To say that I was bowled over when I first heard Jacob Johnson’s take on The Allman Brothers iconic “Jessica” is an understatement, to say the least. Like all great covers, it echoed with the familiarity of the original and yet brought something new to the table, too, especially in terms of pace and poise, tone, and temperament. And so, with that excellent first encounter still fresh in my mind, the chance to hear Johnson in the more comfortable and representative environment of a full-length album was always something that I was looking forward to. Well, that day is upon us.
“The Sketchiest Motel in Fayetteville” opens things up, a perfect song to set the tone. It allows Johnson to revel in both some dexterous acoustic blues and roaring rock salvos and also deliver lyrics that masterfully blend poeticism with humor. It is a song that is fun and refined, both things that are the hallmark of his music.
At the other extreme, songs such as “Old Soul” show that he is just as at home with spaciousness and understatment as he is with the more ornate deliveries: this instrumental being so sonically elegant and musically eloquent that it says everything that it has to say without the need for anything so obvious or restrictive as mere words.
And then you have the title track, a perfect blend of raw electric guitars and lilting acoustic deliveries, a reflective waltz through the realities of life as a traveling musician. Part folky fire, part rock, and roll urge, a clever blanace of the big AND the clever.
Surviving the Dream is everything I hoped it would be, as is the man behind the music. It is the perfect blend of awe-inducing musicianship and tongue-in-cheek fun, incendiary guitars and delicate deliveries, lyrics that tell of the lives and hopes of everyday people, and no small amount of hop, joy, and optimism.
When was the last time you got all that from just one record?
