CASTLE MUSIC

Johnny Guitar Watson - You need it - Anthology

Released on 16 September 2002, this is the first definitive overhaul of the solo career of JGW, starting with the best selling recordings for DJM in the mid 1970's. Taken from albums like Ain't that a bitch and A real mother for ya defining a mellow mix of funk and blues, and was especially popular in the UK and France. This perspective takes us up to 1995, just a year before Johnny passed away on tour in Japan.

Johnny Guitar Watson produced his own brand of hard edged bluesy guitar and funk rhythms. It was an indomitable style and it is great to hear again how good those tunes were, such as "I need it" (surprisingly not a US hit), "Superman Lover", "Ain't that a bitch", from Ain't that a bitch" A real mother for ya" from the album of the same name. They are all here and still sound remarkably good, to the point that I didn't realise how good they were.

"Won't you forgive me baby" shows also that it doesn't have to be hard and upbeat to be good. Indeed on the out and out funk tracks there is still a kind of mellowness to the tempo(from Ain't that a Bitch). "Your love is my love" utilises the vocoder (not something that I ordinarily like, but here is used more for sound than vocal) and is slow and moody and pretty much instrumental. 'Tarzan', complete with jungle noises, is nonetheless a fine Blues. 'Love Jones' is a corker of a track, same style but more insistent beat and catchier hook.

'Funk beyond the call of duty' came towards the end of the purple patch in the 70's and this is a wee bit contrived as is 'It's about the dollar bill' from the same album - 'Funk beyond the call of duty' On the more balladic side and also from that album are 'I'm gonna get you baby' and 'Love that will not die'.

Even more contrived of course is 'Miss Frisco (Queen of the disco)' as the title would suggest but the album Giant was better than it's predecessor with a quasi spoken PFunk/Zappa 'You can stay but the noise must go', but the killer cut was 'Gangster of love' opening CD2 here, almost down home rocking blues, picking up on Johnny's monicker from the 50's.

'What the hell is this' the album and this fast talking track with a less persistent beat in particular was more oddball. Also from that album was 'Cop & Blow' a hard talking song done in a ballad style, Percy Mayfield's 'I don't want to be president', and over 7 minutes of blues ballad in 'Strung Out'

Reaching 1980 we had the album 'Love Jones', not to be confused with the above track and four tracks are featured here. 'Booty Ooty' a bogstandard but likeable disco cash in. 'Love Jones' being very Bobby Womack (as said in the sleeve notes by Peter Doggett but it is so obvious). 'Telephone Bill' another possible copy cat item but this time in rap style a la Sugarhill. 'Lone Ranger' goes back to the bazarre!

1981 saw the 'Family Clone' album and the distinctive voice came more to the fore again. 'Ain't Moving' with girlie chorus and insistent beat finds Johnny in a much more well known and likeable frame. A good track indeed. 'Come and dance with me' with the awful vocoder but nice bass line, shame. 'Voodoo what you do' completes the trio from that album.

In 1994 an album was cut on Johnny's own label Wilma and two tracks are here. 'My Funk' is maybe back where Johnny wanted to be, that is, in a pure funk style. I guess that this was very dated in 1994 but it sounds good, very Gap Band in fact. 'Johnny G is back' confirming a return to the (hopefully) forefront, but sadly time was shorter than he realised.

 An enjoyable perspective of a great man whether you liked his 50's, 60's, 70's or 80's. I enjoyed particularly CD1 here but there is some fine stuff on CD2 particularly the later material that I was previously unfamiliar with.