John Doe “Keeper”
John Doe’s voice was like the sound of a storm cloud over a city on fire. The city was Los Angeles. The storm was a sun shower named Exene Cervenka, Doe’s wife and partner in the positively essential Punk band, X. As a couple, they were more charismatic and fun than Lindsey and Stevie. As punk rock royalty, John and Exene proved more enduring and lovable than Thurston and Kim (even despite the fact they divorced way back in 1985). And as a frontman, Hollywood could not have cast a cooler, young L.A. cowpunk. Handsome and wise, younger John Doe looked something like Bill Paxton with Jeff Bridges hair and a neon guitar. He was fucking perfect.
By the early 1990s, X had become the band that critics and bands loved but whose records could not sell and whose songs could not get played on the radio. They survived as a touring concern but, even at the height of Alternative Rock, Doe understandably concluded that there was no point making new X records if people didn’t want to hear them. He would continue to tour occasionally with his bandmates but opted to make different, and less expensive records, out of reach from the pressures and scale of major record labels.
Nearly seventy now and thirty years into a decorated solo career, Doe has spent his second act answering the question: who is John Doe when there is no city on fire and no storm below? Is he one half of Punk Rock’s Richard and Linda Thompson? Is he a character actor in arthouse films? Is he a godfather of Cowpunk, Psychobilly and a big strain of Alternative Country Music? Or is he just a troubadour, making a living writing and playing his bittersweet Country-ish Rockabilly songs for discerning middle agers?
The answer is, of course, yes to all of the above. Since his self-titled debut in 1990, John Doe has been whittling away at his songs and his identity. For most of the 90s and early 00s, he bounced from tiny indie label to indie label like a legendary, vintage car to parade out once a year before the owner realizes that the purchase requires long term investment and maintenance. Most of these records were darn good. A couple were better than that. But none crossed over from “Indie” or “Alt Country,” in spite of the critical support and public praise from the many famous John Doe fans. Some of the records were more Folksy. Some were more Nashville. Some sounded like later X records. On each album, female singers would step in for some of Exene’s parts. It all had the feeling of restlessness. Until, eventually, on the other side of fifty, John Doe settled in. By 2005, he landed at Yep Roc Records, a label he could stick with and a label that was in for the haul. And it was there that he found his mission: To write love songs where the people in the songs are actually loved.
“Keeper” from 2011, is John Doe’s ninth solo album (exclusive from his work with The Knitters and his album billed alongside Jill Sobule). He struck a deal with Producer Dave Way, who had mixed and engineered many big records for artists in his area code, like Fiona Apple and Sheryl Crow. Way offered to record Doe in a proper studio for a flat fee, regardless of how long it took. For many years, John Doe had lived hand to mouth. He would tour and then write and record in short spurts when a label or patron would get him a small advance. “Keeper” would be different. For the first time in at least twenty years, he had the time to write the songs and stories he wanted to since and the space to fill them with all the empathy and heart he could muster. He would be fifty eight when it was released. He’d remarried. He had three daughters. He didn’t live in L.A. anymore. Nothing about him was on fire. There was no storm. To the contrary, on “Keeper,” was happy and in love.
Given the opportunity, the results, curiously, were mixed. It seems that through Dave Way, his friend Joe Henry and his many admirers, John Doe was able to cash in some favors for “Keeper.” Don Was plays on the record. Patty Griffin and Jill Sobule step into Exene’s parts. The twelve songs organize themselves roughly into two varieties -- the stripped down sort and the bulked up sort. Though all of the songs are spare at heart and could have been rendered with just the singer, a guitar and a duet partner, nearly half of “Keeper” receives horn sections, fiddle and slide guitar. Unto itself, these are not bad things. In fact they can be great things. Some part of John Doe always thought of The Band as a Punk band. You can hear that in both X and some of his early solo records. But there is also part of John Doe that heard something wild and -- yes -- Punk in late 60s and early 70s Rolling Stones. Not an honesty or amateurishness in sound, but a power and cocksureness. On “Keeper,” when John Doe is not intent on slowing things down, it seems that he and his producer want to evoke “Sticky Fingers” -- the organ, the horns, the swirl of it all. Amazingly, the band is able enough to emulate some of that spirit. But the biggest problem with Keeper is that it aspires to be a sound that it, in spite of its great intentions and excellent players, simply cannot muster.
In 2011, John Doe was many things. But he was no longer renegade and carefree. He was the opposite, in fact. He was rooted and full of care. So when a song like “Never Enough,” a simple but insightful rave-up about out of control desire for more -- more stuff, more power, more money -- gets filled in with honky tonk piano and Memphis horns, it sounds like a Stones’ outtake recorded underwater. Similarly, “Jump Into My Arms” starts as a clever Rockabilly love song that inverts traditional gender stereotypes before the guitar duel and piano overruns the number. There are several moments on “Keeper” wherein you feel like what gets lost amid the great talent, bittersweet stories and majestic, minor chord float of John Doe’s voice is -- well -- the songs.
To be clear, there is not a single moment on “Keeper” that feels like a total misfire. The heart of my criticism is my admiration for the singer and songwriter. I love John Doe when he sings big, unexpected choruses. I love the way his flat, angry, disaffected voice grew bruised with kindness and sadness over time. I love the way he harmonizes, seemingly incapable of finding the melody until, almost accidentally, he and his duet partner land on the same note. I guess I figured that, with more time, budget and collaborators, he’d be able to do that twelve times in twelve tracks. I can put some of the blame on the production, but the truth is that several of these songs were just not as good as the singer or the ideas within them.
When he is good, though, John Doe is great. His love songs to his daughters (I presume), “Don’t Forget How Much I Love You” and “Little Tiger” are touching and sentimental in the smartest possible way. They are wholly paternal without ever sounding Paternalistic. Throughout “Keeper,” Doe surprises with insight and, even, feminism. “Giant Step Backward” recognizes, and then aches for, the time in the beginning when there was love and empathy where there is now work and resentment. He knows that the only way forward is to step back. The chorus is huge and sad. She’s left him and he knows that he cannot and should not chase her forward. Simply, achingly, deeply, he sings:
You’ve taken off
& I’m taken aback
I’ll take a giant step backwards
To bring you back
“Walking Out the Door” is the story of a long distance romance wherein the singer notices that She only shows her love when he’s leaving. Ironically, he loves those moments and wishes she could always love him the way he does when he’s leaving. Like the best John Doe songs, it’s a simple Country Rockabilly song about a very complicated sort of love.
Along the way, John Doe offers two covers -- a very delicate, jazzy Blues take on Earl Jackson’s “Moonbeam,” and a grown up and downshifted version of X’s “Painting the Town Blue,” from 1983s “More Fun in the Modern World.” Where the original X song sounded damaged and retro, with John and Exene trading front and back, the update sounds nostalgic and mindful of the cliche that “youth is wasted on the young.”
“Keeper” is a slightly uneven record from a consistent and reliable artist who is both better and more important than his considerable reputation. Nearing sixty, he was still very much in his prime. What he lacked in speed, he made up for in wisdom. And while the fire was not dangerous, his heart was all embers. Though he was not living in the storm, his voice still floated high enough to make room for rain and sun beneath. And, notably, on “Keeper” he had achieved his most important and most demanding goal -- to write love songs about being loved.