Ben Donovan and the Congregation

“I know every State Trooper from Bergen County out to Cheyenne, I’ve played every shitty old Rust Belt town across this big old land, Your sister wouldn’t like me, and I don’t even wanna think about your Pa, And love’s the only thing in this world that scares me worse than the law” “End Of The Road Woman” - Reverend Ben Donovan Ben Donovan is a Virginia-born singer and songwriter who, at 18, flipped a coin between attending college in Florida or New England. New England won, eventually depositing him at the University of Vermont. It's cold as shit in Vermont, and people up there tend to call a fiddle a violin, but he learned to get by notwithstanding. One night in 2011, half-drunk and desperate to name the group of friends he’d put together for a one-time gig, Donovan went online and got himself ordained for $19; Reverend Ben Donovan and the Congregation was born. What started off as an outlet - “In a town with more Phish cover bands than places to get decent barbecue, if I wanted to hear the country music I grew up on, I was gonna have to play it myself" - quickly began to mean something more. The band's eclectic mix of drinking tunes, gospel hymns, love songs and lust anthems - served up with a shot and a beer on a Friday night - seemed to speak to people. By 2014, the Congregation had been nominated for Best Americana Act by Seven Days. The band is a haphazard collection of folks from all over the spectrum - a fiddle player pulled from an old-time band, a drummer raised on punk rock, and a blues-trained piano player who was serving time in an electro-pop outfit until the Reverend confronted him in a bar and told him it was "time to quit playin' that hippie laser music." The result is a sound thoroughly rooted in traditional country, midwifed by gospel, blues, and rock and roll--old enough that it ought to be played on vinyl, but too weird to fit into a Nudie suit. Part bar band, part tent-revival, the Congregation is some unabashedly strange medicine. The songs paint pictures of busted hearts, broken promises, missed court dates and goods not-as-advertised. The Reverend wears his character flaws enthusiastically on his sleeve, and the Congregation's music constitutes his tipsy, two-stepping, mostly-sincere confessions. If that all seems too much to figure out, just remember this: "When we play gospel tunes, it doesn't mean you need to have religion to dig the songs. You don't need to believe in Jabba the Hutt to dig Star Wars. It's just a kickass story. We hope you dig our stories.” Rev. Ben Donovan and the Congregation Country, Americana and rock and roll music that'll save your soul and punish your liver.