What's behind the Davenport Johnson Sound?
If you read the Who is DJ? page (here) then you know what each of us brings to the group. But where did what we bring come from? As would be expected, while there is some overlap, we each have our own list of music and musicians we'd cite as being instrumental in our lives. Pun wasn't intended, but I didn't change it after writing it either, so...
Here's a partial list of the artists and groups that made us feel something. All of which goes into how we play when we pick up an instrument and start letting out our own inner groove. Not that we sound like these folks, but we certainly wouldn't mind if we did.
Here's a partial list of the artists and groups that made us feel something. All of which goes into how we play when we pick up an instrument and start letting out our own inner groove. Not that we sound like these folks, but we certainly wouldn't mind if we did.
Dave-id: My list starts with the first album I ever got, at age 7. My parents were joining a record club and I campaigned for a over a week until they finally allowed me to choose just one of their "12 LPs for a dime." It was that group I had seen on the Ed Sullivan show the previous Sunday night. Yep, The Beatles. And the Album: The Soundtrack to A Hard Day's Night. In all it's American release glory - with some actual Beatles songs and a handful of film soundtrack instrumentals that the Beatles themselves didn't want on the album.
No matter, that record spun on their Curtis Mathis console daily for years -- until I joined a record club myself as a pre-teen, got a cheap record player, and started getting all the Beatles I could get my hands on... only to be surprised at how many of the songs my parents liked they were covering. "Hey, they sing that Frank Sinatra song!" "Hey, they do that Carpenters song!" It was a while before I realized that the names after the songs on the record label meant that they were the ones that wrote them and it was my parents favorite artists that were doing the covers. Duh.
I became an avid record collector/listener. And my tastes varied... a lot. That's probably one reason it's so hard to give a single word description to the type of music we play. Here's just a smattering of those who have left a mark on me musically. To list them all would take up the whole site.
Jonathan Richman - Yes I loved that first Modern Lovers LP, but what really got me was the sincerity of "Back In Your Life" - he knows how to be real!
Todd Rundgren - "Something/Anything," "A Wizard, A True Star," "Todd," "Initiation," & "Healing" all still get lots of air time in my ears.
The Nat King Cole Trio - not the later stuff with Nat and an orchestra, but the jazzy trio recordings filled with killer solos and playing in general. Wow!!
Kate Bush - Heard her on Saturday Night Live and was hooked - ran out the next day to get her album and have been getting them ever since
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - These guys could do it all - I started with the Dirt, Silver & Gold compilation, then got all the albums that were sampled on it
Lindsey Buckingham - Sure he was great with Fleetwood Mac, but the album I can't stop playing is "Buckingham Nicks." What a gem!
The Old 97's/Rhett Miller Saw RM open for Neil Finn with a solo set - simply owned the stage - love everything he and that wonderful band he's in does.
Neil Finn/Tim Finn - Truly emotional singer/songwriters - from Split Enz to Crowded House to solo and beyond they can both keep me spellbound
Bic Runga - Her voice is superb, her songwriting natural and engaging, and when she gets you with a hook... and she will... it stays there
Peter Frampton - "Frampton" & "...Comes Alive" are classics, but the less heard "Fingerprints" is every bit as iconic, his guitar talks with or without a wah!
NRBQ - Amazing group of musicians and songwriters... if there's a style of music they can't play I don't know what it is - if you've never heard them, start with "Grooves In Orbit" from 1983 and you'll wanna go back and forth from there.
Also Suzanne Vega, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Tony Bennett, Pentangle, Laura Nyro, Bert Jansch, Chicago (I was a trumpet player in high school), Elvis Costello, Terry Hall (The Specials, Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield), David Bowie, Herb Alpert (there's that trumpet thing again), Michael Nesmith (after leaving the Monkees he really blossomed!,) Nick Lowe, Roddy Frame, C,S,N &Y and all their solo and group iterations, Talking Heads, and in recent years ukulele players have started to infiltrate that list like Troy Fernandez, James Hill & Kiyoshi Kobayashi to name just a few...
No matter, that record spun on their Curtis Mathis console daily for years -- until I joined a record club myself as a pre-teen, got a cheap record player, and started getting all the Beatles I could get my hands on... only to be surprised at how many of the songs my parents liked they were covering. "Hey, they sing that Frank Sinatra song!" "Hey, they do that Carpenters song!" It was a while before I realized that the names after the songs on the record label meant that they were the ones that wrote them and it was my parents favorite artists that were doing the covers. Duh.
I became an avid record collector/listener. And my tastes varied... a lot. That's probably one reason it's so hard to give a single word description to the type of music we play. Here's just a smattering of those who have left a mark on me musically. To list them all would take up the whole site.
Jonathan Richman - Yes I loved that first Modern Lovers LP, but what really got me was the sincerity of "Back In Your Life" - he knows how to be real!
Todd Rundgren - "Something/Anything," "A Wizard, A True Star," "Todd," "Initiation," & "Healing" all still get lots of air time in my ears.
The Nat King Cole Trio - not the later stuff with Nat and an orchestra, but the jazzy trio recordings filled with killer solos and playing in general. Wow!!
Kate Bush - Heard her on Saturday Night Live and was hooked - ran out the next day to get her album and have been getting them ever since
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - These guys could do it all - I started with the Dirt, Silver & Gold compilation, then got all the albums that were sampled on it
Lindsey Buckingham - Sure he was great with Fleetwood Mac, but the album I can't stop playing is "Buckingham Nicks." What a gem!
The Old 97's/Rhett Miller Saw RM open for Neil Finn with a solo set - simply owned the stage - love everything he and that wonderful band he's in does.
Neil Finn/Tim Finn - Truly emotional singer/songwriters - from Split Enz to Crowded House to solo and beyond they can both keep me spellbound
Bic Runga - Her voice is superb, her songwriting natural and engaging, and when she gets you with a hook... and she will... it stays there
Peter Frampton - "Frampton" & "...Comes Alive" are classics, but the less heard "Fingerprints" is every bit as iconic, his guitar talks with or without a wah!
NRBQ - Amazing group of musicians and songwriters... if there's a style of music they can't play I don't know what it is - if you've never heard them, start with "Grooves In Orbit" from 1983 and you'll wanna go back and forth from there.
Also Suzanne Vega, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Tony Bennett, Pentangle, Laura Nyro, Bert Jansch, Chicago (I was a trumpet player in high school), Elvis Costello, Terry Hall (The Specials, Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield), David Bowie, Herb Alpert (there's that trumpet thing again), Michael Nesmith (after leaving the Monkees he really blossomed!,) Nick Lowe, Roddy Frame, C,S,N &Y and all their solo and group iterations, Talking Heads, and in recent years ukulele players have started to infiltrate that list like Troy Fernandez, James Hill & Kiyoshi Kobayashi to name just a few...
Timothy Jay: My first inspiration simply involved listening to those around me play guitar. Watching my brother – and later my pal Ano in graduate school – getting absorbed while playing their guitars made me think they discovered something worth trying, and later hearing Jonathan Richman play in Seattle sealed the deal. I got my first guitar, and began listening to more music.
I lapped up the incredible leads by David Lindley on Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky," over and over again, and listened to everything by Lindsey Buckingham, Todd Rundgren, and Adrian Belew.
Their command of the guitar and their artistry are unrivaled, but yet, I never aspired to play lead. Instead, my playing style was shaped by the tight rhythm laid down by Neil Young and the Indigo Girls. The power of their acoustic bass lines with driving rhythm – "Needle and the Damage Done," or "Closer to Fine" – still inspire me today.
I lapped up the incredible leads by David Lindley on Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky," over and over again, and listened to everything by Lindsey Buckingham, Todd Rundgren, and Adrian Belew.
Their command of the guitar and their artistry are unrivaled, but yet, I never aspired to play lead. Instead, my playing style was shaped by the tight rhythm laid down by Neil Young and the Indigo Girls. The power of their acoustic bass lines with driving rhythm – "Needle and the Damage Done," or "Closer to Fine" – still inspire me today.
Chris: I learned to read music for vocals and studied music theory in grammar school, but I did not pick up an instrument until I was in college and minored in music theory. At the same time I was training in classical guitar I got interested in the bass.
A couple of garage bands later I found myself in the grunge scene in the Pacific Northwest. I have always had eclectic music tastes and what influences "my sound" ranges from New Grass, like Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, to 90's alternative like Primus.
A couple of garage bands later I found myself in the grunge scene in the Pacific Northwest. I have always had eclectic music tastes and what influences "my sound" ranges from New Grass, like Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, to 90's alternative like Primus.