Josh Ritter

Few American songwriters have built a reputation as steadily as Josh Ritter, whose narrative songs draw on the Americana tradition while keeping a novelist's eye for detail. Born in Moscow, Idaho, in 1976, he came to music through a copy of Nashville Skyline and ended up at Oberlin College, where he devised his own major in American history through folk song. Paste magazine placed him among its 100 Greatest Living Songwriters in 2006, and he still performs and records with the Royal City Band.

Ireland proved his breakthrough. He self-released Golden Age of Radio, recorded for about $1000, before Signature Sounds offered to re-release it. Invited to open for Glen Hansard's band The Frames, he found word of mouth growing fast. His third album, Hello Starling, debuted at No. 2 on the Irish charts, and British label V2 signed him in 2005. The Animal Years followed in 2006, and Stephen King named it the best album of that year in Entertainment Weekly. In 2010 So Runs the World Away arrived, and a Dublin show at the newly opened Grand Canal Theatre sold out.