We’re Getting Close to the Sun, Johnny J. Blair
I first came across the music of Johnny J Blair back in the 80s or 1990s and have just found out he has moved house (and state) and relocated in to space for the 21st Century. Whether this is time travel or not, what he has taken with him – and always has – is his pop sensibilities, his ability to arrange and orchestrate a band, and hold down a tune.
Blair makes perfect pop music, the sort previously produced by the likes of The Beach Boys (who he has worked with, as well as Davy Jones of The Monkees) or The Carpenters. The sort of stuff, to be honest, you hate until you grow up, lose your attitude and desire for disruption and discord, and learn to listen. (Ok, I still like the other stuff too.)
So this is carefully written, recorded and produced music. A ten track CD (or 16 as a digital album) of shimmering spaced out celestial guitar music that finds us floating in space with the likes of the NY Spaceboys, Captain Mike and the Interstellar Subway Buskers, and even some angels in the distance.
Blair is a bit of an Icarus really, trying to fly too high. I mean, how is this for liner notes?:
Songs inspired by the 1968 ‘Bread & Circuses’ episode of Star Trek, Alexander Key’s ‘Forgotten Door’, the C.S. Lewis space trilogy, Prof. Quatermass, J.R.R. Tolkien & The Inklings, Twilight Zone, David Bowie, The Bible, age, mortality, and eternity. Includes a new cover of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. Musically inspired by Neil Finn, The Beatles and British Rock, early Bee Gees, Bowie, Glen Campbell, King Crimson, 10cc, & The Moody Blues. Guest musicians include Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren), Mike Roe (The 77s), and Chris von Sneidern.
See what I mean? Blair doesn’t make it easy for himself with that list of musicians and inspirations, nor by covering ‘Space Oddity’, Bowie’s seminal late 1960s single. But he gets away with it all because it’s all done so well, and he makes not only the Bowie cover version but the mix of influences and ideas very much his own.
So expect close harmonies, poptastic tunes, classic arrangements and sonorous complexities. It manages to be both nostalgic and forward looking with its mix of space-age sounds and twanging guitars, it’s retro-futuristic take on what music might sound like as we drift through space. There’s just time to check the airlock and sound system before countdown. Let the mission begin. Turn it up loud. We have lift off!
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Rupert Loydell
Buy or download the album here
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