Photo by David McClister

Hometown: US

Former singer/guitarist/songwriter for critical darlings Whiskeytown, Ryan Adams really hit his stride with his debut solo recordings on Bloodshot. People trip over themselves in descriptive reveries. The next Dylan, the next Westerberg, the next Springsteen, the next flame out and die before his time rock star tragedy. Can we stop it already? Let’s let him be Ryan, which is damn well good enough, all right?

Heart on his sleeve, punk spirit, closet folkie, can write lyrics that beat anything else you might be listening to on the hit parade this or any other day. He’s got all the goods. You can hear him here without all the big label bells, whistles, tour buses and actresses on his arms. We’ve got him with just his songs, some bad-ass backing musicians, and the guts he pours into his lyrics—it’s all here in its ragged glory.

He’s even been on Saturday Night Live, the sides of buses in GAP ads, and on the same stage as Sheryl Crow AND the Rolling Stones. All those garish trappings of pop stardom, and we STILL love him (cuz we know what a pussycat he really is).

Representative Quote: "Rob, hold this while I go get a pack of smokes."

“Until he rode into town with last year’s blazing Heartbreaker, the torpid alt-country scene had spent a decade yearning for a swaggering savior.” Entertainment Weekly

“…One of the best records of the year… At 25, he writes the kinds of songs that Nashville no longer has patience for--songs about being young and sad, or young and desperate, about finding whiskey and refuge at a bar because you can find neither at home.” GQ

“Adams has recorded an intimate, largely quiet record that indisputably establishes his identity as an independent singer-songwriter.” Keith Phipps, The Onion AV Club

“These songs are as stark as the emptiness Adams feels, as if the emotional blow stunned them into near silence.” Brian Mansfield, USA Today

“…His beautifully funny and blue first solo album, Heartbreaker, while full of twangy guitars and Adams’s smoky southern rasp of a singing voice, is as indelibly a New York City record as anything ever created by George Gershwin or Bob Dylan.” New York Magazine

Compilation Tracks:

"Amy" on the DVD Bloodied But Unbowed: Bloodshot Records' Life In The Trenches

"Bottom of the Glass" as Whiskeytown on Straight Outta Boone County

"Silver Wings" on Poor Little Knitter on the Road

"Monday Night" on Down to the Promised Land

"Goodbye Honey" and "To Be Young" (acoustic version) on Making Singles, Drinking Doubles

"To Be Young" on the soundtrack to the film The Slaughter Rule

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