by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
Last Saturday night, I checked out Jonathan Byrd with Larry Mangum at the European Street on Beach Boulevard. On first blush, Jonathan’s material conjured up images of a bygone Americana before superhighways, when travelers drove down to Florida on US 1, discovering America’s South one town at a time. His music is inspired by his uniquely diverse past and a life on the road. It shines with colorful metaphors and poetry that is rich with images. His songs are clever, fiercely original, humorous, and melodically pleasing – coming off with true grit.
Jonathan comes from a real log cabin in the woods outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a kid, he roamed, skipped school and searched for something meaningful in which to believe. As a teenager he took up guitar and participated in his school music program while writing songs in his spare time. This interest in songwriting literally saved Jonathan from himself.
In 2000, Jonathan started touring the folk circuit and learned that the scene was crowded with so-called folk artists. It didn’t take Jonathan long to discover that the term “folk” had become ambiguous and anyone with an instrument who told hokey stories was considered a “folk” artist. Even if that instrument was a tuba.
In 2002 Jonathan attended the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, which was a revelation for the artist. He has played or attended this festival for all 18 days every year since. Jonathan won the New Folk competition in 2003 and was hired as a performer for the next three years. He recently teamed up with the group Dromedary and recorded an album “The Sea and the Sky.” Jonathan’s newest album, “This Is the New That” is steeped in rock’n’roll tradition and Dromedary joined him in the studio.
For his European Street concert, Jonathan performed solo, but was joined by the great Florida songwriter and music producer, Larry Mangum, who played some of his repertoire of intelligently conceived original songs and acted as congenial host. Larry crosses-over musical boundaries with his western swing tunes and honky-tonk rock’n’roll.
Even without the members of Dromedary, Jonathan’s songs from the new album didn’t lose any of their impact, which is a true test of a quality song. If it moves the listener with its catchy hooks as the artist plays just a guitar or piano, then it will sound great in any genre or with any instrumentation.
Like Larry, Jonathan’s music blurs genre boundaries from country and bluegrass to rock and folk. The opening song of “This Is the New That” unleashes Jonathan’s fast-talking blues song about the ‘Cocaine Kid’ playing in the subway with duck-taped shoes. The song laments that anything can be the “new that.”
‘Colleen’ has a country music feel. It’s about a gal who went away so long all her clothes were new. “Hey Colleen, you are going to kill us all with your running around....Colleen come clean, please don’t make a scene, I’ve got the sheriff on the phone...” Yes, it will rock your underwear into a knot.
In respect to Jonathan’s father being an alcoholic preacher, he wrote a song that again comes across as pure country, ‘Jesus was a Bootlegger.’ Well, “ he turned the water into wine,” Jonathan sings, suggesting that Jesus was a cool wine merchant of the prophet variety.
All these songs deal with real lives gone wrong or astray based on Jonathan’s road-seasoned experiences. Jonathan recently hooked up with John Laird at the Americana Agency. In a recent collaboration, Jonathan also recorded with Diana Jones on her album “Radio Soul.”
Indeed, there are legions of folk artists touring the festivals and small-club circuits, but Jonathan travels with a vast repertoire of memorable songs about real people on their earth journey. He has transcended the limited label of “folk.” Jonathan is a prolific and noteworthy songwriter and performer. Go to jonathanbyrd.com for his CDs and other cool stuff.
Article Published in the March 2008 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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