Talented Friends Tuesday II

Photo used with consent. Cute graphic came along for the ride.

Can you believe it's Tuesday again? Luckily, I have so many talented friends that this "profile one every week" shenanigan is likely to be ok for a good few years.*

This week, I am delighted to talk about Ben Walker, who happens to be a brilliant musician, blogger extraordinaire and all-round lovely bloke. Hailing from Oxford, Ben is one of those irritatingly clever 'I need to learn how to play a banjo...so I bought a banjo and an hour later I could play it' kind of people. Despite feeling moderate rage at own banjo-inability and cursing my banjo-less genes, my feelings quickly mellowed into admiration and then awe. And he's endearingly humble, too, which makes him even lovelier.

And since listening to his songs ('Dressing Up' is a personal favourite), I have been humming them so incessantly that I wonder whether I haven't been subliminally messaged to, say, write this post, by the sheer power of his music. As I'm not a bona fide critic by any stretch, I'm not going to even try and give you a proper musical breakdown of what Ben does. But I just love his super fun and original lyrics (thank you for not rhyming 'you' with 'you' - egads!) and the way they tell a narrative rather than just exist to support the song. And the songs! For serious, check him out. If only to hum and get some banj0-envy yourself.

Edited to say you can also find Ben on Last.fm and YouTube.

*If not, I can only blame you, my readership of mostly friends. Stop reading this blog and go and do something talented so I can blog about you. Seriously.