Lugging a baby grand piano onto a punk club stage in the ’90s was about conspicuous as bringing a baby elephant—and twice as inconvenient. But any patrons who feared that they were about to endure a Gershwin recital were soon set straight by Ben Folds, frontman and primary songwriter of Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Ben Folds Five.
Flanked by an explosive rhythm section in the form of stickman Darren Jessee and bassist Robert Sledge (PSA: the Five are actually three), Folds earned a reputation as the Jimi Hendrix of the piano—a violent virtuoso who punished all 88 keys...
Flanked by an explosive rhythm section in the form of stickman Darren Jessee and bassist Robert Sledge (PSA: the Five are actually three), Folds earned a reputation as the Jimi Hendrix of the piano—a violent virtuoso who punished all 88 keys...
- 2/25/2017
- by Jordan Runtagh
- PEOPLE.com
There were a lot of aspects of the Ben Folds Five that made them seem like little more than a series of gimmicks. First there was the name, which was ironic because the group was only a trio. Then there was the fact that they completely jettisoned guitars from their lineup, preferring instead to center their songs around frontman Folds' incredible piano playing. Folds also wrote a lot of jokes into his songs and was sometimes self-consciously goofy (one of the key tracks from their breakout album was called "Song For the Dumped," which contained the chorus "Give me my money back, you b----/ And don't forget my black T-shirt"). But Folds was capable of delivering both pathos and beauty, and he executed that best when Ben Folds Five released their second album Whatever and Ever Amen on this day in 1997.
Formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ben Folds Five...
Formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ben Folds Five...
- 3/18/2011
- by Kyle Anderson
- MTV Newsroom
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