J.D. McPherson is a heroic guy. For the root music of Americana with a mix of blues and rockabilly, he is like Tom Petty for country rock, embodying honesty and uncompromising. He can be serious on stage, he never smiles. No flirting with the public. No stage costumes, his band is a kind of denim hard workers, opening the asphalt with the lower layers of musical culture with their simple instruments. Dig a little further and there will be folk and folk music. Rhythm and blues diggers. Signs and Signifiers. Signs and symbols.
Actually, I was skeptical about JD at first, I knew about him, but I didn’t really listen, but someone (I think it was Alyona Rockabilly Baby from Gazoliners) mentioned that she didn’t like his music. I decided to check it out, and I appreciated it!
This first album of his, Signs and Markers, along with the second, Let The Good Times Roll, settled in my smartphone for a long time and were listened to countless times. On the third, Jay drifted into the 60s, into garage pop rock, which is also very interesting, and then he released a Christmas album. In general, Western musicians like to make albums for this holiday, apparently they always sell well.
Jonathan David is a really cool singer. The very first theme of North Side Gal is thrilling.
On the album, almost all the songs are composed by McPherson himself or the McPherson-Sutton duo. Except for Country Boy (Big Tiny Kennedy) and Your Love (All That I’m Missing) (The Bellfuries). The original Bellfuriz is more raw, rough, or something, without a saxophone and slide guitar. J.D.’s song is more intelligent, more interestingly arranged, but just as assertive. Scratching Circles recorded Peggy Sugarhill in their acoustic project; it was really nice to hear this song, just like I met an old friend. Fast and perky Fire Bug and Scandalous. Meditative Signs & Signage and A Gentle Awakening. Mid-tempo Dimes For Nickels and B.G.M.O.S.R.N.R.
JD McPherson – Signs And Signifiers (2010)
02 Country Boy
03 Fire Bug
04 Signs & Signifiers
05 Wolf Teeth
06 Scratching Circles
07 A Gentle Awakening
08 Dimes For Nickels
09 B.G.M.O.S.R.N.R.
10 I Can’t Complain
11 Your Love (All I’m Missing)
12 Scandalous
Download J. D. McPherson – Signs And Markers (mp3, rar, 66 Mb)
Previously, J.D. McPherson played in the rockabilly band The Starkweather Boys, where he honed his singing style. It featured guitarist Kevin Wright, the frontman of the 80’s band Kingpins. Now JD’s band is a quintet. In addition to the traditional trio of drums, bass guitar, there are also keys and sax. Jimmy Sutton is really Satan in terms of playing both regular bass and double bass, and Sutton is also devilishly good at producing. And the drummer is Jason Smey… Just by the way he holds his chopsticks, you can tell that he’s still that jazzman. His team also includes Ray Jacquildo on keyboards and Doug Corcoran, who is responsible for saxophone and another guitar. Just watching them play flawlessly is a pleasure.
J.D. grew up in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, in a place where “the nearest supermarket was an hour away.” Such isolation has had a good effect on the efforts made for creativity, as he once noted in an interview.
Someone give me a t-shirt with the JD McPherson band logo, I’ll be happy with this broken arrow!
Thanks for the album, of course, but judging by the article, you need to listen to the entire discography. Except for that album, which is garage pop-rock, probably. Not that I have anything against the pop-rock of the 60s, but I already have a lot of music.
Actually, I find it difficult to define the genre of JD’s third album: Undivided Heart and Soul (2017), but its cover alone is worth something. In fact, the music is incredible, and it’s incredible that it was created using the same conventional instruments – and the band sounds exactly identical live as on the record! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRrnXRRf_D8