This page contains a brief overview on the album BALL AND CHAIN AND THE WRECKERS: Live at the Bayou. Learn more about the artist and explore the track lists and website. If you find any information that needs to be corrected, please let us know.

 
Ball & Chain are an Ottawa-based duo comprised of Michael Ball and Jody Benjamin. This marks their third album, and this time around we get their whole entourage of The Wreckers, in an hour-plus "live" show recorded at The Bayou Blues & Jazz Club in Ottawa. It's hard to tell who is having the most fun. Ball & Chain & the Wreckers, the audience who participated in the two-night recording, or the listener who now gets a chance to hear the results.

Ball and Chain are diehard country traditionalists, who add their personal touches vocally and musically to some of the classic songs presented here; augmenting that reverence with some original compositions that fit snugly with the authentic material. Songs made famous by Roger Miller, Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, George Jones, Ray Price, Webb Pierce are featured throughout this "concert", and the listener comes away with a "Ryman feeling".

Jody Benjamin is featured as the lead vocalist and she pays proper homage to the traditional values of this material, something that most of today's country divas have failed to recognize or capture. Benjamin is especially effective on her interpretations of classic tunes like the Hank Williams hit Lovesick Blues, Webb Pierce's Love Love Love, and the Marty Robbins classic Devil Woman, although without a gender change, the story line of the Robbins song becomes a little awkward. Jody Benjamin also contributes three original tunes to the mix, with the hurtin' songs Your Love By Heart and I Don't Drink In ¾ Time, coming off as standouts on the album.

Michael Ball also handles lead spot on nuggets like the Ray Price hit Crazy Arms and the Roger Miller/ George Jones ditty Nothin' Can Stop Me, (aka Nothing Can Stop My Love), which incredibly has never been a charted hit for either Miller, Jones or anyone else. Michael Ball's fiddle work is also a highlight here, featured front and center on instrumental offerings like the Cajun tune Mamou Two Step and his own composition, Redemption Ground.

So as not to scare-off anyone who may not be totally into the "real stuff", Ball & Chain also include versions here of tunes written and/or popularized by such contemporaries as Steve Earle, Buddy Miller and John Hiatt, and Canada's own Melwood Cutlery.

Larry Delaney- Country Music News, January 2006

Check out the artist's website:
http://www.ballandchain.ca

Track List:
1. Devil Woman
2. Crazy Arms
3. Graveyard Shift
4. Mamou Two step
5. Nothin' Can Stop Me
6. Big City
7. I Love The life
8. Lover's Waltz
9. Lovesick Blues
10. Port Arthur Blues
11. Fool About You
12. Your Love By Heart
13. Redemption Ground
14. Little Head
15. I Don't Drink In 3/4 Time
16. I Can't Go Home Like This
17. Love Love Love
18. Little Darlin'

Other Genres:

• COUNTRY: Traditional Country
• COUNTRY: Western
• TYPE: LIVE RECORDINGS