Ryan Bingham: SXSW 2015

Maybe it was bullriding on the rodeo circuit that put the dust and whiskey into Ryan Bingham's voice. Even if you're not super familiar with this Texas wanderer, you might recall his worn-down voice from the movie "Crazy Heart"—Bingham won a Golden Globe for his song "The Weary Kind," further evidence of T Bone Burnett's eerily magic touch.

After releasing three albums on Lost Highway, Bingham started his own label in 2012, and now 2015 brings the release of his second Axster/Bingham project, Fear and Saturday Night. In a recent profile, Rolling Stone tells us the new tunes were written alone in an airstream trailer, sans electricity or phones, resulting in "songs inspired by an unstable childhood, and by the deaths of his mother to alcoholism and father to suicide."

Maybe it was a life suitable for a big screen that drew him to the movies; he also had a small part in the 2014 Katherine Heigl movie "Jackie & Ryan." Either way, at least it all seems to have a happy ending: Picture him now, living in L.A. with his filmmaker wife Anna, about to become a dad for the first time. Nice.

And... scene.

Part of WFUV's SXSW 2015 showcase: Public Radio Rocks, Friday, March 20, with Courtney Barnett, Gang of Four, Twin Shadow, Best Coast, Ryan Bingham and Madisen Ward and Mama Bear.