Johnny Dowd – Interview
Johnny Dowd
Boardwalk – Sheffield 26th May 2010
Interview by Alan J Taylor
Maverick’s (UK) Alan Taylor bumped literally into Johnny Dowd, smoking a pre gig cigarette right outside the Boardwalk in Sheffield, just as the early fans were drifting in. Dowd cut a slim, dapper figure with his full quiff of silver hair, looking cool in sun shades, he was keen to chat and we pretty much started the interview right there and then. Puffing on his roll up, he laughed first about the cold rainy English evening and then about his recent gigs in France, where despite the language barrier, “They all seemed to laugh in the right places,” he said, blowing his smoke casually into the cold Sheffield air.
As we made our way backstage I asked him to talk us through the new album WAITING FOR THE SNAKES. Settling into the leather settee he explained, “I was trying to go back to my high school days, music wise and influence wise, more straight ahead type grooves, more R&B, blues, soul type thing with my own take on it all. The album is probably less experimental than previous work and came out this time, just as I imagined it would.”
I recited the quotation from a couple of years ago in Uncut, the music magazine, where he was described as a “Dapper 60-year-old Texan absurdist . . . like Charles Bukowski backed by a jazz-country funk shuffle . . . really quite brilliant, putting to shame, artists half his age.” With a wry smile, he replied casually, “Yeah . . . I guess that’s true! I’m pretty happy with that description.” Clearly happy to let his mutating legend status keep rolling on.
I explained that I had personally first encountered him when watching the Jim White road movie ‘Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus’ where he plays a cameo, playing guitar first on the bonnet of a car in a scrap yard and then singing a song in a barbers shop. I was intrigued to know who sang the beautiful co-vocal on that particular track. He responded, “Yeah, that was First There Was A Funeral, the girls name was Maggie and sadly I forget her surname” . . . He said shaking his head (it was actually Maggie Brown.) “We were with the film crew and we were staying in some Holiday Inn type motel, and this Maggie girl was singing to the diners, you know. One of the guys said, ‘Hey you wanna be in a movie?’ and she pretty much ended up doing the song the next day, she was a great singer and did a really good job. She sent me an album which was as good as any Americana stuff that’s out there . . . I don’t know what she is doing now,” he said, with a resigned shrug (her album is actually available on CDBaby).
Taking up his cue I asked, is that where you fit in then ‘Americana’? He responded totally dead pan, in full southern drawl mode, “I think I am very, very, very American . . . you know I think I am more American than some of those other guys out there (by now breaking into a wide grin) . . . who think they are American!” He elaborated, “People hate to be labelled, I actually wish I could be labelled, cos’ it’s really hard to sell something that can’t be packaged, virtually every review says that you can’t categorise me . . . that is like death in the commercial world . . . people say like, ‘what is this?’ . . . when the answer is ‘I don’t know’ . . . who wants to buy it?” Old as I am, I know American music through my parents, everything from the 30’s on is very familiar to me, so when I am making music, my idea of American music is much wider spread than if I was twenty five years of age or something and my idea of American music was say, Led Zeppelin.”
I asked him to elaborate on his ‘musical education’. “My parents were from the WW2 big band era and dancing was their thing. My Father was really into Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, and all that. I had two older sisters who were into Elvis and Ricky Nelson, so all that stuff was playing in the house all the time. The radio then was awesome; it wasn’t segregated into genres like it is now. When I grew up people like Ray Charles had number one hits and Hank Williams and Aretha Franklin were the pop stars of the time, it was an education in itself!”
I asked him to tell us which particular songs sprang to mind as stand out tracks? “Well I’m actually doing a covers album right now, I have gone back and I am picking some of my favourite tracks to cover songs like Hit The Road Jack, Tragedy by the Fleetwoods, Sea of Love, you know and Dream Lover by Bobby Darin, Do The Do by Howlin Wolf, you get the picture? I’ve always avoided them until now, cos’ I knew I really couldn’t sing them (laughs), you know do justice to them, but I figured, f**K I’m sixty two years of age, I might as well have a go at it! I’m really looking forwards to doing Hot Pants by James Brown.” Pausing briefly, he continued, “the town I grew up in was segregated; the only place we came together was in sports, a friend of mine Wallace Fields was the hippest guy in the high school. He was black and he introduced me to James Brown Live At The Apollo. I used to know the whole album inside out, I would get it out . . . put it on, stand in front of the mirror and do the whole James Brown thing, you know….it was awesome, spinning round, dancing and shit.”
I asked him to tell us about the time in 2004, when he toured with the legendary Mekons. “Wow man, that was a great learning experience. They are very professional, but in a rock and roll sort of way, professional in the sense that you could drink that much and still go out and put on a show, that was an education.” I’d also heard that Matt Groening the ‘Simpsons’ creator was a big fan, I asked what the story was? “He showed up a gig in LA (I didn’t know) but this guy came up and said ‘I really dig your music man’, then someone said ‘do you know who that is?’….’that’s Mat Groening!’ . . . I was like, ‘Oh shit man,’ then he drew a little thing for Brian (Willie B) he was a really nice guy.”
I was appreciative of the album HELLWOOD he did in 2006 with Alt-country singer Jim White. He said, “I have known Jim White for a long time, we first met at SXSW, we talked and he got me involved in that film. Then Jim and I finally got it together and he came up to Ithaca and we did the album. It allowed Jim to do some of the more off the wall stuff, some of it was music that Brian (a.k.a. Willie B) did then I put some lyrics on, it was a kind of mish-mash of different stuff, we enjoyed making it”
Aware of his love for the written word, I was interested to know who his particular literary influences were. “I started out years ago before I’d tried to become a musician, writing a lot of poetry, I was going to be a poet. I did that for quite a while. With poetry I realised its very hard, with music you don’t have to have great ‘Be Bop A Lula’s’ ….as great a lyric that will ever be written, but not if you just say it! Poetry is such a lonely experience. I decided I needed help, I like to work with people, drink some beers, have some fun . . . writing poetry is such a solitary thing. My literary influences? . . . Well, all American writers, Flannery O ‘Connor, Mark Twain, Jim Thompson, early detective type stuff . . . you know, Southern Literature, Faulkner all those kinda people have influenced me.”
Knowing that much of Dowd’s work reveals the coal black gothic side of small town American life, I asked him to elaborate on his penchant for that particular style, take Voices from the new album for example? He laughed again, “I don’t think of it as a dark side, to me it’s just a life side. You can’t get into what I do musically and lyrically if you don’t see the humour. Its dark perhaps like someone slipping on a banana skin, that’s sad, you know someone slipping on their ass, but at the same time it’s also very funny . . . and that’s the way I see life. Flannery O Conner was a great example of that type of writing. If it’s just dark I don’t really like that, it needs a funny side too otherwise lift would not be worth living. We try to inject a little bit of humour into the musicianship and playing, you know, like that Captain Beefheart style, it’s a good balance, sadness and humour. We did a gig in France, I was so happy that night, I know there was a big language barrier, but the people laughed a bunch of times . . . Willie B just said, ‘they were laughing at you’ . . . but they seemed to be enjoying themselves and as far as I am concerned if they are laughing and having a good time, I am doing my job.”
I asked him to tell us what the future held for Johnny Dowd. He replied, “Well we need to finish the covers album then make an album of noise /jazz/noise that I have been asked to do. Then I need to write some new songs and Kim (Sherwood-Caso) and I will do some acoustic stuff together. I guess what I would really like to do . . . is join a band!” he said laughing. “You know just be the cool guy who plays guitar and turns up late for practise, but no one has asked me yet.” With that he excused himself to prepare for what turned out to be a collision of Americana, R&B, pulsating rhythm, poetry, gothic humour and madness . . . what a night! Dowd and the band were simply on fire, his rendition of the classic R&B song I’d Rather Go Blind was just class! . . But my lasting memory will be of that silver haired punk poet, stood guitar by his side, on a chair in the middle of the crowd, reciting a poem to a stunned silent room.
AJT
http://www.searchingforthewrongeyedjesus.com/
www.myspace.com/maggiebrownmusic