On the North York Moors

!!SOLD OUT!! Johnny Dowd + support tbc

Sat 9 March 2024 - 7.30pm

Please note our Johnny Dowd show is Sold Out but we're told there are still some tickets left for Johnny's show at Barnoldswick Music & Arts centre - between Skipton and Burnley - the following night, Sunday 10 March. For more info visit https://www.barnoldswickmusicandartscentre.com/

The Handsome Family have played the Band Room five times. So too has US Folk hero Michael Hurley. But Johnny Dowd is catching them up...

According to legendary US rock critic Silvie Simmons in MOJO: "Dowd’s latest album Homemade Pie - homemade right down to the cover art - has everything a fan could want. Raw and direct…there’s a slew of slow, dark, stalking ballads (Call Me the Wind) and creepy zombie blues (Shack). The title track, with it’s growly synth, thumping drum and Dowd’s twisted vocal - strangely sugared by backing singer Kim Sherwood-Caso - is the perfect all-American murder song…"

Over the last thirty years, Dowd has been creating records that defy trends, a unique catalogue of work that stands head and shoulders above many of his lauded contemporaries. Now in his seventieth year on God’s good earth, Dowd has lost none of the vigour, enthusiasm and attitude that has seen him forge his position as one of America’s most inquisitive artistic minds, a musical explorer who has charted expeditions to genre-defying destinations that, at their heart, question, challenge, and dissect notions of the American Dream.

Born in Ft. Worth, Texas, in 1948 and raised in Oklahoma, he attended high school in Memphis, crossed the pond to serve in the U.S. Army and then headed to California before landing in Ithaca, New York. At some point in these varied travels he picked up a guitar and never put it back down again.

As Johnny says, “my childhood was normal as was my adulthood. At some point I learned to play guitar. The future is uncertain.”

He released his first album Wrong Side of Memphis in 1997, and in the wake of critical acclaim his second album in 1999, Pictures From Life's Other Side, also to positive reviews. That year saw the first of Dowd's US and European tours. A Dutch TV documentary on Dowd was filmed in 2000, and in early 2001, the New York Times highlighted him as one of four "Country Singers Who Still Display a Country Heart". He continued to release a record every year while touring both the US and Europe, making his his major film appearance in 2003 with Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus and winning the  the Alt Country award in the 7th Annual Independent Music Awards with Cruel Words in 2007, as well as acting as an IMA  judge for the 8th annual awards. Over the years, he has toured, recorded, produced or collaborated with such musical luminaries as The Mekons, Jim White and Amy LaVere, to name a few (not in order of importance, and an unforgivably abbreviated list) . He has contributed to numerous tribute albums, most recently 2021’s release of The Wanderer - A Tribute To Jackie Leven.

According to Johnny, “I’ve toured the US and Europe many times and even did a couple of gigs in Russia (unforgettable). It’s been an almost illegal amount of fun. But like most musicians, I feel my best gigs and finest recordings are still in front of me.”

His latest album Homemade Pie came out January 2022, and he’s got new songs for a vinyl EP scheduled for release in 2023. Lately he’s added to his musical creative outlet and picked up a new medium, drawing at an almost frighteningly prolific rate and adding gallery shows to his resume. Suffice it to say much has happened in the life of Johnny Dowd and he is adamant that most of it is absolutely not his fault.

!!SOLD OUT!! Johnny Dowd + support tbc website

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