Johnny Guitar Watson Reissues

JOHNNY ‘GUITAR’ WATSON
What the Hell Is This?
Love Jones
Johnny “Guitar” Watson And The Family Clone
SHOUT! FACTORY

After the excellent retrospective of Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson’s later recordings, "The Funk Anthology," Shout Factory has started to issue his seven DJM albums as well as his last album.

Among those that have been issued is "What the Hell Is This?" The title track of this 1979 release has a topical lyric akin to "Ain’t it a Bitch" and "A Real Mother For Ya." The lyric is delivered in a sung-spoken manner that anticipates rap and there is a nice solo break. Other highpoints include the humorous dig at his "Mother-in-Law," who finds nothing good about Johnny, the ballad "In the World," which shows how romantic (yet still bluesy Johnny was and perhaps why singers like Etta James were influenced by him) and the rendition of" I Don’t Want to Be President," co-written with Percy Mayfield who recorded it earlier, with his complaints that he would not care so much about Congress knowing who he was visiting but what would he tell his wife. Two previously unissued tracks, "Watsonian Institute" and "The Funk I Know" are added to the original seven tracks.

"Love Jones" is another new Watson reissue and opens with a nice piece of funk, "Booty Ooty," celebrating some fine lady’s shaking of her body to the music. The title track is an other soulful ballad, while "Going Up In Smoke" is a funky groove about big money wasters, and "Close Encounters" sports a latin-tinged groove as Watson sings about a close encounter of the wrong kind and being a fool losing his cool. "Asanta Sana "is a fascinating African flavored number done before such world beat performances were common and again indicating how ahead of his time Watson was. "Telephone Bill" is an amusing rap based on his phone bill getting too high when he called a new lady against a funk groove. "Lone Ranger" is an update of a track he first did for Fantasy about cruising the world with a stranger, and no one wanting to be a lonely one. "Jet Plane" (“There is a Jet Plane bound for heaven,”) is a reworking of the gospel number “This Train.” "Children of the Universe" has an autobiographical lyric about growing up in Texas and seeking to become an entertainer. "Funky Blues" and an "Untitled Mix" are previously unissued selections, with the blues being a nice slow instrumental that sports some nice guitar and judicious use of a guitar vocal decoder (hope I identified this correctly), although it ends somewhat abruptly.

The final reissue is "Johnny “Guitar” Watson And The Family Clone," on which Watson actually plays all of the instruments except drums except for one track. The title is a tribute to Sly and the Family Stone. "Forget the Jones" has him philosophizing about not worrying about what the Jones are doing, while "Come and Dance With Me" is a nice funk number with Watson using the guitar vocal decoder again as he asks the lady to come and dance with him, playfully delivered. "What is Love?" is another ballad by Watson who delivers it so well. "Voodoo What You Do" is a love song to his woman sung so sexily about what his woman does to him. The extra, previously unissued, tracks are Watson’s soulful interpretation of Percy Mayfield’s classic blues, "Please Send Me Someone to Love," and "Chill Me Out."

This review originally appeared in the March/April 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 280).  I likely received my review copy from either the label directly or from Jazz & Blues Report. One may have to check ebay and other sites for these reissues. Here is a live performance of "Booty Ooty."