Bethany Johnson - “Down by the Willows”

Bethany and Dallas Johnson made a record of my song “Down by the Willows” which I’m eager to share with you. I’ve known these people for over half my life. In fact, Dallas was running sound for the open mic I made my first performance at in the basement of the Purdue Student Union. Bethany played violin on an early recording of this very song which Wes DeBoy made for us in Muncie, Indiana.

Later, Dallas and Bethany were married and would invite me to their Music Sunday gatherings at the Greene’s where I would learn their songs. Sometimes Benjamin Ezra, The Sears Tower of Folk Music, would be there too. I have warm feelings associated with those memories.

Dallas mixed most of my first album In a Whelming Tide and engineered my second album Living Is Trying.

I heard Bethany and Dallas perform “Down by the Willows” in the side room at The Black Sparrow. It shone like a diamond in my mind. That was back before kids and careers.

Then I started this label Late Bloomer as a home for other people’s sound recordings of some of my compositions. Naturally, Bethany and Dallas were among the first people I thought of to ask to record. They shipped the kids off to Wolcott for a the weekend and invited Andy Dommer and Caleb Benner over to play bass and drums. Caleb played bass on Living Is Trying if you’ll remember.

This family has been interwoven in my life for years and I’m pleased and proud to present this recording to you. It’s a big part of the sound of my youth and now my new adulthood and it feels like home.

Hell yes. Please enjoy.

-John

"Spent" featured in film No Place

My song “Spent” runs in the credits of No Place which you can buy or rent on Amazon.
I think it works great with the major themes embedded in the story and in the character of the main protagonist. I laughed out loud a couple of times too. I think it’s a fun movie.

Watch the trailer by clicking the poster above.

Thanks for watching and listening.

-John

Toss Your Javelin

Toss Your Javelin has been germinating for years. The third long playing album by John Davey is a collection of maxims and self-injunctions set to memory evoking melodies.

A black and white photo taped to a wall in Kansas City, the spiny ridge along Chimney Tops in Eastern Tennessee, the train station platform in Lansing in the dreary rain, neck craned to see the parade down Washington Street on the 4th of July, mammoth Ore Boats chugging in and out of Upper Harbor from all over the Great Lakes. This collage is the running start which throws the weighted dart.

”Lower Tiers” is the centerpiece of the album. Its arrangement borrows pages from The Great American Songbook, seeking common ground with 20th century greats Irving Berlin, Paul Simon, and Randy Newman.
The bookends of the album are the newest compositions, “Q” and “Boreal Lullaby”, both fruits of a tree transplanted. “Q” is the disentanglement of overlaying personalities and the proper identification of a newly emerging self. “Boreal Lullaby” is both old and new. It’s the hymn we hummed in church. It’s the subject of a trial, a lamentation, a psalm.
”Hard Times, Strong Men” is the outlier. Pulsating and fuzzy and rhythmic. It’s Jules Vern, Robert Louis Stevenson and George Harrison at a game of craps. Harrison rolls snake eyes. A prophetic warning. A new archetype.

Toss Your Javelin was crowdfunded by 134 generous supporters.

Songs, guitars, and vocals by John Davey
Production, mixing, and arrangement of a variety of instruments performed by Shane Leonard in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Mastered by TW Walsh in Boston, Massachusetts
Engineering by Evan Middlesworth at Pine Hollow Audio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Basses by Jeremy Boettcher
Piano and other keys by Joshua Gallagher