On his website, there is the following quote from singer songwriter Jon Brooks: "I write songs to calm those who have looked into, and seen, what is in their hearts. I also write songs to terrify those who have not."
Roughly
5 years ago, my wife Shauna and I first saw singer/songwriter Jon Brooks perform
at a little restaurant in Sundridge, Ontario. At the time, his song Gun
Dealer was receiving a lot of airplay at Hunters Bay Radio The Bay 88.7 FM.
It was also doing quite well stateside. We love that song. Shauna and I knew
little about Jon, other than the one or two songs we’d heard on the radio. We
then listened to a very interesting interview Jon gave to our dear friend, the
late James Carroll, then Program Director at Hunters Bay Radio. We were taken
in by Jon’s obvious intelligence, communicated through his songs and banter and
wanted to see him perform live and in person. When we heard our very talented friend Gina
Horswood was to be Jon’s opening act, we were even more motivated to attend his
show. We did, and the experience was transformative.
With
no expectations we were blindsided by the power of Jon’s songs, and by his playful
interaction with his audience. All music lovers experience this upon occasion,
wherein the musical performance is so powerful that audience members look
around to see if others are as amazed as they are. We had the distinct
impression that we were in the company of greatness. Jon’s excellent word-crafting,
his ability to paint clear pictures in our minds, his rich, gravelly voice, and
his unique, percussive style of the guitar playing, were all captivating. Near
the end of his set, he played “The Only Good Thing Is An Old Dog”, an
unsettling and strangely tongue in cheek song about a mass murderer who slaughters 60+ people in the workplace. Somehow, he made that grizzly, over-the-top tale,
spellbinding. What a remarkable storyteller Jon is.
It
is our hope that one day everyone will know what we know about the brilliant
mind of Jon Brooks. He takes risks with his subject matter, unabashedly disregarding
the laws of marketability. Perhaps this scares some people away, but it doesn’t
bother me. Among his 7 albums released to date ,in his Ours And The Shepherds album, Jon tells war stories.
His album The Smiling and Beautiful Countryside is a collection of
murder ballads. He has a respectable following throughout the world, and is clearly
appreciated in songwriting circles, but he has, in my opinion, never achieved
the appropriate recognition due a songwriter of his caliber. While this baffles
me, so does much of what passes for good songwriting these days. While Jon’s themes
are sometimes off-putting, his musicality, his delivery, and the overall
quality of his songwriting is so good that it simply demands our attention.
Clearly, he strives not to appear didactic or judgmental, and he remains
deceptively neutral in the stories he tells. Still, he begs us to examine our moral
compass; our humanity. Listen to songs like “When We Go”, or What’s
Within Us from the newly released Moth Nor Rust II, or Mimico
from Ours And The Shepherds, and I think you’ll agree that these are
amazing songs wrapped in mesmerizing melodies.
Last Friday night, we had the good fortune to see Jon perform up in South River
with the very able accompaniment of Vivienne Wilder on double bass and backup vocals.
It was my 6th Jon Brooks concert, Shauna’s 4th, and we were both as impressed as
we had been the first time we saw him perform. I realize how self-righteous it
is of me to say “Listen to this guy, he’s great.”, but listen to this guy. I think
you’ll agree, he IS great.
Jamie Oppenheimer,
Songwriter, Author, Blogger, Radio Producer, & Host has been writing THE
OPPENHEIMER REPORT every MONDAY since 1992 and has published the articles on
his blog since 2006. We are including Jamie's weekly reports, as a feature
of #HuntersBayRadio, The Bay 88.7FM.
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