Ben Howard

Ben Howard, born Benjamin John Howard on 24 April 1987 in London and raised in Devon, is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist known for his intricate fingerpicking style and folk-rooted sound that has increasingly incorporated post-rock and atmospheric textures. He began releasing music through independent EPs — Games in the Dark (2008), These Waters (2009) and Old Pine (2010) — before his 2011 debut album Every Kingdom brought him wide recognition and earned him British Breakthrough Act and British Male Solo Artist honors at the 2013 Brit Awards.

Howard's sound shifted noticeably with his second album, I Forget Where We Were (2014), which topped the UK charts and traded acoustic warmth for a darker, more experimental palette. He deepened this exploratory direction on Noonday Dream (2018) and Collections from the Whiteout (2021), the latter produced with Aaron Dessner of The National, drawing on ambient and krautrock influences while retaining his distinctive vocal delivery and guitar work.

Often associated with the early-2010s British singer-songwriter wave alongside artists like Mumford & Sons, Howard has carved out a more introspective, less commercially predictable path, valued by critics for restless artistic reinvention across each successive record.