I used to have an open reel tape of a song I recorded off some New York FM station in 1970 or so. I didn’t know the artist or the title. It was half-talked, half-sung, about a loser in Greenwich Village, “Junkie John,” coming down in a fleabag hotel. And it was very haunting, which is why I never forgot it.
I didn’t know what it was called or who did it. Every so often I’d ask music people if they knew a song about “Junkie John.” A few said maybe it was a Blues Traveller thing or John Mayall. But those alleys went nowhere. Eventually, I figured that the song was too obscure, and probably had a title that had nothing to do with what I remembered.
But a few weeks ago, at 1:30 am here in New York, the song popped into my mind. So I looked up “Junkie John” on Google just for the hell of it, and… Wow:::: found this on YouTube. It was by Tim Dawe, an artist about whom I knew nothing.
But the recording was the real thing, just as I remembered it. Stop now and listen to it—preferably on good headphones or speakers in a dark room.
Dawe starts the story over a plucked string bass. Very slow, laconic. About a minute in comes a Hammond organ with funeral chords. Then a haunting chorus. Gives ya chills. After about 5 minutes it digresses into a weird psychedelic jazz bridge with more instruments (it seems). Then instruments drop out and it goes back to just the singer, the organ, the bass, and the end of the story, which seems to have no end. (Did Junkie John die, or just come down? The former, I think.)
It’s very different listening with headphones today, maybe forty years after the first time I heard it, probably over speakers, probably in the dark, probably in a rural New Jersey house, with the kids asleep in another room.
Here’s the back story, from the CD re-issue liner notes. Funny to learn that the whole story of Dawe, the band, the recording, and everybody involved with it, took place in Los Angeles and San Diego, not New York — and that it was a Frank Zappa production, on his Straight label (which had the bizarre stuff, as I recall), rather than his Bizarre label (which, again as I recall, had the straight-ish stuff).
The whole album is called Penrod (which may or may not be Dawe’s real name… also not clear). I bought it on Amazon for $9.49. Now I just need to rip it to the laptop.
Anyway, I highly recommend it.
Bonus links:
- http://www.allmusic.com/artist/tim-dawe-mn0001559315/biography
- http://www.allmusic.com/album/penrod-mw0000745016
- http://badcatrecords.com/BadCat/DAWEtim.htm
- http://www.amazon.com/Penrod-Tim-Dawe/dp/B00076Q006
- https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/penrod/id432722101
- http://www.ticketmaster.com/Tim-Dawe-tickets/artist/744342
[Later, 3 May 2024…] I just found an obit, Tim Dawe & Penrod, in the San Diego Reader, that says Dawe passed in 2016. Other interesting stuff in there too. There are also now multiple copies of “Junkie John” on YouTube. I changed the link above to the one I think sounds the best, but YSMV. Also, the line “when he walked into a room, you got the feeling that somebody just left” may have originated with “Junkie John,” though I dunno. Maybe the Web knows.
Leave a Reply