Johnny Black Trio – Basic Black
Here again is proof positive that the most talented people are almost never the biggest stars. In fact, they are often the people you pass on the street every day, anonymous, invisible, ordinary people who look like your brother-in-law or your uncle. They have regular jobs, waiter, short order cook, subway train operator, piano mover. Maybe they don't work at all, maybe they're too out of touch with reality, or what George Dubya thinks is reality, to hold a job. Maybe they scrape by doing odd jobs, removing trash from construction sites, collecting SSI. Who knows. The point is that there are people in every city who are enormously more talented than any dumbass you see on your MTV. Johnny Black is a regular guy. I don't know what he does for a living, but I know his music career doesn't support him. He looks like my uncle (or my older brother, if I had one), definitely not like a rock star. But listen to this CD, released in 1999 on Johnny's own Route 9 Records, and you'll find yourself in the presence of one of the more talented people I've ever met. He plays his Fender Stratocaster with both finesse and abandon, drawing such fire from it that you'll want to put on some asbestos gloves when you reach for the volume knob to turn it up to 11. And his voice is some kind of whiskey soaked Bostonian variant on Joey Ramone's snarl via Jim Carroll's literate whine, with a touch of the honey-smoothness of Ben Orr. And his songs are about all the stuff that ordinary people struggle with every day. He's got the poet's eye for detail, and the workingman's point of view. I find this record nothing less than inspirational. Unlike so many "local" bands, Johnny Black Trio are much bigger than just their music. The record may not be perfect, but even its imperfections are attractive, like Cindy Crawford's mole or Chrissy Hynde's overbite. This is as good a rock and roll album as you're going to hear, ladies and gentlemen. Please email Johnny at [email protected] for details on how to get a copy of your own.
- bmo’s world
http://www.bmosworld.net
