The Johnny Rich band, pictured above, is ready to burn down the house – or bar, as the case may be – with a heady, professional mix of rock n’ roll, blues, and even a bit of a jazz riff.
Lamar Little, to the left in the photo, is the kamakazi drummer, who blows listeners away with the intensity of his beat. Bass player Derrick Murdock, far right, was in the house band for the Tonight Show and the Jay Leno show, and is a powerful player. And rounding out the dynamic trio, middle position, is John Richardson, singer, guitarist, songwriter, and leader of the band.
We took in a stellar performance on the west side at Trip in Santa Monica; the band can often be found at the Silverlake Lounge on the east side and the Old Town Pub in Pasadena, as well as in DTLA at a variety of spots.
We heard a set that included a terrific instrumental, “50 Years,” which Richardson describes as “trying to be pretty.” It doesn’t just try though, it succeeds, and has the distinction of many gigs past being the first piece that he ever played in public. Just definitely not the last.
Playing on the irony and ugliness of our times with a driving beat was “Comrade Bonespur Boogie,” which features a lyric that Richardson quotes as “All that’s left is whiskey and regret” intoned by a viewer “watching DJT and the GOP on TV and being amazed as things keep going lower.”
Richardson’s “Demon Rum” tells the story of “A poor wretch in love with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model from 2003 pasted on the wall at the bar he goes to every day after work. ‘I love how you come to life after a drink or two …'” The photo image might’ve started dancing had she heard the song written in her honor.
Also on the play list were non-originals such as Johnny Smith’s “Walk Don’t Run,” popularized by The Ventures originally, and the perfect song to showcase Little’s drumming skills.
Richardson describes “Sleepwalk/Sleepwalk on the Radio” as a mix of creative efforts. “I’ve never gotten sick of playing Santo & Johnny’s Sleepwalk. It’s the front end to one of mine about Sleepwalk and the good old days which weren’t all that swell after all.”
And one of our favorites was the evocative original instrumental “Renfield,” described as telling the story of “Dracula meeting Little Red Riding Hood and getting his ass kicked.” He notes that song evokes “ever-increasing levels of evilness, like those Lon Chaney werewolf movies that start with the beautiful moon full of foreboding.” Indeed.
A poignant piece, “Betty’s Waltz” honors a dear friend and mother with fatal breast cancer. “Right near the end she was at home in a coma with the morphine drip running. I sat up all night and played her every song I knew,” Richardson relates.
And corporate ethics – if there is such a thing – got their due in another original, “Karl Marx Boogie,” which includes the biting lyric depicting Wall Street greed, “Down and down you go and you sink into the mire. Soon you’re just like all the rest, you don’t give a damn.”
While most of Richardson’s vast collection of originals focuses on true life stories or the fiction that grabs him, the band’s non-original numbers run the range from Thelonius Monk songs like “In Walked Bud,” selected in part because of what Richardson calls “fun chord changes,” to classics from Keith Richards, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Christian, and Miles Davis.
“I started out playing the drums as a kid, which led to wearing weird-ass wool suits marching around the football field at halftime. Picked up the guitar early in ’69, got hooked when I could recognize myself playing No Expectations by the Stones, and never turned back,” he says.
The band got its name thanks to “a hipster 20-year-old I played a gig with in Berkeley,” Richardson laughs.
But there’s nothing funny about the music – it’s seriously great stuff. Don’t miss the band’s upcoming gigs. For more information, visit www.johnnyrichband.com
- Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis, and provided by the artist