![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/eric_johanson_deep_dirty.jpg\")
Blues is very much its own thing; existing with rare exceptions almost wholly outside the pop mainstream, this uniquely American musical form has dedicated practitioners and ardent adherents. What that means in practical terms is that an artist can be a giant in the (current-day) blues world and essentially unknown outside of it.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the case with Eric Johanson. A guitarist in the tradition of Freddie King, Johanson has landed four of his album on Billboard<\/em>\u2019s blues chart. But ask anyone who doesn\u2019t keep up with the blues about him, and you\u2019re likely to get a blank stare and\/or a shrug.<\/p>\n He deserves better. From the crushing opening chords of \u201cDon\u2019t Hold Back,\u201d the lead-off track on The Deep and the Dirty<\/i>, it\u2019s clear that this Louisiana-born guitarist had drank form the waters of Steve Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix and other crossover artists. Steeped in the blues for sure, Johanson has a rock sensibility. Sure, \u201cDon\u2019t Hold Back\u201d features a central riff that\u2019s more than a bit reminiscent of \u201cVoodoo Chile,\u201d but his lead work isn\u2019t Hendrixian at all. And the thunderous vibe \u2013 courtesy of rhythm section Eric Vogel (bass) and Terrence Higgins on drums plus Jesse Dayton\u2019s superb production \u2013 channels that rock ethos, delivering it inside of the blues idiom.<\/p>\n The term power trio was coined to describe ensembles like the one featured on The Deep and the Dirty<\/i>. Johanson\u2019s singing is clear and strong, and while his lower-register work is sturdy, it\u2019s when he reaches a bit higher than he finds his true voice; the title track illustrates that quality. He sounds a bit like Paul Rodgers. But when he shuts up and plays his guitar (so to speak), that\u2019s when the record truly catches fire.<\/p>\n Johanson and his associates explore the various corners of the blues. \u201cBeyond the Sky\u201d leans in an acoustic direction. But it\u2019s still fundamentally electric, and uber-heavy. He can swing (\u201cUndertow\u201d) and he\u2019s surprisingly comfortable leaning in a kind of Southern rock singer-songwriter mold (\u201cJust Like New\u201d). The songs keep coming: from the slow burn of \u201cElysian Fields\u201d to the field stomp of Familiar Sound\u201d to the rifftastic rocking \u201cGalaxy Girl\u201d (with shade of Jimi\u2019s reading of \u201cCome On, Pt. 1\u201d) each of the twelve tracks deliver on the promise of the album\u2019s title.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s any misstep on this record \u2013 and really there isn\u2019t \u2013 it\u2019s that one or two songs sound a bit like others. \u201cStepping Stone\u201d (not the Boyce\/Hart classic) is a solid rocker, but it feels ever so slightly redundant sharing space on an album with \u201cDon\u2019t Hold Back.\u201d But there\u2019s a commendable overall variety to the tunes and arrangements.<\/p>\n Blues can be a lot of things. If exciting is one of the things you like it to be, make The Deep and the Dirty<\/i> your next stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Blues is very much its own thing; existing with rare exceptions almost wholly outside the pop mainstream, this uniquely American musical form has dedicated practitioners and ardent adherents. What that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,62,65],"tags":[5217],"class_list":["post-25821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-eric-johanson","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25823,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25821\/revisions\/25823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}