Iron and Wine

So yeah, even though Fleet Fox J. Tillman and his indie-rock whiskers were this whole big thing when he played at the UVA Chapel a while back, the truth is that gentle folk balladeer Sam Beam is pretty much the granddaddy of that whole bearded bard trend, both in the got-here-first sense and also goodness-lookit-that-thing. After attending VCU as an undergrad, he began to study film in graduate school, but found himself quickly drawn onto a totally different but equally potentially disastrous artistic course when his halfhearted initial monophonic demo submissions to Sub Pop were immediately flipped into his debut album. Its successor, 2004's Our Endless Numbered Days, was a titan of a release for the legendary Seattle record label, after which he mostly laid low for the next few years save for a couple of EP's, including one with Calexico, quite possibly the world's only indie-spaghetti-western band. By the time last May's Around The Well rolled around two albums later, he was ready to move into full-on pack-rat mode, compiling outtakes and B-sides from across the years, most notably a Garden State-approved acoustic reinterpretation of the Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" which traded the signature Jimmy Tamborello synthesizer confetti for a nearly excruciating degree of self-restraint.

Iron and Wine - Southern Anthem
Iron and Wine - Naked As We Came
Iron and Wine - Jesus The Mexican Boy
Iron and Wine - Innocent Bones
Iron and Wine - Boy With A Coin
Iron and Wine - Belated Promise Ring
Iron and Wine - Woman King
Iron and Wine - Lion's Mane