MEET JOHNNY J BLAIR, A PICASSO OF POP
Pablo Picasso, the great painter, created work that reached people with images and ideas they could relate to, but he also challenged them with fresh uses of color and shape. Likewise, Johnny J. Blair crafts cogent pop songs, using a palette of diverse influences, painted with an economy of invention.
Daub together old school soul, psychedelia, British Invasion rock, and sunny California pop. Splash it with glam rock and rockabilly. Wash that in a vocalese and melodicism breathed by classical, gospel, jazz, and world music. The finished sonic canvas testifies to the passionate rock’n’roll of Johnny J Blair, “Singer at Large.”
Brian Wilson called Blair “a virtuoso.” Legendary James Brown drummer, Clyde Stubblefield, said Blair is like “a white James Brown” in concert. Goldmine Magazine described Blair’s music as “Pop music with a conscience.”
Picasso’s paintings were grouped according to periods and phases. So it is with Blair’s recordings: From baroque pop, to punk/new wave, to orchestral Americana, to funky gospel, to tango-flamenco flavored rock.
Urban humor, romantic abstraction, and bittersweet spirituality are images in Blair’s lyrical vocabulary, drawn from by The Bible, classic comedy, film noir, and novelists such as Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. Blair’s strong voice transmits this template of tunes to fans of many genres, all around the world.
Since the mid-80s, Blair has issued acclaimed recordings—from the “new wave concept album” Door in the Water, to the soulful masterwork Fire, to the bare-knuckled acoustic “agitpop” of Treadmarks, to the “Ziggy Stardust meets Pet Sounds” expressionism of Grateful, to the metropolitan mysticism of I Like the Street.
Blair’s songs have been commended by Brit-pop icon Sir Cliff Richard, and Blair’s cover of Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” (included on this compilation) was celebrated by the song’s famed co-writer, the late Lou Reed.
Davy Jones of The Monkees, making a posthumous appearance on this compilation, was another advocate, saying that Blair should be “top of the pops.” “I learned valuable lessons from David,” adds Blair, who worked extensively with Jones for 20 years, on stage and in the studio (Blair also played bass for the 2011 Monkees Reunion Tour of the UK and USA).
This compilation was assembled especially for bandcamp.com. The set features representative songs that charted globally, as well as rarities and “fan favorites”–including two (!) Velvet Underground/Lou Reed covers, and, making a bandcamp debut, “Dancin’ by The River (Tex-Mex Garage Mix)”–Notes by Gilbert Haywire
CREDITS
Johnny J Blair “Singer at Large” with members of The Badlees, Davy Jones (Monkees), Bil Bryant, the Felix String Quartet, Bill Matlack, and other lumineers.