BENMONT TENCH
The Melancholy Season DARK HORSE
Wise and witty dispatches from former Heartbreaker and seasoned sessioneer.
By Fiona Shepherd
Benmont Tench: refreshed purpose
JOSH GIROUX
8/10
BENMONT TENCH doesn’t name his pianos as such, but he lovingly distinguishes each of the keyboards he plays on his latest album. “Mr Tench’s piano” is a Steinway B, as is “the Village Recorder’s piano” used in the eponymous studio. “Mr Wilson’s piano”, belonging to producer Jonathan Wilson, is a 1913 Steinway A3. You get to know all these keyboard characters and more on The Melancholy Season, the gorgeous, heart-warming second solo album by a musician better known as a sought-after Los Angeles session player and lifetime member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
Benjamin Montmorency Tench III’s artistic alliance with Petty stretches back to the early ’70s in their native Florida. He was a founding member of the Heartbreakers, collaborating joyfully across the decades until Petty’s untimely death in 2017 put a full stop on the band just as they had rounded off their 40thanniversary tour. He has also applied “the Tench touch” to countless records and sessions, starting with Stevie Nicks’ solo debut Bella Donna and Dylan’s Shot Of Love. He played alongside Petty on Roy Orbison’s Mystery Girl and has executed subtle work for Jackson Browne, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and, most recently, Ringo Starr and The Rolling Stones.
Tench is no flashy showman, sliding in like part of the furniture on Hackney Diamonds’ “Dreamy Skies”, brooding beautifully on Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and delivering an emotional gut punch on Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt”. He takes the same intuitive approach to his own music. “If a song shows up, you’ve gotta write it,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. Feargal Sharkey and Rosanne Cash have benefitted from his largesse, scoring hits with “You Little Thief” and Petty co-write “Never Be You”, respectively.