Freedy Johnston Returns!
10/22/2009
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(conqueroo) Rain on the City is Freedy Johnston's first album of new originals in eight years. Recorded in Nashville with producer Richard McLaurin, it's one of the best song collections of Freedy's career, featuring a diverse array of rockers, heartbreaking twang, even hints of blue-eyed soul and bossa nova. The album will be released on Bar None on January 12, 2009.
Producer McLaurin (Justin Townes Earle, Allison Moorer, Slaid Cleaves, Matthew Ryan) has framed Freedy's voice with sympathetic arrangements, like the title track "Rain on the City," whose slashing strings and keyboard washes sound like so much precipitation in an Edward Hopper cityscape. There is radio-friendly fare, such as the epic "Don't Fall in Love With a Lonely Girl." and the Buddy Holly-style rave-up "It's Gonna Come Back to You." There are also fine vocal performances accompanying the acoustic majesty of "Venus" and the country-rocker "Rio Grande," where a full-throated Freedy confidently roars over some overdriven guitar pickin'.
Where has Freedy Johnston been wandering in the years prior to making this album? Some folks lost track of him after his 1994 hit "Bad Reputation" and his last Elektra album, 2001's Right Between the Promises. He has moved around, living in NYC, Austin, Kansas, Madison and Nashville. "It takes a while to re-adjust one's priorities and get back on track after working with the big budget that the majors give you," muses our hero. "I went through issues with the IRS, had a relationship go south and a touring vehicle grind to a halt but through it all I never gave up writing and gigging whenever possible."
Freedy Johnston was born in the small town of Kinsley, Kansas, famous for being the exact mid-point between the east and west coasts of the USA. He bought a mail-order guitar as a teenager after hearing Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True. Later, while briefly attending college in Lawrence, Kansas, he fell in with the likes of the Embarrassment and the Mortal Micronotz. His own writing mixed literate post-punk with outlaw country and '70s AM radio fare. His first album, The Trouble Tree on Bar None, was titled after the nickname his Mom gave a local Kinsley watering hole.
His second album, Can You Fly, was made while living in Hoboken, New Jersey, where the music community rallied 'round the singer. At the time the local scene based around the club Maxwell's was particularly vibrant and Can You Fly featured a number of club regulars including Kevin Salem, Dave Schramm, Graham Maby, Chris Stamey and Syd Straw. With the release of the album Freedy was touted as one of America's finest new songwriters by Rolling Stone, Spin and many others. In the Village Voice Robert Christgau hailed it as "a perfect album." This past year Can You Fly was cited in the book 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die by music critic Tom Moon. Signed to Elektra in 1994, Johnston had a radio hit with "Bad Reputation," and the Butch Vig-produced This Perfect World expanded his fan base. He would release four albums on Elektra, including Blue Days Black Nights, produced by T Bone Burnett. In the meantime it will be Freedy working his way, wandering the USA, promoting a little Rain on the City in a city near you.
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