Fans of Willy Porter, Ben Harper and G Love will all want to check out the engaging folk and blues-inflected pop of Jack Johnson's
Brushfire Fairytales. Born in Oahu, Hawaii, Johnson--a former surfer and film-school graduate--has a knack for acoustic ballads whose calm surfaces hide a subtle but strong lyrical undertow. "It seems to me that 'maybe' pretty much always means 'no'," sings Johnson on "Flake", which features crony Harper on slide guitar. Production by JP Plunier (who also handles Harper's recordings) is simple and uncluttered: acoustic guitar and drum tracks share the foreground with Johnson's easygoing vocals, which evoke everyone from G Love (who recorded Johnson's "Rodeo Clowns" on his
Philadelphonic) to Nick Drake to Willy Porter. And while Johnson may not have Porter's guitar chops, these songs have a relaxed beauty and understated depth that reward repeated listening.
--Bill Forman
2002-10-14
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Universal / Island
0044006495620
044006495620
1 x Audio CD
1. Inaudible Melodies
2. Middle Man
3. Posters
4. Sexy Plexi
5. Flake
6. Bubble Toes
7. Fortunate Fool
8. The News
9. Drink The Water
10. Mudfootball (For Moe Lerner)
11. F-Stop Blues
12. Losing Hope
13. It's All Understood
14. Flake
15. Inaudible Melodies
For a man who gets his biggest kicks surfing the waves and strumming his guitar on a lonely beach in native Hawaii, singer-songwriter Jack Johnson has carved out quite a remarkable career on the mainland. His 2003 album,
On and On, went platinum on the back of hit single "The Horizon Has Been Defeated." The follow-up, meanwhile, seems destined to shine even brighter. The drifting chords and soft voice are still in place, only now Johnson's instinct for melody has sharpened alongside his ability to self-edit. These small concessions make third album,
In Between Dreams, his most conspicuous, particularly on tracks like the three-minute relationship drama, "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing," and "Breakdown," a song he originally recorded for Handsome Boy Modeling School's
White People album remade here to reveal its full stripped-down loveliness. Imagine all the coconuts it will buy.
--Aidin Vaziri
2005-04-20
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Universal / Island
0602498802526
602498802526
1 x Audio CD
1. Better Together
2. Never Know
3. Banana Pancakes
4. Good People
5. No Other Way
6. Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
7. Staple It Together
8. Situations
9. Crying Shame
10. If I Could
11. Breakdown
12. Belle
13. Do You Remember
14. Constellations
15. Mudfootball - Jack Johnson, G. Love, Donavon Frankenreiter