It never fails: no sooner do I get through praising an artist
\nthen I forget about them for, oh, eighteen months. Today’s subject:
\nbluesman Jimmy Johnson, who last graced these pages on January 14,
\n1997 – our second freakin’ day online. (Fortunately, Jimmy’s been
\ncool about the whole thing – I haven’t gotten any threatening
\nmessages from him.)<\/p>\n
This brings me to today’s review of Johnson’s 1979 outing
\nJohnson’s Whacks<\/i>. (By the way, I don’t like the new album
\ncover art as pictured above. The original cover pictured Johnson’s
\nguitar about to be struck with an ax; the back cover pictured a
\nguitar that looked like Pete Townshend got his hands on it.) While
\nthe production work is a little more raw than I’d like it to be, it
\ndoes fairly represent Johnson’s skills as a bluesman.<\/p>\n
Ironically, the star of the album to my ears isn’t Johnson.
\nRather, it’s drummer Dino Alvarez, who demonstrates some
\ninteresting skills as a blues drummer, even to the point of
\nthrowing in fills I normally hear from rock drummers. Having spent
\ntime behind the skins with Junior Wells and Howlin’ Wolf
\nbeforehand, there’s no doubt he knew his chops, and the sound he
\ngets from the trap kit proves it.<\/p>\n
Johnson, meanwhile, breaks from the traditional style of blues
\nand dares to add a sense of humor to the music. “The Twelve Bar
\nBlues” is proof of this: “I drank a dozen Buds, but I don’t feel
\nany wiser” is just one example of the wit Johnson shows. Some of
\nthe humor even dares to go to the sexual side, as heard on “Jockey
\nSports”.<\/p>\n
Johnson proves on
\nJohnson’s Whacks<\/i> he’s capable not only of playing a new
\nstyle of blues, but also the traditional style, as heard on J.
\nIrby’s “Drivin’ Nails In My Coffin”. And when it comes to showing
\noff his ability on the six string, “Take Five” is as good of a
\nshowcase piece as I can imagine.<\/p>\n
The greatest weakness with
\nJohnson’s Whacks<\/i> isn’t the rawer sound to the production;
\nrather, it’s that some of the music doesn’t have an exciting edge
\nto the sound, leaving the listener a bit bored. The second side of
\nthe album, containing tracks like “Poor Man’s Dream” and “I Need
\nSome Easy Money” just seemed to blur together for me – and that’s
\nsomething a blues album (or
\nany<\/i> album, for that matter) shouldn’t do.<\/p>\n
Still, the playing of Johnson and his backing band (pianist Carl
\nSnyder, bassist Ike Anderson and Alvarez, plus a few guest
\nmusicians) is impressive, demonstrating why some people considered
\nJohnson to be the next big thing in the blues world.
\n(Unfortunately, he never did reach the levels of artists like B.B.
\nKing or Stevie Ray Vaughan – not that he didn’t deserve to be held
\nin high regard.)<\/p>\n
\nJohnson’s Whacks<\/i> might not be the easiest album to find
\n(though Music Boulevard did advertise as having it available), and
\nit might not be the best example of what Johnson is capable of. But
\nif you have heard any of Johnson’s previous work and liked it,
\nyou’re sure to enjoy this disc as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7545],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-39326","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-jimmy-johnson-band","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39326"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}