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"The best songwriter in Liverpool today." — Spencer Leigh
CRADLE OF THE BLUES OFFICIALLY RELEASED ON MONDAY 4 MAY — DOWNLOAD NOW AND MAKE IT A HIT!
New EP Cradle Of The Blues is now out on iTunes. To purchase and download, click the button below:-
AMY HOLMES DOES COVER OF DEAN'S "THIS IS THE WAY THINGS ARE"
Listen to it now on Dean's MySpace music player.
Sometimes if you are really lucky you come across an artist who is fully formed, just waiting to happen.
Sometimes, if you are even luckier, you come across an artist who is not only fully formed but has been fully active, creating work of substance and ingenuity in the time he remained a mystery to you.
When a CD of Dean Johnson's fin de siècle classic Loser Friendly popped up in my mailbag back in 2006, I knew I had found such an artist.
In the years since, I've not only heard and seen Dean grow but also been thrilled by music he has made while I was looking elsewhere.
Having worked in the ever fickle music industry for nearly 30 years I know how real talent can often be overlooked, snuffed out too early, worn down by the wheels of the remorseless industry.
Needless to say, the twists of fate and hard luck stories that have run through Dean's career, like diabolic letter on a stick of pop rock, are a virtual parody of the Liverpool loser syndrome. But the greatest thing to come out of the Wirral since Mal Evans drove the Fabs out of Port Sunlight in 1963 is no loser.
In fact in the time I’ve known him, while I’ve been discovering old gems in the Johnson back catalogue, and future pension plans, like Almost Be Her, gonzo rocker Kneeling Down, and drunkard's lament Under The Table, Dean has been producing the finest work of his career.
True talent finds its own level eventually and last year I watched Dean hold his own with the cream of Nashville session men in Dixiana Studios just off Music Row. At the control board legendary rock n roll producer Stuart Colman declared the 4 song session (which included Cradle Of The Blues and You Give What You Get) the most satisfying of his multimillion selling career. That's saying something from a guy who has worked with Little Richard, Jeff Beck, Nanci Griffith and Cliff Richard.
Nearly everyone who encounters Dean gets it; music runs in this guy's veins - his free flowing melodic sensibility, wonderfully lucid guitar playing, a voice that gets deeper, richer and more soulful as he continues his journey, aided by his wryly humorous, unfailingly tender and perceptive lyrics that never fail to prick the zeitgeist or the hidden corners of the human heart. When that stuff comes along you can’t deny it, you have to treasure it.
I told Dean at the start of this year he had to change something - his luck. And for a while it looked like he had - by turning bad to worse. Then things started to happen, people came out of the past - great early 70s writer and producer Dave Courtney and our mutual teen hero, David Essex.
I know on this tour Dean will make new fans and friends and his luck... well luck will do whatever luck does. One thing's for sure though: Dean's talent just won't quit.
Considering what he's amassed and achieved with the fates set against him, it’s tempting to think what will come if fate starts to look on him a little more kindly.
Meanwhile he and we will always have the music. Cherish it.
Gavin Martin