Bobby Driscoll died in 1968, a penniless and drug-beaten shell of a 31 year-old man.  As a prodigious child of Hollywood, Bobby Dee culminated his career as the voice of the animated Peter Pan, which eerily symbolized his own fate.  Peter Pan is canonized because of it’s timeless themes; youthful innocence and the direct defiance of growing up are standard adolescent struggles, and Bobby Driscoll’s real life sagas matched these themes.  Unfortunately, Tinkerbell’s dust didn’t last long enough to save him from his eventual plummet.  A child star in the truest sense, Driscoll won an academy award and firmly planted himself in standard conversations about Shirley Temple and other stars of similar ilk. Sadly, like the wings of Icarus, the soaring heights of stardom singed and melted his success as drugs and domestic turbulence overtook the hero.  As if torn from the pages of J.M. Barrie’s classic, the kid never had a chance.  His pubescent acne led to a non-renewal of Disney’s contract and he became, in every sense of the word, an aimless and drug abusing wanderer.  In his latter days, he rubbed elbows with Warhol in NYC’s art syndicate and hung with avant-garde beatniks, but the cultural movements of the late 60′s left him behind, too, and his death in a ramshackle tenement at the young age of 31 ended a tortured life, but one of intriguingly sentimental ill fortune.

Benjy Ferree’s new LP, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee, Bobby Dee is a concept album revolving around the tortured and yet completely satiating life Driscoll led.  Ferree hearkens back to his childhood love of Peter Pan, and in doing so, has created an album of vintage, grandiose coolness, dripping with influences, shatteringly smart lyricism, and aural atmospheres of blues, 50′s pop, and kick you in the nuts rock n’ roll.  In the wee bit that has been 2009 thus far, Ferree’s ambitious effort is worthy of top album nods, and it’s my strong opinion this this record will show up on plenty of year-end lists this December.  Every now and again, a record of weight and lofty uniqueness hits the shelves, and Ferree has the “it” that sustains stardom.  The key question is whether or not the intelligence and latent nature of the album’s concept, in general, is identifiable enough to connect to listeners.  In short, this side-note is inconsequential, particularly because Ferree isn’t singing for a particular audience, and that’s what makes the LP so unconventionally badass.

What’s crucially important in blending Driscoll’s life into the bruising music, is that we somehow have to be transported back to the late 1950′s.  Fortunately, Ferree takes care of this in the first two tracks of the album.  ”Fear” is not only the first single released off the record, but it’s also an aura producing track that provides the exposition necessary to digest the rest of the LP.  In just 2:50, Ferree and band doo-wop, shoo-wop, bang triangles, grab the family jewels, and wail high pitched vocals into the audience’s eardrums.  Ferree is crooning here, and bass-filled backing vocals create a dreamy jangle up and down into lofty slow-motion crescendos and danceablilty.  I want to sip malts and dance with Peggy Sue at the sock hop when I hear this.  Conceptually, the idea of fear also has to be imported early here, as the fear of embracing adulthood is the demon Bobby Dee never could effectively vanquish.

The iconic tale of a child star gone bad inevitably follows an archetypical narrative. The self-indulgent ignorance of youthful impulse buys and freedom is laid bare here in the track, “Big Business.”  Business is good.  Business is fine.  Business is so good. Stylistically, it’s a big kick back to southern blues.  Ferree’s balls-out coolness emulates a 50′s version of Jack and Meg White if one existed, but something shifty and unique is also present.  As he belts out bring out the pixie dust, it’s intelligently addressing two ideas, Bobby Driscoll’s intense drug addiction, and the dust that made children fly in Peter Pan.  The duality of the smart guy lyrics is  sure to fly over the heads of many a listener; fortunately, the song kicks ass,  so everybody gets a sip.

Throughout the album, Ferree shifts gears into sentimentality and heavily digs into the yearning nature of Driscoll’s love life.  The high-octane numbers mirror his addictive and reckless side, where the slower jams purposefully aim for character development; I might add, they do this poignantly.  Tracks like “The Grips,” and “Whirlpool of Love” are more contemplative, fusing early and mid 50′s crooning with loftier ideas; themes like the push and pull of sexual attraction, yearning and despair run through each of the throwback slow tracks, and the shift from bluesy rock jams to dreamy bubble gum music, I suppose, is probably similar to the highs and lows Driscoll faced in his few short years on earth. Is Benjy Ferree really this smart?  Yup.

To transition, it’s really the rockers that draw me into the record.  The tunes about addiction, impulse, and craving are what hit me hard, and Ferree accordingly boosts up the volume when addressing these concepts.  ”Blown Out (Gold Doubloons and Pcs of 8)” is one of my favorite tracks on the record, as it bounces a slamming riff against a lyrical pallete of risk-taking naivete.  I’m not a well-read Peter Pan guy, I must confess, but I seem to distinctly remember how the children viewed their world with wonder and excitement, and fantasy ruled the roost.  When Ferree says in the chorus, I was blown out at a ripe old age.  When I turned.  17, the nature of the reflectional narrator grabs ahold of the audience.  Driscoll knows where he fucked up.  But damn, there were some great times involved.  ”Great Scott!” is a jabbing track late in the record, centering around an ass-shaking rhythm, and we’re excited to see how this one plays out live (we will travel the seven seas to see him in 09) , as the crazy energy is blasted at the audience.  Ferree contemplates in Driscoll’s point of view that dyin’s overrated.  It’s been done before, and the indulgence of instant gratification in both love and drugs is painfully smashed together here.  It’s difficult to pinpoint lyrically where the shift takes place, but we’ve roundly decided that two tracks earlier, with “Pisstopher Christopher,” the album peaks and hits all cylinders.

“Pisstopher Christopher” is a childish title for a rock song, let’s face it.  However, it’s purposeful.  The most anthemic, pounding, and brutally kick ass song on the album gets a childhood playground-ish taunt title.  Love it.  The song is a conglomeration of all of the styles Ferree emits on the record as well as a meshing of all the major thematic elements.  It’s a song rooted in largeness, with a booming sonic riff behind a cool Jack White-style delivery.  It’s about the speed and the slow down, the high and lows of drug use and, I imagine, fame.  The last 1:35 is one for the ages, as the distorted guitar fills sing some old school plugged in Neil Young and the stomping riff in the back completely rejects the 50′s bubble gum vibe created in the early tracks.  It’s a shame that “Fear” was the song all of the bloggers got ahold of so early, as it essentially means jack shit to the meat of the record.  As the track blows out your speakers in it’s last seconds, Ferree wails out My painful memory is my alibi.  Won’t somebody play the guitar while I cry, and when he does this, if shivers don’t race down your spine, check your own pulse immediately.  This is a dark, dark track, and points to not only the well-read intelligence of Benjy, but also to how close this guy is to sniffing out greatness.

As I’ve covered much of the thematic and trackology here, it’s probably worth mentioning “Iris Flowers,” a minute-long track midway through the album.  It’s a spooky poem recitation from a pleasant sounding little girl with a chipper and matter of fact voice.  The spookiness is from what she says.  Beware is a brand name.  Your ouija boards are not a game. Excess.  Risk-taking.  Dice.  Shortly thereafter our little girlie says, with a smile, “All of the campfires of the world were left by themselves.  So the world is still turning and it burns like hell.”  Ominous and creepy, the poetic diatribe is a breakaway from the flow of the record, but signifies much.  Exactly what would have happened had Driscoll never succumbed to the pressures and temptations of child stardom?  Are fires lit and left untended?  Should someone have steered this poor kid?  Taken care of the fire they started?  I certainly don’t know the answers to these, but by the end of the album, it’s pretty obvious that Benjy has taken a metaphysical and brilliant stab at answering them.

This is an album taut with with rock largeness and stylistic diversity, yet also is an intelligent commentary on pop culture awareness.  We can’t speak enough of this record, and it’s probably time to shut up with our analysis.  I’m going to go ahead and post “Fear” here because that’s what they gave me permission for.  What you must do is purchase the entire record and spin it top to bottom to fully understand it’s complexity and how just plain cool it is.  If someone sits down to this record as a casual listener, they’ll be satisfied on a superficial level, but satisfied nonetheless.  For we non-scarecrows though, Benjy Ferree is asking us to hear him out.  We encourage you to do just that.

www.benjyferree.com

www.dominorecordco.us