Marco Benevento: Barn Burner: Live At Levon’s
Marco Benevento and his trio sound right at home on Barn Burner: Live at Levon’s, his second live release from Woodstock, N.Y., where he’s lived for more than a decade. For the better part of that decade, Benevento’s trio has included talented and energetic bassist Karina Rykman, who in 2019 connected Benevento with her bandmate, drummer (and now regular Benevento collaborator) Chris Corsico. Benevento’s live recordings over the years have showcased the talents of his many collaborators, and this album is no exception: the combo are simultaneously tight and loose in all the best ways. Eleven of 13 songs from the well-mixed show are Benevento originals, with Rykman and Corsico breathing new life into earlier tunes like “Bus Ride,” “Atari” and the beautiful “You Must Be a Lion.” The band also covers The Knife’s “Heartbeats,” which appears on Benevento’s 2009 album, Me Not Me, as well as “This Wheel’s on Fire,” which was co-written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko in Woodstock and appears on Dylan and The Band’s The Basement Tapes and The Band’s Music from Big Pink. On the latter selection, performed a la The Basement Tapes, Benevento’s JRAD bandmate, guitarist Scott Metzger, provides a blistering lead that evokes both Warren Haynes and Jerry Garcia. Releasing a live album from Levon Helm Studios comes with great responsibility, but Benevento and co. capture the spirit of Helm’s famed Midnight Rambles in a way that would make the drummer himself proud.