https://rockingmagpie.wordpress.com/2024/09/13/john-jenkins-weary/

Raw, Honest and Deeply Personal Songs That Channel Hawley, Walker S and McCartney.

I genuinely wish he wasn’t, but singer-songwriter John Jenkins flies under the radar while his songs and the way he sings them deserves a much wider audience. I’ve given up worrying or trying to work these things out as to why someone with infinitely less talent get the ‘breaks’ and the TV/Radio promotion and troubadours like our chap here grind away in the background and never get to sit at the big table at Award ceremonies.
Last years TUEBROOK album was one of my favourites of the year and the stripped back arrangements really suited my mood at the time.
He’s touched my soul again here, not least with the opening song Weary which is a word I’ve used a lot recently to describe my own demeanour and (serendipity?) plan to use it when I get my annual check up at my local health centre next week.
The way John strums his guitar and delivers what sounds an autobiographical tale which builds from a soft start through to something of a hauntingly Gospelish crescendo featuring Helen Shanley sent a shiver down my back more than once when I’ve played the disc in the car.
As someone in the film industry once said …. “start with a volcano erupting and build on that!”
OK I’m paraphrasing something that may not be true; but it sort of sums up this all too short release …. while the next song, Do You Ever Think Of Me? isn’t of volcanic properties, it is so intensely beautiful makes me think of George Harrison singing a Paul McCartney out take, circa the latter’s Band On The Run days … yep … it is ‘that good.’
There’s a deceptive gentleness to Jenkins’ languid voice and his arrangements too that will lull you into a false sense of security when you first here the jazz-lite tones of Bury Myself In Sand and later Dressing Up The Truth too; but trust me on this, sooner or later you will find yourself doing an accompanying ‘soft shoe shuffle’ and will stop abruptly when Jenkins’ sucker-punch in his lyrics hits you squarely on the jaw.
For a few days I was totally enamoured with I Don’t Want To Be That Guy Anymore just like the opening track Weary as the McCartneyesque arrangement and deep story felt like John was describing me in my darker moments; and when I finally read the song notes it appears John was going through similar self- doubts at the time of writing and when it came to the recording “wanted a rough indie guitar sound and Jon Lawton as always steps up to the plate, even getting him to add a backward guitar solo to match the black thoughts he had been dipping into.” It works a treat too.
But, for my actual Favourite Song, again it’s from the darker end of the colour chart but the slightly twisted love song The Reason sounds uncannily like Richard Hawley covering Scott Walker and easily merits repeated plays in a darkened room. Is it about an unrequited love? A child’s love for their Mother? A tangled love affair? I think the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ as it covers all those bases and more, meaning something different to each and everyone who hears it.
Perhaps it’s the musical masochist in me that draws me to music like this and the people who create it … but I’ve paid a lot of money of the years buying albums and singles by household names that don’t even come close to creating raw, honest and deeply personal songs like these six; all of which will squeeze your heartstrings until you can’t take any more … but then press ‘repeat.’