Richard Leo Johnson & Gregg Bendian – "Who Knew Charlie Shoe?"

Richard Leo Johnson & Gregg Bendian - Whitewash Worship Warehouse/Fine Washer and Dryer (Cuneiform 2007)

Richard Leo Johnson & Gregg Bendian – Who Knew Charlie Shoe? / Cuneiform

Though my options for reviewing at the moment are quite abundant with a slew of well-known acts (the fall season is both an exciting and a stressful time for Music Directors with the ridiculous amount of mail that comes pouring into our offices), I am opting to highlight an album purely for the curiousness of its mellow sound. During my research for this review, at nearly every corner were buzzwords that would make most underground music fans turn and run: new age (gasp!), contemporary jazz (yikes!), sophisticated (uh-oh!), white men with perms (noooo!), The Mahavishnu Project (runnnnnn!!!!). But the fact of the matter is that Who Knew Charlie Shoe? is an intriguing listen with enough curious musical twists and turns from guitar virtuoso Richard Leo Johnson and avant-garde percussionist Gregg Bendian that I would much rather be exploring the intricacies of this rather than the latest Devendra Banhart release.

Richard Leo Johnson appears to just have missed being condemned to the new age circuit by a few lucky life twists. Just check his debut release on Blue Note from 1999, Fingertip Ship: packaged with cheesy, water obsessed artwork that absolutely screams new age jazz, Johnson, despite producing a multi-layered sound, set out to pay tribute to acts like Tony Bennett and Jaco Pastorius with proggy implications from latter day Floyd. The self-taught southern guitarist is also compared frequently to Michael Hedges, who with his shoeless Hare Krishna-like look complete with long, sometimes braided hair and headband will have you cringing in disbelief at his All Music Guide pictures. Thankfully though, Johnson has redeemed his career by embracing the John Fahey inside of him with his 2006 release, The Legend of Vernon McAlister. Gone is the myriad of expensive, geeky guitars and in their place, one 1930s single resonator National Steel guitar. Johnson crafted an imagined persona from the mysterious name etched on the side of the guitar and proceeded to create a hushed, twisting album that was absolutely a descendent of Blind Joe Death.

Joining Johnson on Who Knew Charlie Shoe? is another jazz-based musician that is more condemned to the faults of the era he evolved in rather than his actual musical style: the 80s and 90s. Percussionist and composer Gregg Bendian set out to become an avant-garde musician by studying the works of Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, whom he joined in 1989 as the drummer for the Cecil Taylor Unit, but often got caught up in the prog-rock and fusion scenes (the Mahavishnu Project, Interzone) mostly because his options were limited. He has managed a good amount of modern creative work though joining the likes of Peter Brötzmann and William Parker on stage, and his knack for inventive percussive workouts is displayed in full force here.

The pair is continuing to explore the setting set by Johnson on The Legend of Vernon McAlister, and with the inclusion of Bendian on a junkyard full of percussive toys, the sound is leaving solely Fahey territory for realms all its own. This time around, the album is the supposed recorded session of Charlie Shoe, an Arkansas native who suffers from a form of mild autism and was inspired by a chance encounter with Vernon McAlister, and Jaden Barrel aka Junk Fish, a retired prog-rocker from the late 70s who thanks to his rock & roll lifestyle ended up penniless in a junkyard in the very same city as Shoe. Thanks to a musicologist from the University of Memphis, the pair’s combined talents, dubbed as “hick-prog,” was captured to tape and subsequently released as this album. All fictional back-story aside, Who Knew Charlie Shoe? features Johnson on mostly a set of five vintage guitars he purchased on eBay for around a hundred dollars each and Bendian banging on everything from a lard can to racks, brooms and brushes to washboards and chunks o’ metal.

While the Fahey comparisons can’t be ignored, the resonance of his guitar playing and the melodic textures remind me much more of contemporary players like Steffen Basho-Junghans and Jack Rose with hints of prog-like progressions from the likes of the John McLaughlin camp. While Johnson concocts wave after wave of tinny harmonies, Bendian rattles off odd syncopations from his shed of bangable material, sometimes taking the lead, as on “Superman,” or just accentuating Johnson’s playing, as on “Uncle Toby’s Place.” The music really intrigues when Bendian pulls out the inventive or melodic percussion: “First Breath in a Bean Field” features somber picking over washtub water rhythms, “Jesus on a Tire Swing” is accentuated with almost church bell chimes and hollow subtle taps, and “Where the Rivers Meet” finds a country guitar yearn emphasized by slow building saw and bow-like frequencies. “Rockasilly” and “Whitewash Worship Warehouse/Fine Washer and Dryer” maybe the two most realized tracks though; the former riding Johnson’s aggressive Appalachian grooves and woodblock syncopation from Bendian, while the latter is much more mellow with Johnson shaving off tinny shreds of slide guitar over Bendian’s resonating water drum tones.

Like we have discovered time and again at this site, the unassuming albums always seem to be the most intriguing. Based on artwork alone, which is comprised of children’s drawings on faux-lined paper and too pretty goofy-looking middle-aged men (one with a pot on his head) on the cover, most people would glance and move on. But embedded on the microscopic grooves are the talents of two inventive musicians enjoying themselves by concocting fictional stories and working with random instrumentation. Both Johnson and Bendian appear to have left the forced intensity of both new age and avant-garde (each side of the intensity spectrum) for music that is as enjoyable to listen to, as I am sure it was to create.