Johnny Dowd
presents a curious mixture of the raw and the sophisticated on his sixth album,
Cruel Words
. His band, which features keyboard player
Michael Starks
and drummer
Brian Wilson
in addition to his own guitar work, plays rudimentary
blues-rock
arrangements with harsh, angular rhythms in a sort of
John Lee Hooker
-meets-
Devo
sound, occasionally veering toward
heavy metal
, and he sings in a gruff voice with a strong rural accent. But his lyrics and the subject matter of his songs, while sometimes bluntly expressed, sound more like the product of a college graduate than an unlettered bluesman. Antiwar statements and descriptions of the class struggle come up frequently, and
Dowd
sometimes writes like he's starting a novel instead of a song. "He died in a motel surrounded by women's shoes," begins
"Final Encore,"
a song that turns out to be about a deceased singer. That person cannot be
himself, of course, but elsewhere he does turn directly autobiographical. To avoid any confusion,
"Drunk"
quickly name-checks its main character, "Johnny Dowd, Johnny Dowd, Johnny Dowd," before turning to a heartfelt declaration of recidivist alcoholism. "Oh, what I would give for a drink,"
sings, lustily accompanied by
Mekons
Jon Langford
and
Sally Timms
. It all ends up with a cover of
Chuck Berry
's
"Johnny B. Goode"
that recalls what
did with
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
before breaking into the main riff of
Black Sabbath
"Iron Man."
Having started his recording career at the half-century mark, when most artists are slowing down or have stopped altogether,
continues to record regularly, and, idiosyncratic as they may be, he is clearly making the albums he wants to make.~ William Ruhlmann