The folks at the Spring Gulch Folk Festival in New Holland made my day Monday when I learned they had booked singer-songwriter Josh Ritter to perform May 18, the festival’s closing day.
In my not-so-humble opinion, Ritter, 31, is the most exciting young singer-songwriter working today. His last two albums - The Animal Years (2006) and The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (2007) - are jaw-droppingly good. Both are easily among the best albums released in their respective years.
Ritter has the total package - a great voice, a gift for melody, and best of all, a wondrous way with words. Ritter, whose imagination seems boundless, is clever, insightful, funny, profound, witty and daring - often in the same song.
There’s a song on Historical Conquests called The Temptation of Adams that knocked me on my butt when I realized what was going on. The song is about, of all things, a love affair inside a nuclear missile silo. It’s absolutely brilliant, one of the most inventive songs I’ve heard in many a year.
And I can think of at least a dozen more Ritter songs I like just as much. This guy is the real deal. Trust me.
