Ben Jarrell was born and raised in Dothan, Alabama, and the many smaller towns on its outskirts. If you were to write out the story of Jarrell’s journey from then until now, it would read like a country song. A damn good one, too. One initially fraught with discord and disappointment-nearly every touchstone a person relies on in their formative years gone. Failed. Rock and roll grew out of failed systems both big and small and Jarell found it in his teen years. Mike Ness’s Social Distortion was a light in an abandoned building. Jarrell followed that light toward Ness’s solo efforts that were more country than anything else. Once Jarrell opens that door, he never stopped to close it. He just kept going; from The Stanley Brothers, Jerry Reed, Johnny Paycheck, Guy Clark, and even some of the bluegrass greats to The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd to contemporary acts like Blackberry Smoke and Whitey Morgan.
Jarrell took what he learned from these songwriters, these bands, their records and applied it. He created his first band. Then another. And another. He kept going until he got it right. He spun well-told stories –many of them from his own life experience -in tightly wrapped chords. He toiled and tinkered and gave us a self-titled acoustic EP in 2018. That was followed by his full-length record, “Troubled Times” in 2019–recorded with an all-star band at Southern Ground in Nashville, TN. The record inspired one reviewer to pose the question: “Hot damn son! Wondering where the hell all the hard-charging, kick-ass, phase guitar and pedal steel-filled good ol’ Outlaw country music has gone in 2019, and without skimping on the songwriting…? Well, it all seems to have been sucked up and put to good use by Alabama native Ben Jarrell … and it’s one hell of a ride boys and girls.”
Hot damn, indeed. Since that time, Jarrell has continued to write and tour; both solo acoustic and with the band. Jarrell’s current band-The Ben Jarrell Band -is amplified by Alabama native Jimmy Teardrop’s incendiary guitar, Florida born and raised Rob “Gator” Laniganon a booming base, a dual citizen of both Jersey and Greece (no lie) holding down the backbeat, John Papageorgiou and the equal parts tender and tough pedal steel of Minnesota’s finest, Jordan Harazin. The band is about to head back into the studio to record another EP. Stay tuned…