KCRW Presents: Ryan Adams

KCRW | By Jason Bentley

Published February 1, 2012 at 5:08 PM EST

This solo acoustic performance by Ryan Adams was one of my favorite musical experiences of 2011. He performed in front of a small audience with a book of songs at his feet, flipping through it and deciding in the moment what to play. He fed off the energy of the crowd and went well over his set time to share tracks from throughout his career with Whiskeytown and Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, as well as his work as a solo artist.

Adams is a tremendous storyteller — both in song and conversation — and he took this time to explain his obsession with black metal, the "beautiful failure" of his middle career, and how producer Glyn Johns took the reins and roped him in for Adams' excellent new album Ashes and Fire.

Learn more about this session from KCRW here.

Setlist

'Oh My Sweet Carolina'

'Ashes & Fire'

'Dirty Rain'

'My Winding Wheel'

'Invisible Riverside'

'Let It Ride'

'Please Do Not Let Me Go'

'Lucky Now'

'Chains Of Love'

'Do I Wait'

'Somebody Remembers The Rose'

'Houses On The Hill'

'Jacksonville Skyline'

'When Will You Come Back Home?'

'Like Yesterday'

Credits

Video produced by Subtractive; Camera Ops: Kyle Schember, Ryan Stuit, Robert LaFond, Michael Nadeau.