DAVID JOHANSEN AND THE HARRY SMITHS
''SHAKER''
MAY 28 2002
54:02
1/Furry's Blues
Furry Lewis/3:21
2/I'll Go With Her
Robert Wilkins/3:58
3/Deep Blue Sea
Tommy McClennan / Traditional/3:38
4/My Morphine
David Rawlings / Gillian Welch/6:05
5/Ham Hound Crave
Reverend Rubin Lacy/3:12
6/Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me/3:38
7/I Can't Be Satisfied
Muddy Waters/2:39
8/In Love Again
Memphis Minnie/3:04
9/Death Letter
Son House/4:01
10/My Grandpa Is Old Too!
Lightnin' Hopkins/3:22
11/Jailbird Love Song/3:17
12/High Sheriff
Charley Patton/3:37
13/Kassie Jones
Furry Lewis/6:29
14/The Last Kind Words
Geeshie Wiley/3:41
Keith Carlock /Drums, Percussion
David Chesky /Producer
Kermit Driscoll /Bass, Guest Artist
David Johansen /Arranger, Harmonica, Vocals
Brian Koonin /Arranger, Guitar, Mandolin, Producer
Larry Saltzman /Dobro, Guitar
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
When one looks back at David Johansen's body of work, it's not difficult to get the feeling you're watching an actor who has slipped in and out of a number of character roles over the years; there was the trashy glam punk libertine of his New York Dolls days, the swaggering hard rock belter on his '70s and '80s solo albums, the over-the-top devotee of vintage-nightclub sounds known as Buster Poindexter, and now the grizzled bluesman who cuts pared-to-the bone acoustic sessions with his band the Harry Smiths. Shaker is Johansen's second album with the Harry Smiths, and the set list is comprised of vintage country blues classics made famous by the likes of Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, and Charley Patton (one notable exception: "My Morphine" by Gillian Welch, which fits in seamlessly into the mix). As with much of his material from the past, the theatricality of Johansen's performance is certainly evident here, though given the purposefully sparse musical arrangements of his band, it stands out in a different degree of relief; Johansen avoids an overtone of minstrelsy as he assumes the role of an aging bluesman, but ultimately he sound like an actor on-stage giving a performance as a bluesman rather than the vintage blues singer himself. That's not to say, though, that Johansen doesn't find something pure and honest in these songs; he's always been a con brio performer, and if his touch is sometimes broad, it's also passionate and sensitive, and he doesn't over-play so much as give a dramatic reading that would befit an actor who must balance restraint with the need to communicate with the last row of the balcony. The result is a collection that honors the tenor of the classic country blues recordings while adding a tone that is pure David Johansen, and not only is his delivery strong and compelling, but his voice is more supple than it has been in years, while his musicians back him up with subtle fire. While dozens of modern blues artists have stumbled while trying to re-create the sound of the past, David Johansen has taken a genuinely different approach to that idea, and on Shaker the results are impressive indeed.
BIOGRAPHY
by Jason Ankeny
Best known for his tenure fronting the hugely influential New York Dolls, David Johansen was a true chameleon; throughout the course of a career which saw him transform from a lipstick-smeared proto-punk hero into an urbane blue-eyed soul man and finally into a tuxedo-clad lounge lizard, he remained a rock & roll original, an unpredictable iconoclast and a true cultural innovator. Born January 9, 1950, in Staten Island, NY, Johansen joined his first band, the Vagabond Missionaries, in his mid-teens. A tenure with Fast Eddie & the Electric Japs, as well as an attempt to mount a career as a theatrical actor, followed before a club-hopping Johansen met bassist Arthur Kane, who extended an invitation to join his band, Actress. After changing their name to the New York Dolls, the group began building a notorious reputation for their menacing, edgy music, drug-fueled lifestyle, and outrageously campy, drag queen-inspired glam image; although neither their eponymous 1973 debut nor 1974's Too Much Too Soon even cracked the Top 100, the Dolls established an enduring cult following, and their influence on the rise of punk was unmistakable.
The Dolls officially broke up in 1975, although Johansen and guitarist Syl Sylvain continued performing under the group's name for two more years. Finally, in 1977, Johansen entered the recording studio with his support group, the Staten Island Boys, to cut his self-titled solo debut; while it sold no better than the Dolls' records, it did renew the critics' love affair with the singer and his gritty, soulful voice. With producer Mick Ronson, he returned in 1979 with the Motown-influenced In Style, followed in 1981 by the commercial-minded Here Comes the Night. While 1982's concert set Live It Up won some airplay for its medley of the Animals hits "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," "It's My Life," and "Don't Bring Me Down," Johansen was forced to reassess his career when 1984's dance-flavored Sweet Revenge tanked. At the end of 1984 he resurfaced in the pompadoured guise of Buster Poindexter, a supposed ethnomusicologist armed with an expansive knowledge of R&B chestnuts. After debuting the Buster character at a series of mid-'80s downtown New York loft gigs with the Uptown Horns, Johansen continued honing the identity in the piano bars of Manhattan, establishing a lounge swinger persona which predated the lounge-kitsch revival of the mid-'90s by a decade.
As Poindexter's popularity grew, he began fronting a large band dubbed the Banshees in Blue and building a devoted following on the New York club circuit. In 1987, he issued an LP, Buster Poindexter, which featured the party classic "Hot Hot Hot," an effervescent cover of an obscure 1984 soca hit. In addition to reviving Johansen's career as a musical performer, Buster also renewed his long-dormant acting bug, and he was tapped to co-star in the 1988 features Married to the Mob and Scrooged. The character remained Johansen's focus in subsequent years as well, as evidenced by the albums Buster Goes Berserk in 1989 and Buster's Happy Hour in 1994. He maintained a relatively low profile in the years prior to the spring 2000 release of David Johansen & the Harry Smiths.
''SHAKER''
MAY 28 2002
54:02
1/Furry's Blues
Furry Lewis/3:21
2/I'll Go With Her
Robert Wilkins/3:58
3/Deep Blue Sea
Tommy McClennan / Traditional/3:38
4/My Morphine
David Rawlings / Gillian Welch/6:05
5/Ham Hound Crave
Reverend Rubin Lacy/3:12
6/Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me/3:38
7/I Can't Be Satisfied
Muddy Waters/2:39
8/In Love Again
Memphis Minnie/3:04
9/Death Letter
Son House/4:01
10/My Grandpa Is Old Too!
Lightnin' Hopkins/3:22
11/Jailbird Love Song/3:17
12/High Sheriff
Charley Patton/3:37
13/Kassie Jones
Furry Lewis/6:29
14/The Last Kind Words
Geeshie Wiley/3:41
Keith Carlock /Drums, Percussion
David Chesky /Producer
Kermit Driscoll /Bass, Guest Artist
David Johansen /Arranger, Harmonica, Vocals
Brian Koonin /Arranger, Guitar, Mandolin, Producer
Larry Saltzman /Dobro, Guitar
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
When one looks back at David Johansen's body of work, it's not difficult to get the feeling you're watching an actor who has slipped in and out of a number of character roles over the years; there was the trashy glam punk libertine of his New York Dolls days, the swaggering hard rock belter on his '70s and '80s solo albums, the over-the-top devotee of vintage-nightclub sounds known as Buster Poindexter, and now the grizzled bluesman who cuts pared-to-the bone acoustic sessions with his band the Harry Smiths. Shaker is Johansen's second album with the Harry Smiths, and the set list is comprised of vintage country blues classics made famous by the likes of Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, and Charley Patton (one notable exception: "My Morphine" by Gillian Welch, which fits in seamlessly into the mix). As with much of his material from the past, the theatricality of Johansen's performance is certainly evident here, though given the purposefully sparse musical arrangements of his band, it stands out in a different degree of relief; Johansen avoids an overtone of minstrelsy as he assumes the role of an aging bluesman, but ultimately he sound like an actor on-stage giving a performance as a bluesman rather than the vintage blues singer himself. That's not to say, though, that Johansen doesn't find something pure and honest in these songs; he's always been a con brio performer, and if his touch is sometimes broad, it's also passionate and sensitive, and he doesn't over-play so much as give a dramatic reading that would befit an actor who must balance restraint with the need to communicate with the last row of the balcony. The result is a collection that honors the tenor of the classic country blues recordings while adding a tone that is pure David Johansen, and not only is his delivery strong and compelling, but his voice is more supple than it has been in years, while his musicians back him up with subtle fire. While dozens of modern blues artists have stumbled while trying to re-create the sound of the past, David Johansen has taken a genuinely different approach to that idea, and on Shaker the results are impressive indeed.
BIOGRAPHY
by Jason Ankeny
Best known for his tenure fronting the hugely influential New York Dolls, David Johansen was a true chameleon; throughout the course of a career which saw him transform from a lipstick-smeared proto-punk hero into an urbane blue-eyed soul man and finally into a tuxedo-clad lounge lizard, he remained a rock & roll original, an unpredictable iconoclast and a true cultural innovator. Born January 9, 1950, in Staten Island, NY, Johansen joined his first band, the Vagabond Missionaries, in his mid-teens. A tenure with Fast Eddie & the Electric Japs, as well as an attempt to mount a career as a theatrical actor, followed before a club-hopping Johansen met bassist Arthur Kane, who extended an invitation to join his band, Actress. After changing their name to the New York Dolls, the group began building a notorious reputation for their menacing, edgy music, drug-fueled lifestyle, and outrageously campy, drag queen-inspired glam image; although neither their eponymous 1973 debut nor 1974's Too Much Too Soon even cracked the Top 100, the Dolls established an enduring cult following, and their influence on the rise of punk was unmistakable.
The Dolls officially broke up in 1975, although Johansen and guitarist Syl Sylvain continued performing under the group's name for two more years. Finally, in 1977, Johansen entered the recording studio with his support group, the Staten Island Boys, to cut his self-titled solo debut; while it sold no better than the Dolls' records, it did renew the critics' love affair with the singer and his gritty, soulful voice. With producer Mick Ronson, he returned in 1979 with the Motown-influenced In Style, followed in 1981 by the commercial-minded Here Comes the Night. While 1982's concert set Live It Up won some airplay for its medley of the Animals hits "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," "It's My Life," and "Don't Bring Me Down," Johansen was forced to reassess his career when 1984's dance-flavored Sweet Revenge tanked. At the end of 1984 he resurfaced in the pompadoured guise of Buster Poindexter, a supposed ethnomusicologist armed with an expansive knowledge of R&B chestnuts. After debuting the Buster character at a series of mid-'80s downtown New York loft gigs with the Uptown Horns, Johansen continued honing the identity in the piano bars of Manhattan, establishing a lounge swinger persona which predated the lounge-kitsch revival of the mid-'90s by a decade.
As Poindexter's popularity grew, he began fronting a large band dubbed the Banshees in Blue and building a devoted following on the New York club circuit. In 1987, he issued an LP, Buster Poindexter, which featured the party classic "Hot Hot Hot," an effervescent cover of an obscure 1984 soca hit. In addition to reviving Johansen's career as a musical performer, Buster also renewed his long-dormant acting bug, and he was tapped to co-star in the 1988 features Married to the Mob and Scrooged. The character remained Johansen's focus in subsequent years as well, as evidenced by the albums Buster Goes Berserk in 1989 and Buster's Happy Hour in 1994. He maintained a relatively low profile in the years prior to the spring 2000 release of David Johansen & the Harry Smiths.
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