Ben Rector at the Bowery Ballroom

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 26 years ago, Ben Rector’s song “Conversation” won the Grand Prize in the pop category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in 2006, making him the youngest person ever to win the award for the pop category. While a student at the University of Arkansas, Rector won the NAMA award for best singer songwriter in Northwest Arkansas in 2009. Soon after, he relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. He has recorded four albums, and his songs have been featured on more than a dozen television programs, including One Tree Hill, Drop Dead Diva, Pretty Little Liars and Teen Mom, and in commercials for Harley-Davidson, Huggies, and OluKai.

Through most of his sold out concert at the Bowery Ballroom tonight, I kept thinking, “he sounds like but sings more love songs than Billy Joel.” Then he ended his set with a Billy Joel cover, “Movin’ Out.”  Joel’s influence is plain to see, then, especially when Rector plays his keyboard. Yet Rector’s main influence is love itself, as demonstrated by his wedding ring, a small symbol seldom seen on rock stages. While Rector’s vocals were not particularly outstanding, he used its ordinary quality to great effect by making it the clear deliverer of his story songs. A band comprised of guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and drummer accompanied him well with strong backing arrangements, but never compromised the sparkling content of Rector’s songs. Looking like a character from Doctor Who with his bow tie and tweed sports jacket, his clean-cut charm and unabashed romanticism will find a larger audience among fans as well as Nashville’s many song interpreters.