Ben Ranson at RBC

About Ben:
Ben Ranson is a nylon-string, finger-style guitarist and humorous singer-songwriter from Sandstone, Minnesota. His songs are distinguished by their irreverent attitude, realism, and rural mid-western subject matter such as: potato inspectors, love, taxidermists, garbage men, grasshoppers, local rodeo accidents, and the cuisine of the town of Barnesville, MN. His rhyme and wordplay make the imagery in his songs vivid, lifelike, and funny.

Although he was born in a pickup on the side of the road, Ben was always the guy in the band whose job it was to listen to the recording and teach the song to everyone else. Since graduating from Berklee, where he studied performance and composition, he has played in wedding and bar bands, taught lessons, and honed his recording skills by engineering recordings for other local artists.

Ben’s dynamic, nylon-string, finger-style guitar work features jazzy chords, counterpoint, and unusual combinations of textures. You can hear chicken pickin’, blues, and hints of jazz and flamenco in Ben’s music. He is notable for combining ironic, quirky songs with sophisticated guitar arrangements featuring extended solo improvisation. He has played in many bars, coffee shops, and other venues in North Dakota and Minnesota in various rock, blues, and folk groups. Ben has just released his second album “Red Eye River,” which can be found on Spotify, iTunes and Amazon Music.