MUSIC REVIEW: BEN HARPER - 'GIVE TILL IT'S GONE'

Honesty, Resilience & Some Influential Friends from Classic Rock 'n' Roll

By: Ashley Schaeffer

May 13, 2011

(Virgin Records) Since Ben Harper’s 1999 release, Burned to Shine, his tenth and latest studio album, Give Till It’s Gone, smolders with a new kind of intensity. What always struck me about Ben Harper’s albums was the way the music would ignite into earth-shattering highs of howling vocals and wailing guitar solos on one track, and then fall back down to the depths of despair and quiet reflection on the next. This album is different. The highs and lows, the shining hope and the blinding pain are all there in the same magnitude they always were, but they are harnessed in a way that paints a portrait of constancy and control. It feels as though Ben Harper’s emotions have been tempered in the fires of his searching. With this, he has saturated the album’s very fabric with such honesty, humility, and resilience in the face of uncertainty that he may have just cut deeper to the bone of human experience than he ever has before.

The first two tracks on the album, “Don’t Give Up On Me Now” and “I Will Not Be Broken,” set the mood that permeates the album. The soft finger-picking and anarchic slide guitar that have characterized his tracks in the past have been replaced with a driving force that grows slow and steady and reaches the pinnacle not one moment too soon. The first track fuses Ben Harper’s usual striking yet somehow harmonious contradictions in a new way. His voice manages to sound simultaneously sturdy and vulnerable throughout the chorus as he sings, “And I don’t even know myself / What would it take to know myself? / I need to change / I don’t know how / Don’t give up on me now.” Through the timber of his voice and sincere nature of his words, he manages to embody wisdom in humility and strength in pleading.

The second track reaches its crest as Ben Harper’s voice, ragged with determined emotion, professes: “I’ve come too far to give up or be turned around /  I will not be broken / I will not go down,” which gives way to a building beat and distorted guitar that shifts suddenly into overdrive. The guitar solo that follows mirrors the lyrics of the song. The notes are held long, climbing and falling up the neck of the guitar with slow and deliberate timing and creating depth through intensity and texture. Somehow this relative simplicity sparks magic and speaks volumes.

Ben Harper proclaims that “Rock N’ Roll Is Free” in the optimistic classic rock ballad that follows, and he really means it too. This track was offered as a free download back in March, and it is now available to those who stubbornly resist the world of iTunes and mp3s. Although this is the first solo album he has released since Diamonds on the Inside in 2006, he has brought a couple of noteworthy artists on board. Ex-Beatle Ringo Starr is featured on “Get There From Here” and “Spilling Faith,” and “Pray That Our Love Sees the Dawn” features singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. The album as a whole channels a depth and sincerity that is hard to come by, and Ben Harper has once again proven his ability to transform and deliver original work as both a musician and songwriter.

For Fans Of: Jack Johnson, Cat Stevens, Bright Eyes, Damien Rice

Standout Tracks: “Don’t Give Up On Me Now,” “I Will Not Be Broken,” “Rock N’ Roll Is Free”