Johnny Adams Man Of My World

Johnny Adams
Man Of My World
Rounder

Johnny Adams' new album will be a welcome surprise to the Tan Canary's many fans. The choice selections of songs and a great backing band provide the foundation, but Adams sings here with few signs of his recent health problems. More importantly, he seems to be investing his performances with even more of his heart and soul than some of his acclaimed recordings of the past, even employing his falsetto throughout. Maybe when he had recuperated enough to record this he was thinking he might never get another chance, so let's get it out. Whatever, this may be as good an album as any he has recorded.

Given the circumstances, one might be accused of reading a bit more into his performances of songs expressing regrets about past mistakes as "Looking Back'" ('over my life, I can see where I caused strife, but I know, ooh yes I know I'll never make that same mistake again) or William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water" ("until your well runs dry"). In both cases, Adams' performances are as least as stunning as earlier recordings of these songs by Otis Rush and Otis Redding respectively. The tenor of the opening track, "Even Now," has a similar reflective quality as Adams regretfully sings about his woman leaving him. And even now Johnny still loves her, he wishes her the best, "but I guess we're even now." Of course, this isn't simply an album of looking back on his past mistakes. After all he asks that they dare call the bread white bread, and he doesn't want decaf on the funky 'It Ain't the Same Thing." And sometimes Johnny's mistake was coming back to the woman as he sings on the slow blues. "This Time I'm Gone For Good." Sometimes you don't want to face one's past, as on the country-flavored soul ballad 'I Don't Want to Know," where he sings "I do not want to go to New Orleans no more; I am too afraid, I might see her face, that I couldn't take." That's a pretty strong line, but its typical of this record with great material, playing and singing.

And after the blues and soul performances, the album closes with an enthralling acappella gospel performance "Never Alone," where Adams is joined by Aaron Neville. It is the cap of an almost flawless album that is one of the best blues albums issued yet this year.

This review originally appeared in issue 234 of Jazz & Blues Report in 1998. I received a review copy from Rounder Records. I did not include the personnel in the original review, but among those playing on this were David Torknowsky, Walter 'Wolfman' Washington, Jim Spake and Michael Toles. Also, I note that David Egan and Buddy Flett wrote "Even Now" and Bobby Charles wrote, "I Don't Want to Know." Other songwriters represented on this include Dan Penn. Spooner Oldham, Carson Whitsett, and Clyde Otis. Here is 'I Don't Want to Know" from this recording.