Album Notes

Chad Johnson - History / Review by: Rootstime

The CD opens with a better than average country song in which one can still clearly notice blues infuences. Nice. I'm filled with these positive feelings throughout the entire CD. All songs are written by Chad himself. Both text and Music. Another point scored fby the master! Two thumbs up to this CD.
His voice is somewhere between the Texas and Nashville sound. Not too commerical and not too raw either. Most songs are very nice to listen to by means of the colorful harmonies of Meredith Fierke. It should be mentioned that Chad has surrounded himself with a group of very good musicians, like Jason Paulson on guitar, and Mark Allen on harmonica. In Northern Belgium, people rarely listen to this better kind of American Country music. This is an important reason to give a big kiss to the people of Wallonia. We can say the same about our neighbors from the North. I find this therefore very astonishing. Have Steve Earle sing these songs, and add a distorted guitar and people might soon speak of a new masterpiece.
Which again supports my opinion that people tend to settle much too soon on a "general sound" instead of taking time to listen. Relax and let this music come to you without any prejudice. Unless you have stuff in your ears, you have to admit that we are dealing with a CD (16 songs) that are all relaxing, songs that are truly nice to listen to, not complicated, with no far-fetched complex structures. Just plain, pure beauty.
The instrumental fills of the solos on acoustic guitar are of a very high level and lift the CD to the next level. Of course we cannot call it new and groundbreaking. But good in groundbreaking if that sounds like cacophony to our ears. Then we would prefer simple recognizable beauty, and that in what we hear here without being able to stgate that this is the style of x or y. A little bit of Pat Green, a bit of Bruce Robison, some Robert Earl Keen, a dash of Slaid Cleaves, a dash of Darell Thompson. Mix it all together and you have a nice approximation of this music.
Just enjoy, and stop driveling.
Luc 'The Healer'