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 | | ARCHIVES 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | Music Feature Issue #20.36 :: 09/05/2007 - 09/11/2007 Stretching Out Johnny Irion at Headliners: Saturday, Sept. 8 | Johnny Irion was jamming with friends in a West Columbia practice space last summer when someone asked him about his new songs. The friend asked, “Still got the country-rock thing going on?”
Irion leaned over his Fender Rhodes and played a jazzy lick on the keyboard, then muttered under his breath, “Man, I could write songs like that all day long.”
It wasn’t a boast or a put down of country-rock songs. Far from it. Irion loves the countrified sound. He’s played it for years. It was simply a comment made by an artist who was trying to challenge himself and expand his repertoire.
Mission accomplished. The results of Irion’s self-consultation were revealed a few weeks ago with the release of Ex Tempore, a song cycle that meanders from mellow, old-school psychedelia to Southern-fried gospel to heartwarming lullabies. Country-rock flavors invariably bubble up, but for the most part, Irion succeeded in charting a new creative course.
“I had an itch I needed to scratch,” Irion says. “[The new record] is a culmination of my going through a whole tutorial of American folk music and coming back to a youthfulness … what I had always done.”
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| Johnny Irion |
The American folk-music tutorial came compliments of being on the road for the past year with his father-in-law, Arlo Guthrie. What Irion did during his more youthful days was play in indie rock bands such as Queen Sarah Saturday and Dillon Fence. With Ex Tempore, he’s somehow synthesized these two musical worlds and added a healthy dose of ‘60s-style, Southern California pop sensibilities to boot.
The first track, “Take Care,” is a beautiful melody that could have easily drifted down from Laurel Canyon four decades ago. Background vocals float over Irion’s piano, and a pedal-steel guitar weaves in and out. When a flute solo lifts the song even higher, you suddenly realize that Irion was serious about exploring new sounds.
“That song happened from a piano lick,” he said. “One of those bluesy things that morphed into a minor-key thing. The suggestion of a flute came out of the blue. Sometimes you get lucky.”
The flute idea came from producer and mixer Ryan Pickett, former soundman for My Morning Jacket and an old friend of Irion’s. It was also Pickett who brought in the Hedgspeth Family gospel singers for the inspiring gospel tune, “Short Leash.”
“They were great, and from right there in Durham,” Irion said. “Another stroke of luck.”
Ex Tempore was recorded at Pickett’s studio in Durham, N.C., and most of the contributors are part of what Irion calls “a galaxy of musicians” who hover around the North Carolina triangle. The stars in this galaxy who played on Irion’s album include Greg Readling and John Teer of the bluegrass group Chatham County Line and Carolina pop hero Greg Humphreys of Hobex.
Ex Tempore was written in a creative rush last summer at the Guthrie family’s compound in rural Massachusetts, where Irion and his wife, Sarah Lee Guthrie, are putting the finishing touches on a new house. The couple also recently celebrated the birth of their second daughter, Sophia Eloise. Their first child, Olivia, is 5 years old.
The songs on Ex Tempore are a mesmerizing mix. “She Cast Fire” is an acoustic rocker that gathers steam as it goes. “Madrid” features a blast of chicken-pickin’ electric guitar and a flock of honking saxophones. “Good Cry” sounds like a long-lost track from a record by Leon Russell and the Shelter People.
“It’s an independent record,” Irion said. “We just didn’t have the resources to spend a lot of time and get everything exactly right. But in some ways, that’s a good thing.”
Irion plans to tour this fall behind Ex Tempore, then start work in early 2008 on the next duo record with Sarah Lee. Providing Irion’s backbeat will be drummer Zeke Hutchens and bassist Jay Brown, the rhythm section from singer Tift Merritt’s band.
Local indie-cana rockers American Gun open. Doors open at 9 p.m.; tickets are $10, $8 for students. Call 796-2333 or visit headlinerscolumbia.com for more information.
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