CD CHOICE:JOHNNY DUHAN, The Burning Word, Bell ****
Some artists can be around for so long you don’t see them; they become indistinguishable from fog – you can make out vague shapes and sounds, but just try to focus on them.
Johnny Duhan is one such singer- songwriter. He’s been on the scene since the 1960s, first as a young buckaroo in a Limerick unit called Granny’s Intentions, a smart band of their time who wanted to save Ireland from showbands, but who – after a spell in Swinging London – wound down, beaten by the fame game and expectations of the music industry.
Since those starry days, Duhan has forged an existence of sorts as a singular singer-songwriter. Now based in Co Galway, he has quietly continued to release albums. None have made him a packet on which to retire, but all mark him out as a special kind of songwriter – considered, reflective, egoless, almost painfully expressive.
That Duhan has gone largely unnoticed by the public is perplexing: his output is quality, high-end material that – now that we think of it – perhaps just isn’t snazzy enough for the kind of show-off crowds that lap up all manner of faux emotions without breaking into a guilty sweat.
With The Burning Word, Duhan continues to ply his trade in a typically downhome, under-the- radar fashion. There is a distinct undertow of spiritual rumination,
a questioning observance, as evidenced by the singer’s brief note on the inside of the CD jacket, wherein he admits to digging “below the surface of my faith for these songs”.
Using sparse but occasionally joyous instrumentation (Adrian Mantu's cello is equally maudlin and blithe), songs such as The Coat, The Flame Is Lit,the title track, Song of the Bird, Part of a Tribeand Old Storybranch out like veins beneath the skin and intersect at some point right under the heart.
There is loss here, as well as love, tenderness, friendship and an affecting, contemplative disclosure that other singer-songwriters, young and old, would burn their rhyming dictionaries for. That Duhan is still around after all these years, making records as good and as thoughtful as The Burning Word, is to be celebrated. See johnny duhan.com
Download tracks:The Flame Is Lit, Song of the Bird
