Guests cover the Mekons’ Sally Timms & Jon Langford; U.S. summer bout planned, already acclaimed by U.K. press.
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Johnny Dowd is an American original, his eyes distilled from the raw bits of age-old rock’n’roll, chargeless jazz, swamp dejection and anointed alarm – all anchored by a articulation channeling Johnny Cash through Chet Baker. Cruel Words, his sixth album and additional for Bongo Beat Records, follows a aisle set in motion by the self-released Wrong Side of Memphis in 1998.
At the time of his admission album, Johnny was 50 years old and alive at Zolar Moving Company in his adopted hometown of Ithaca by day and recording in the offices by night (it was OK – he’s one of the owners.) The new album was recorded out-of-house at Ithaca’s Pyramid Sound with longtime acquaintance and architect Alex Perialas.
It’s no abruptness that Europeans were the aboriginal to embrace him. Here was a absolutely formed appearance who’d emerged from nowhere, a guitar-toting aging James Dean aflame a sly beam as he accidentally hand-rolled a cigarette during the advance of a song.
Dowd’s agreeable assize cuts a advanced swath above the bound of American music, agee and prodding anniversary anatomy into something it shouldn’t be: country funneled through chargeless jazz, an Okie chant crooning over swamp psychedelia. It all becomes clearer if you’re told that his two admired annal as a kid were James Brown’s Live at The Apollo and Hank Williams as Luke the Drifter; a yin-yang arrangement that frames the Johnny Dowd songbook.
Cruel Words raises the stakes considerably. The amount leash of Dowd (guitar, vocals), Brian Wilson (drums, bass pedals) and Mike Stark (keyboards) is abutting by Mekons’ Sally Timms and Jon Langford on the standout “Drunk.” The album aswell marks the acknowledgment of longtime Dowd back diva Kim Sherwood-Caso to the fold.
There’s an about Kerouac faculty of aboveboard account as Johnny chronicles the atrocious measures of the marginalized characters in these songs, announcement a Brothers-Grimm appearance of the armament conspiring adjoin them (sometimes with their own complicity). “You’re not the ancestor of the adolescent that I carry,” taunts the appellation appearance of “Unwed Mother,” while the wheelchair-bound war vet of “Praise God” questions the amount paid for loyalty.
Released in Europe in February 2006, Cruel Words arrives on our shores with 4-and 5-star reviews from every affecting UK publication, including Mojo (4 Stars, “as abundant applesauce as roots music, as abundant balladry as rock”); Maverick (5 Stars, “Johnny Dowd is a law unto himself”); Classic Rock (8 stars, “the songs are arbitrary but they rock”); Time Out London (5 Stars, “gothic folk funk”); Daily Mirror (4 Stars, “wit and acumen to bout even the backward abundant Warren Zevon”); and The Independent (5 Stars, “may be the greatest album of his career”).
Following a actual acknowledged European tour, Johnny is set to beat through the U.S. and Canada starting in backward July. The annal can alone adapt you so abundant for the abide experience: Johnny’s broken-down music-stand decrepit beneath the weight of his lyric book, the dry-wit accumulation of between-song vignettes and a casualness evocative of Dean Martin (believe it or not). But don’t be fooled, there is added ability traveling on than Johnny lets on (for example, he’s a beauteous guitar amateur no amount how accidentally he may downplay it).
“This was an simple almanac to make,” says Johnny. “We had been arena the songs abide for about a year, so our plan was to go into the studio, cut the songs abide with a minimum of overdubs or added flat trickery.”
Recently Johnny’s arresting achievement in the British documentary, Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus (hosted, starring, and aggressive by Jim White) has gotten him ample absorption and led to basic a accumulation with bagman Brian Wilson and Jim White alleged Hellwood (Europe alone album and bout to chase after this year).
Cruel Words is a career-defining plan — the quintessential beverage of Johnny Dowd’s America, a guided bout into the aphotic heartland of all that is uncomfortably familiar.
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