Search - Ben Sures :: Field Guide to Loneliness

2005 winner in the folk category of the John Lennon Songwriting contest 2006 second place winner AAA category International Songwriting contest Canadian singer/songwriter/guitarist Ben Sures has forged a devoted underground following made up of... nerdy twenty-something girls, baby boomers and songwriter junkies! We have no explanation for this demographic. Sures has played festivals and shared stages with everyone from Corb Lund to Rita Chiarelli and is well known to CBC listeners across Canada and CKUA in Alberta. This is his fourth independent release. Field Guide To Loneliness is for fans of story-telling and lyrics along the lines of the Weakerthans and Leonard Cohen: eclectic folk rock. The album is natural sounding acoustic music in a full band setting: acoustic guitars, upright bass and mandolins, Lhasa-influenced percussion and back up vocals, Ry Cooder-esque slide guitar, understated vintage electric sounds and a hint of 1960s analog sci fi effects. Field Guide To Loneliness was mixed by legendary Nashville producer Miles Wilkinson (Guy Clark, Darell Scott, Verlon Thompson) and produced by Sures and longtime Jann Arden bassist/co-writer Michael Lent. Musicians include Bruce Cockburn drummer Gary Craig, Bebop Cowboy Burke Carroll on pedal steel, legendary Junior Gone Wild front man Mike Mcdonald on harmonica, Toronto s Sahra Featherstone on violin, Vavid Woodhead and more. The themes of this record are isolation, loss, drunkenness, science fiction, environmental decay through the eyes of a fish, a father remembered through lunches prepared for him on his journeys and loners in taped up glasses clutching their pocket protectors. The album is called Field Guide..... in the hopes that the listener will be able to peer into these songs without getting s@*t on their shoes.