two crossed paths in their train hopping and busking days. It was those experiences that imbue their perspective with such intrigue for the audience, and refined their performance chops in the most formidable of furnaces.

Now finally with immeasurable dues paid, Sierra Ferrell, Benjamin Tod, and others can step foot into Music City, and find the respect and opportunities their talents always deserved, and take what is theirs, while doing it their own way.

1 3/4 Guns Up (8/10)

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