In 1917, the Yankees entered the First World War, in connection with which New Orleans was declared a “strategic port”, and all the entertainment venues of the most musical city in the United States were closed. Negroes, Creoles, and other mulattoes sheathed their pipes and boarded steamboats heading up the Mississippi River to the industrial North. It is suspected that these flights were so reckless that even fish and alligators jumped on deck to do a foxtrot or two.
Some musicians broke off in St. Louis, the most desperate made it to New York, but most settled in Chicago. Prohibition also helped the development of the Chicago jazz scene: it’s not funny to pour gibberish on tea sets without a suitable accompaniment, even Al Capone and Al Pacino understand this. Here, King Oliver becomes the “godfather” of jazz, having discovered Louis Armstrong and Barney Bigard to mankind. Since the late 1940s, an urban blues style has been crystallizing in Chicago, of which Muddy Waters is considered the king, but the “godfather” and “gray cardinal” is double bassist Willie Dixon, who wrote a number of outstanding blues standards spread around the world by such tyrannosaurs as The Doors, The Rolling Stones and others like them. In the 1950s, Chicago’s rhythm and blues gave rise to the nascent rock music of Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.
Thus, while Nashville attracted white minstrels, Chicago became the main magnet for black troubadours of the Mississippi Delta, which has been strongly associated with Black rhythms (and a little bit with Italian crime) for more than a hundred years. That’s why, from the inception of the genre until relatively recently, no one had heard of the Chicago interpretation of rockabilly. In this case, the “godfather” was double bass virtuoso Jimmy Sutton, the leader of his own gang The Four Charms, the founder of the independent label Hi-Style Records and the monthly rock’n’roll sabantuy Big C Jamboree. In 2009, Jimmy received a demo tape from a certain J.D. McPherson.
Jonathan David McPherson was born near Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1977. It was an hour of brisk gallop on a stung nag from the cattle ranch where he grew up to the nearest rural settlement. Having mastered the skills of driving a pitchfork and a manure cart, he took up the guitar at the age of 13. Since childhood, who loved Buddy, Fats and some kind of Led Zep, J.D. nevertheless agreed to play “in a band” with classmates, whose imagination was only enough for punk chants and howlers. Relieved to be done with school and amateur work, McPherson enrolled at the University of Tulsa, from where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree to return to school again, but as an art teacher. It was fun working with the students, but not with the paperwork. Four years later, Jay Dee leaves school for good, deciding to pursue a musical career.
In the band The Starkweather Boys, he is already playing rockabilly with a big mix of Chicago blues and Western swing. Jimmy Sutton, who highly appreciated the demo CD of McPherson’s solo songs, takes over the production and bass parts of the first album. Released in 2010, “Signs And Signifiers” was re-released two years later by the major label Rounder, whose artists already include Alison Krauss, George Thorogood and Bela Flack. Rolling Stone magazine, which has long since turned into a snobbish back-and-forth, still gives the album three and a half stars out of a possible five, generously noting that “the artist deserves attention.” In 2015, mindful of the support given to him by Sutton, J.D. took over the baton, producing the first official release of the magical Cactus Blossoms, which enriched the return to Twin Peaks with the song “Mississippi”. In 2018, McPherson’s fourth album “SOCKS” was released, and then…
The year 2020 presented the planet with a mysterious pandemic, which was lifted instantly in February 2022. It was during the “pandemic” period that J.D. made his first attempt to record new material, which was unsuccessful, however: perhaps the virus-proof cover prevented him from singing.
And in 2022, he is already participating in the tour of the duo Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, first as an opening act, but very soon as the lead guitarist of the main line-up. Jonathan returned to studio work again in 2024, and this time the rock and roll devil was kind: we have the record “Nite Owls” in our hands, partly traditional, more experimental. We have to figure out how successful the experiment turned out. Lean your ears against the speakers, Moon Dogs, the needle has already dug into the vinyl!
Sunshine Getaway, co-written with brothers Jack and Paige from The Cactus Blossoms, colorfully conveys the thoughts of a kid from an Oklahoma hayloft who dreams of swimming in the neon tides of a Big City. The source of inspiration is obvious: a late T-Rex, richly flavored with Kentucky moonshine. Such a boogie would have been appropriate in the recent thriller “Soul Collector/Longlegs” by Osgood Perkins, where Nicolas Cage portrays a graveyard parody of Marc Bolan to the music of Marc Bolan. Marc Bolan is dead, but he’s happy.
I Can’t Go Anywhere With You features a brutal guitar and almost non-predatory vocals from our old friend Bloodshot Bill, whose baboon charisma makes the chorus words really disturbing. If The Crickets were made up of teenage zombies, it would sound exactly like this.
Just Like Summer is a fantasy about how New Order would sound if Hank Marvin from The Shadows played for them. And the imaginary Hank’s party is really beautiful.
Nite Owls is a magical pop hit. FBI Agent Philip Jeffries steps into a Black Wigwam, simultaneously turning into David Bowie and plucking the strings of Dwayne Eddy’s beloved “gretsch.”
Shining Like Gold shimmers with all colors in the rays of the setting sun. Phil Spector’s spirit is circling like a vulture over McKenna’s gold. Leprechauns jingle coins while flipping through Truman Capote.
The Rock And Roll Girls looks like a lost track from the musical Grease. The best path. But still from the musical.
Baby Blues is the third foray into the territory of glam rock. Two would have been enough.
The Phantom Lover Of New Rochelle is an excellent instrumental sketch about the new fiefdom of the French Huguenots, who were expelled from old La Rochelle. A ghostly lover, perhaps D’Artagnan himself, shouting “hey, scoundrels!” invading their bedchambers at night.
Don’t Travel Through The Night Alone is the case when the whining infantilism of new wave plays on the overall tension in a composition soaked in noir and girlish fumes.Someone in a hockey mask, waiting at the end of a dark alley, sobs softly to the beat.
That’s What A Love Song Does To You is a soulful and very elegant imitation of the American youth pop of the early 1960s, which Paul McCartney loved to hum. Of course, if this song had been recorded in that era, no self-respecting artist would have listened to it. Not then, not now. But, as an exact imitation, it can cause delight.
02 I Can’t Go Anywhere with You (feat. Bloodshot Bill)
03 Just Like Summer
04 Nite Owls
05 Shining Like Gold
06 The Rock and Roll Girls
07 Baby Blues
08 The Phantom Lover of New Rochelle
09 Don’t Travel Through the Night Alone
10 That’s What a Love Song Does to You
Download or listen online the album JD McPherson – Nite Owls (2024) (mp3, 29 MB):
After listening to the album to the last note, one thing is for sure: J.D. McPherson is no worse than a shark in a variety of musical trends, remaining an excellent composer and performer. As for experimentation, he only emphasizes the elements of guitar rock of the 1950s in those later genres where they are already present in less obvious forms. If McPherson had reinvented some kind of glam, approaching it from a different angle, it would have become a real experiment. By creating similar sound collages, he swims into dangerous waters where purists, rockabilly fans and other Bolan-Bowie haters lurk. We wish Jonathan seven new albums under the keel and less eclecticism in the hold.
Don’t Travel Through the Night Alone is something incredible nowadays, when most of the population of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is already dead. Fucking masterpiece