Beth Bombara

St. Louis is the only place Beth Bombara could have created her fifth album, which borrows gracefully from the city’s proud alt-country and blues traditions while embodying the collaboration, experimentation and resolve of the tight-knit scene developing there today.

Beth has been a musician for most of her life. She started a punk band in high school and, after college, began playing guitar with Samantha Crain. She moved to St. Louis and started a solo project in late 2007. “The city requires you to be active in your engagement of it,” she says. “There’s not much room for takers. But if you put in the work, the city rewards you.”

Today, Beth tours extensively across the country and is hailed as one of St. Louis’ finest songwriters. She is equally comfortable headlining the rock club Off Broadway and the Missouri Botanical Gardens’ Whitaker Music Festival, where she recently performed for a crowd numbering over 10,000.

Beth Bombara displays its authors’ finest work to date. Previous efforts have served as explorations of Beth’s musical personality (you’ll find records written in the languages of folk, rock and Americana in her back-catalog). There is no easy way to describe the new album. It is full of crafty melody and effortless instrumentation. Her lyrics find the shortest path to the truth.

This also marks a major progression in Beth’s collaboration with her husband, fellow musician and producer Kit Hamon. “We’ve always worked together on Beth Bombara records,” she says. “They’re an extension of our relationship, and the efforts that make a good song are not unlike the efforts that make a healthy relationship. Whether the result of that work is good or bad has to do with how graciously we can sort the strong ideas from the weak ones.”

On Beth Bombara, they have found grace and strength to spare.

“With the help of her close-knit band, Bombara has done something special. These songs put her in league with acts such as Dawes that create deceptively simple records. Taken as a whole, each song sounds almost effortless; but, listen closer and you find they, refreshingly, bring together beautiful fragments born of great intention.”
”Bombara follows a winding melody, her vocals uniting earthiness and Natalie Merchant-esque elegance. Quieter, lilting verses give way to a hook that packs a punch without going overboard.”
- Aarik Danielsen, The Columbia Tribune