JOSH RITTER: Beauty in Uncertainty

It’s a short walk to the studio, but Ritter makes the most of it by scanning the latest offerings in bookstore windows and otherwise breathing in the city – maybe a little too closely. He stops in his tracks at the corner of Honore Street, cocks an eyebrow and inhales deeply through his nose. He takes a second to assess the situation. “You know the best part of a big city like this?” Ritter asks straight-faced, then takes another sniff. “You smell a different kind of pee every five minutes.”

Question: Who do the Irish love more than their mothers? Answer: Josh Ritter.

It’s not much of an exaggeration. “Josh opened for me in England and Ireland and Scotland, but when we went back he couldn’t open for me because he’d sold too many records,” Baez says. “At that point, Josh was too popular to be an opening act. The Irish must be intelligent.”

In Ireland, Ritter is as beloved as national treasure Damien Rice (whose homemade 2003 album O made him an international star). This is to say that most folks on the Emerald Isle would be more thrilled to take a meal with Ritter than, say, Shane MacGowan or Andrea Corr. His songwriting peers are especially reverential.

“The first song of Josh’s that I heard is called ‘Potters Wheel,’” says Dublin-based singer/songwriter Edmund Enright, better known as Mundy. “It was on an independent compilation, and it stood head and shoulders above everything else lyrically. I thought that this was just a one-off lucky song, so to speak. But then I toured with the man in Ireland and the UK and realized that it was just one example of his imagination and way with words. His song ‘Wings’ fucks me up. It’s his Valkyries by Paula Coelho.”

Martin Ryan, the lead singer and songwriter of the Cork-based band Lerner, saw Ritter perform for the first time in 2001 at Connollys of Leap, his hometown pub. It had a profound effect. “I spent a good while talking to him after his set because his songs made such an impression on me,” Ryan says. “My impression from talking to him was that he was a shy fellow, especially when I told him I thought his stuff was great. I regard him as one of the finer songwriters of his era and can see him around for a long, long time yet. He’s inspired a huge number of songwriters I know.”

“There’s a real non-ironic sense of purpose about some of Josh’s writing that’s refreshing,” says Canadian artist Corb Lund, who supported Ritter on a week-long record release tour of Ireland in March. (Another sign of his popularity across the pond: The Animal Years hit shelves in Ireland on March 2, a full five weeks before its release in the States.) “It’s nice that the arrangements are appropriately sparse. Then he gets witty on you when you least expect it. Cool stuff.”

Such enthusiasm boosted “Me and Jiggs” into the Irish Top 40. By the time he released the single “Kathleen” from Hello Starling, Ritter was selling out shows throughout Ireland. Moments of two of those concerts can be heard on Hello Starling’s follow-up EP, Four Songs Live, recorded down the river from the Guinness brewery at Dublin Castle and Vicar Street. Around this time, Cork, a Josh Ritter tribute band, formed.

In 2004, Ritter mania in Ireland swelled like a tsunami. Readers of Hot Press, Ireland’s foremost music magazine, named Ritter Best International Male Performer, Best Folk Performer and Best International Male Songwriter in the year-end poll. Some of the artists he bested might be familiar: Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Backstage at the Bluebird Theatre is as bleak as a dungeon. Spilled beer grips shoes like Velcro. The only furniture is what Ritter calls “a perfect college couch,” one that sinks eight inches when he sits down. Smells like Honore Street-marinated – in here. On the upside, there’s a bucket filled with iced Amstel Lights with a few bottles of Boulder water thrown in for good measure.