RYAN BINGHAM AND THE TEXAS GENTLEMEN : THEY CALL US THE LUCKY ONES

RYAN BINGHAM AND THE TEXAS GENTLEMEN : THEY CALL US THE LUCKY ONES

The Lucky Ones
Let The Big Dog Eat
I Got A Feelin’
Twist The Knife
Americana
Cocaine Charlie
Blue Skies
Relevance
Ballad Of The Texas Gentlemen
I’m A Goin’ Nowhere

Label : Thirty Tigers

Release Date : May 15, 2026

Length : 41:39

Review (Saving Country Music) : Ryan Bingham has always had a busted voice. He’s a B-level actor at best, only really adept at playing a version of himself on the screen. If we’re being honest, the best part of Bingham has not always been Bingham himself, but the talent he surrounds himself with, starting with his original backing band The Dead Horses, and his first producer Marc Ford … who by the way, was the best guitarist The Black Crowes ever fielded. But there’s something about the songs, the voice, and the visage of Ryan Bingham when he’s at his best that evokes the grandeur and imagination of the rugged American experience in a uniquely compelling manner. It’s part nostalgia, part Western relief, part American mythology that he brings to the surface to make you hang on his every word, and believe it. It’s a dark and distressed version of cowboy poetry that drips with genuineness, and feeds the soul. Ryan Bingham’s new album They Call Us The Lucky Ones is exactly what you want from a Ryan Bingham album, because it is a Ryan Bingham album, not a close approximation of one, nor one where he’s trying to broaden his palette, bored with his own persona and sound. Lucky Ones is dirty, gritty, loose, sweaty, a little risque, perhaps country only by association, but an excellent specimen of Americana at its best, meaning side-stepping all the pretentiousness, and allowing slide guitar and dirty signals to give the music a coarse finish. Aiding and abetting Bingham on this effort are The Texas Gentlemen who’ve been touring with Bingham as his backing band for a few years now, and contribute significantly enough to this album to share billing on the front cover. If you believe that Bingham is at his best when he leans on the talents of others, that’s what you get on this record. And frankly, this is probably the best record The Texas Gentlemen have ever released too. Guitarists Ryan Ake and Cody Huggins, keys player Daniel Creamer, bass player Scott Lee, drummer Paul Grass, and the oldtimer Richard Bowen on fiddle and mandolin made Ryan Bingham’s first real full-length album in seven years worth the wait. They understand Bingham’s sound and vision since they’ve been plying it on all his old songs for the last few years. When they hit the studio, it was second nature. The songwriting on Lucky Ones isn’t always remarkable. Some of the songs handle lyricism like Clear Channel classic rock—repetitive lines primarily assembled to rhyme, though admittedly pretty damn fun to sing along to like “Let The Big Dog Eat.” “The Ballad of the Texas Gentlemen” is just meant to be a fun road song, and in many respects, this is meant to be a fun road album. “Americana” feels like a silly kiss off of sorts, but one whose lines are deceptively smart in how they develop. Other songs are simple, like cowboy songs, including the love song “Blue Skies.” Bingham does elevate his game with the nearly 7-minute storytelling of “Cocaine Charlie,” which builds into a Cormac McCarthy-like epic that Taylor Sheridan could adapt into a screenplay. The propulsive “I Got A Feelin'” is a good anthem for down times, which Bingham releases this new album into. Ryan Bingham feels like his own American institution at this point, perhaps only known by most moving along the periphery as opposed to a centerpiece, but one they see the American experience illustrated through. Ryan Bingham just needs to be himself, because nobody else is like Ryan Bingham. This is what he pulls together in the post-Yellowstone universe in this strong, even if short of exceptional, mid-career effort.

Review (Rock And Blues Muse) : “I got a feelin’ this party’s just about to begin” sings Americana singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham in his world-weary, gravelly voice as a fiddle saws behind him chased by rocking piano chords. And on this, his sixth studio platter, there’s plenty of raw, tough, country rocking to back up that exhortation. Bingham emerged from semi-obscurity to practically household name status when in 2009 he provided the Oscar, Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice winning “The Weary Kind” tune for the critically acclaimed film Crazy Heart. That trifecta is pretty far in the rearview mirror these days, but Bingham never stopped working, delivering gutsy, unvarnished albums (now on his own Axster/Bingham imprint) overflowing with soulful sounds mixed into country, folk, rock and roll and even a little blues. This is his first full-length in seven years (although 2023s EP was, at just under a half hour, pretty close), and once again features support from The Texas Gentlemen. It’s a varied set, shifting from the early Dylan-inspired “Twist the Knife” where his harmonica playing and rudimentary strumming on acoustic guitar tells the story of the life of an itinerant wanderer, thumbing rides and jumping boxcars. That mostly solo excursion shifts to Highway 61-era Dylan for “Relevance,” taking a double-time trek with his band hanging on as he spits out words to the chorus “What’s the relevance if you can’t get no love” while Ryan Akes’ slide guitar injects high octane fuel. We get a taste of how icons such as John Prine and the late Todd Snider influenced Bingham on the subtle, tongue-in-cheek humor of “Americana.” Here the singer takes the persona of a well-meaning, flag waving redneck, proudly boasting “We love country music and television/We all know what conspiracy might just be our reality” over a slow loping, folksy beat. The bittersweet ballad “Blue Skies” matches a soft, intoxicating melody with similarly styled lyrics, sung with Bingham’s naturally, self-effacing honesty. It’s the album’s most reflective moment, showing another, more sensitive, side of his music. But what Bingham knows best is time on the road. And even after countless songs that detail this slice of a troubadour’s reality, “Ballad of The Texas Gentleman” feels fresh and inspired, recounting the long miles between gigs. “We’re gone again, running down this dream…sleepin’ through the day’s time and wide awake all night,” he sings as the motoring beat mirrors a car cruising down the highway. We get familiar with “Cocaine Charlie,” a six-minute story song following the life, and (spoiler alert) death of the titular backwoods dealer just trying to see his way through existing on the fringes of society. The listener is captivated as Bingham details his life starting with just picked guitar, until the band enters with chords emphasizing the dark story. He and the band rock a throbbing Mississippi blues on the driving “Let the Big Dog Eat.” As the title implies, it’s the disc’s most raucous, ravenous moment featuring pianist Daniel Creamer doing his best Jerry Lee Lewis and two guitarists duking it out as Bingham sings “Beware you don’t poke the bear while I’m laughin’ at the voices in my head.” Yikes! That’s a lot of music crammed into just 40 minutes. It’s further proof, if we needed any, that despite all the glittery Hollywood accolades and shiny mantle-filling statuettes, on the swaggering ‘They Call Us the Lucky Ones,’ Ryan Bingham is the same craggy yet literate cowpoke he always has been.

Review (Americana Highways) : They Call Us the Lucky Ones finds Bingham sounding lighter on his feet than usual: still weathered, still road-worn, but refreshed and animated. The album moves between slow-dance ballads and rowdy burners, with The Texas Gentlemen: Ryan Ake on guitars, Daniel Creamer on piano and organ, Paul Grass on drums and percussion, and Scott Lee on bass. The album’s musical chemistry extends beyond the core lineup. Richard Bowden adds fiddle and mandolin, while Cody Huggins layers in electric and acoustic guitar alongside pedal steel, giving the arrangements more scope. Bingham has described the project as a return to instinct, and the record bears that out. As he puts it, “This album was probably the most fun I’ve had making a record. I’ve always loved records that feel loose and live and gritty with a bit of soul, where the imperfections from the moment are left in. Working with musicians as talented as The Texas Gentlemen really let us lean into that in a way I hadn’t experienced before.” What’s striking is how little of the album settles into brooding. Even its slower songs pulse with flirtation, dry humor, and a kind of grace. On the title track, Bingham sings, “Two hands on the wheel, my eyes on the road / How far, how long can we go?” turning restlessness into a search for home that keeps disappearing. “Twist the Knife,” by contrast, is classic Bingham. A song steeped in dread and remorse that somehow still gives way to intimacy. Co-produced by Bingham and sound engineer Grant Wilborn, the album emphasizes mood, and that decision pays off on its swaggering highs. The soulful stomp of “Let the Big Dog Eat,” the easy roll of “I Got a Feelin’,” and the open-road kick of “Ballad of the Texas Gentlemen” convey the rough-edged exuberance Bingham was clearly chasing. On this record, Bingham’s home address is the highway, where you can drive “under the moon with no headlights.” Those lyrics capture the feeling of confidence of “Americana,” a funny, prickly ramble reminiscent of John Prine. Only “Cocaine Charlie,” a standout portrait of familial ruin and narcotic fatalism, fully descends into the black darkness that defined much of Bingham’s earlier work. Whereas “Blue Skies” and “I’m a Goin’ Nowhere” disclose motifs of steadiness, loyalty, and choosing to stay. More than ever, Bingham can still drag a song to the edge of heartbreak, but now has developed the talent to keep sentimentality at arm’s length. On They Call Us the Lucky Ones, Ryan Bingham’s folk-rooted ballads still deliver emotionally, but The Texas Gentlemen give him a bigger, brasher milieu to work within, making the music even better.

Review (Country Central) : The most noticeable aspect of Ryan Bingham’s detour toward the small screen, no doubt partially due to his pairing with television auteur Taylor Sheridan, was hearing how much focus and direction he came back into the studio with. But the songwriter’s purpose feels more authorial than it did even five years ago. You can hear his attention drift just out of frame and linger on ideas that give a landscape view or a fisheye lens look at the cowboy lifestyle, without ever going too deeply into the story’s veins. He even pokes fun at getting too autobiographical on “Relevance.” He quips that he could croak and croon about his ex-wife, or his troubadour lifestyle, or month-long benders that span a whole hemisphere. But he knows none of it will matter if he doesn’t have conviction, asking, “What’s the relevance if you can’t get any love?” He seems to know that the story stays true no matter who tells it, but it’s his job to set the scene. You could call his ninth studio album a return to his roots, but it might be a better analysis to say that Bingham’s They Call Us The Lucky Ones is just him re-adjusting the atmosphere. The singer-songwriter has always thrived on the outskirts, and that’s true of his placement within his own stories, too. Bingham never really takes on the protagonist role of a song so much as his stretched-thin vocal cords seem to wrap around a big idea, like a narrator of a high-concept story. “I stand in the middle of a river deep and wide,” he mutters on “The Ones,” a track that turns over dirt like the opening credits to a neo-western. Later on, he’ll admit that he “can’t recall where he may have gone,” on “Twist the Knife.” But it’s a blessing when Bingham gets lost in his own world, and his willingness to be a vessel toward those bigger themes only amplifies that. Confidence in his placement in the world is a big theme of Bingham’s newest, only highlighted by his studio backing band in The Texas Gentleman this go-around. It’s a testament to both parties that a one-off show at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth could manifest itself into a ten-track clinic as high-powered as this one, but the accents and detours make Bingham feel back in his own skin for the first time in years. From raucous, roaring juke jams like “Let The Big Dog Eat” down to the most siloed soliloquies of love on “Blue Skies,” there’s never a mode that feels too uncomfortable for either party, despite how far the two seem to push and pull between barroom skillsets and solemn songwriter affinities. It’s a space that allows the now 45-year-old to take some jabs at his own sense of self. Far from the more reserved, self-serious roaming cowboy that records as Mescalito and Junky Star cultivated, They Call Us The Lucky Ones finds a little breathing room in his typically dust-and-dirt-laden landscape sound. “I got a feeling that this party’s just about to begin,” he roars on the album’s aptly titled third track that reads like a self-prescribed second wind in its subtext. Moments like these make Bingham seem freer to pluck from more tongue-in-cheek influences, with a dash of Terry Allen or Doug Sahm sprinkled on top of an already calorie-rich dish. Don’t call it a comeback or a rebrand; Bingham just seems finally settled, as his voice has for decades. It’s easy for any country singer to self-loathe, but Ryan Bingham has had plenty of opportunity now to stare himself down in the mirror and see the warts for what they are. Not necessarily flaws, but maybe more so character traits he’s learned to develop and even embrace. They Call Us The Lucky Ones is extremely confident despite Bingham’s long road to self-realization, hooting with owls as easily as it can soar with the New Mexico buzzards circling over the ghost towns he’s been the narrator of his whole career. Even when things get intrinsic, Bingham still manages to keep the story at a third-person distance. His most bona fide country trait may be realizing that the story doesn’t belong solely to him.

Review (13th Floor) : A road-weary Ryan Bingham pulls off the highway long enough to enjoy the warmth of a West Texas sun on the hopeful They Call Us the Lucky Ones, his first studio album in seven years. While the rootsy singer-songwriter has been rekindling his love for music by playing live with a band again, fans have had to be content with watching him strum the odd bunkhouse ballad as ranch hand Walker on Yellowstone, a character who at times has felt like the embodiment of Bingham’s back catalogue; a restless soul with a heavy heart and a truckload of bad choices in his past. Of course, they also share that voice. It’s 17 years since many of us were introduced to Bingham through his Oscar-winning gut-wrencher The Weary Kind from the movie Crazy Heart, and had to reconcile that such a mournful baritone, born of gasoline and grit, could belong to such a lean, young ex-rodeo cowboy. Such lived-in vocals made Bingham’s tunes instantly recognisable but likely also contributed to his appeal being limited to the back roads of country music, far from Nashville. They Call Us the Lucky Ones finds Bingham at his most optimistic and playful, a well-balanced collection of ballads and up-tempo barn-burners recorded with his new band The Texas Gentlemen; Ryan Ake (guitars), Daniel Creamer (piano, organ), Paul Grass (drums, percussion) and Scott Lee (bass). Even the slower tracks are brimming with romance and wry reflections rather than the ruminations one might expect. “Two hands on the wheel, my eyes on the road / How far, how long can we go?” sings Bingham on The Lucky Ones, as he pines for a home that’s only getting further away, yet with gratitude to still be alive and doing what he loves. Twist the Knife, a quintessential Bingham dirge, is packed with fear and regret, but the song still finds its way into a lover’s arms. Recorded in Texas, the album was mostly tracked live to retain a raw, loose feel, which is exuberantly conveyed on soulful rockers Let the Big Dog Eat, I Got a Feelin’, and rollicking travelogue Ballad of the Texas Gentlemen, the first song written and the spark for the project. The portraits of life in Texas and on the road offer a curious comparison to another recent record under the heavy influence of the Lone Star State. Kacey Musgraves finds respite and emotional repair from a lonesome stay at the family homestead, and all the memories it conjures, on her return to form, Middle of Nowhere. It’s full of little idioms her nana likely told her and small-town suffocation. Bingham’s Texas is wide open. His only home is a highway populated by outcasts, drifters and drug dealers, where yesterday’s strangers are tonight’s buddies, driving “under the moon with no headlights”. Why? Cause fuck ‘em. Such is the swagger of Americana, a humorous, John Prine-esque romp through the alleys and trailer parks of Southwest culture, and likely the first country song to tout pickup trucks and downed six-packs of beer and actually be bearable. Texas is big enough, and mean enough, for Musgraves and Bingham’s contrasting depictions to both be authentic, but where they converge is the strength found through community, be it blood or found family, and the hope gained through hard-earned perspective. Only Cocaine Charlie, an exceptional and exceptionally grim account of a drug trafficker who dooms the lives of his family, hits the pitch-black notes so prevalent on some of Bingham’s earlier records – which can make them too bleak or dense to return to. Both Blue Skies and I’m a Goin’ Nowhere might have been torch songs a decade earlier, yet here they are romantic expressions of commitment and resolve rather than longing. To hear such tender sentiments delivered in his quivering rasp is really affecting. Bingham seems settled and increasingly assured in his ability to take listeners to the edge of heartbreak one moment, and into laughter the next, not unlike his Texas heroes, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. Bingham’s folk-driven ballads still hook me in faster and stronger, but with The Texas Gentlemen he is able to create a boisterous bar band foil that deepens those songs’ gravitas, and They Call Us the Lucky Ones is a first collaboration worth hootin’ and hollerin’ about.