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Ann Arbor News September 4, 2004 City blessed with 1-man hootenanny: Nashville's Ringenberg picks Ann Arbor for record release party If it seems strange that Nashville singer-songwriter Jason Ringenberg would choose Ann Arbor as the site of his official record-release show for his new album, "Empire Builders," then you likely didn't attend his performances at the Old Town during the past two years. "My answer is that the shows I've done in Ann Arbor during the past few years have been the best shows of those tours," said Ringenberg, who remains best known as the front man for pioneering '80s cowpunk thrashers Jason and the Scorchers. "Usually, I would do something like this in Nashville. But after my experiences there the past few years, Ann Arbor just seemed like the logical choice." Indeed, those two Old Town shows, which found Ringenberg holding court with only a guitar and a cowboy hat, provided a special merging of audience and performer, both ending with Ringenberg climbing atop the Old Town bar to belt out the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." So, rather than Nashville, Ringenberg brings his one-man hootenanny back to the Old Town on Wednesday for the record's official release party. That means signed copies of the CD for anyone who buys one, and specially made T-shirts, Ringenberg promised. But the special chemistry with Ann Arbor goes beyond those two performances, seeping into the album itself, which Ringenberg concedes is the most politically inspired of his career. The atmospheric opening cut, "American Question," was engineered by local songsmith Jim Roll in Roll's basement studio in Ypsilanti. "The Ann Arbor area was just critical in making the record what it is," Ringenberg said during a phone conversation from a tour stop in Illinois. Likewise, Ringenberg recorded Roll's "Orphan Train," a standout track from his own "Inhabiting the Ball" album, as one of the album's dozen tracks after Roll sang the song during an opening set for one of Ringenberg's shows. "It absolutely stunned me and it took half of my own set to regain my equilibrium," Ringenberg said. "It completely captured me, but I was hesitant to try to record it because sometimes that just doesn't work. "Jim's version was pretty sparse, but we made our version a pretty sweeping affair, with strings and harmonies and even a key change." The song's harrowing tale of a child's journey aboard an orphanage-bound train fits nicely alongside Ringenberg's original tunes about American heroes big and small and how they deal with their frequently shattered dreams. Among those are Ringenberg's own father, to whom he pays tribute on "Half The Man"; the Tuskegee Airmen; and Link Wray, the American-Indian guitar slinger famous for the early rock 'n' roll hit 'Rumble'. "I could have picked a scientist or something, I guess," Ringenberg said. "But he's always been a hero of mine and he comes from my world - or I come from his." In another songwriter's hands, some of this material might come off as preachy or maudlin. But not so with Ringenberg, who imbues his songs with enough sincerity and genuine charm to avoid any cliches. As a further foil against coming across as overly didactic, Ringenberg, a real-life farmer, will perform one of his "Farmer Jason" kids' shows at the Ypsilanti District Library on Sept. 11. "It's a good way not to be too serious all the time," he said. The singer-songwriter, whose work with the Scorchers tended more toward rave-ups than introspective topical tunes, said he sees his new material as a natural extension not only of his own maturing values, but of the nation's current circumstances. "I couldn't not write some of those songs," he said, insisting that the record isn't anti-George W. Bush as much as it is a reaction to the country's long-term foreign policy decisions. "I'm very patriotic. I happen to think it's possible to be a proud American and still be against war." WILL STEWART