Johnny Nicholas - Broke Again (1988, rel. 2007)

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The lonesome rocking cowboy

He is from Rhode Island, lived in Ann Arbor (Michigan), San Francisco, Chicago before settling down in Texas, where he opened a roadside restaurant with his wife in 1981 (the Hill Top Café near Fredericksburg, about a hundred km west of Austin). He has founded bands with Duke Robillard and Ronnie Earl, been a member of Asleep at the Wheel from 1978 to 1981, made several albums with Big Walter Horton, toured and/or recorded with an impressive list of famous bluesmen : One String Sam, Eddie Taylor, Billy Boy Arnold, Houston Stackhouse, Boogie Woogie Red, Robert Pete Williams, Robert Lockwood Jr., Johnny Shines, Snooky Pryor, Roosevelt Sykes… He writes his own material. His cowboy look is a mix of Calvin Russell and Tom Waits. His name is unknown to most people. He is Johnny Nicholas and his album "Broke Again" is really a kick.

Recorded in 1988 and released that same year on cassette, it was re-issued on CD only in 2007 — another incomprehensible mystery of the music business considering the quality of the record ! Texas blues, western swing, country-rock… whatever it may be qualified, it takes us for a journey through a kind a mythical West with images of cowboys driving pick-ups and drinking beers on the front porch of roadside bars, seated in old rocking chairs with their Mexican boots laying on the balustrade.

Equally at ease on hot Texas rock numbers and on soul titles, Nicholas produces a special exciting pounding sound of his own due to deliberately pushing the bass drum and bass guitar up front.

Texas style rock'n'roll holds the foreground of the show, but the shadow of T-Bone Walker is hanging around. "Broke Again" demonstrates how much rock'n'roll owes to blues. The outstanding barn burner "Curb Your Dog" is built on a swinging kind of off-beat groove of the rhythm guitar, enlightened by top slide guitar work. Personally my favorite track. The heavy "Terminal Love", a typical Texas rock piece with its kind of hypnotic chorus, is followed by the hot rod piano boogie "Ride Your Train" that rocks and rolls down the hard way carrying us back in the late 1950s with retro guitar solos, just like its follower, the humorous "My Rice Ain't Got No Gravy" featuring great harmonica by Nicholas himself.

Everybody knows cowboys have a romantic heart hidden behind their tough guy looks. Nicholas can also venture in more soul grounds : the melancholic "Visitor In My Dreams" has a New Orleans piano style and a simple but very efficient obsessive chorus made of just a few notes. The powerful "Too Many Bad Habits", if not a soul song, also has a New Orleans touch mixed with a typical Texas beat.

En route for a nostalgic vision of a mythical old West enlightened by mandolin and a very appropriate fiddle with three melancholic country & western songs : "Prodigal Son's Waltz", "Glad To Get To Hell" and "Lonesome Traveler" with great harmonica from Nicholas again.

Blues isn't forgotten even if "Thick And Thin" and its roots dobro, flirts with country and rock'n'roll.

Nicholas appears as a very efficient songwriter : his lyrics are refined to the essential, and he has a talent to find gripping choruses. Same thing for the arrangements : the songs (most of them under 3 minutes) are equally refined until reaching their quintessential level, keeping the album under the 37- minute marker. Quality rather than  quantity. There's an undefinable special something in this album that makes it sound totally exciting and unique. I just fell in love with it. ■

Interviews
● Special performance and interview, MusicTown studio, 2018 : https://youtu.be/V-WLSgIO7lM
● In 2017 : https://youtu.be/StA0ylZ6OCo

Johnny Nicholas live

● "Mistaken Identity" album release concert, 2021 : https://youtu.be/o3ReLYQ9Ojw

● "Too Many Bad Habits" with Los Texmaniacs, Vancouver, 2019 : https://youtu.be/RU07N97swq4
● Thouars Blues Festival, France, 2019 : https://youtu.be/8XFgf56hwlM
[Denis Agenet : drums, Abdell B. Bop : upright bass, Matthieu Wanderscheid : guitar.]
● Kerrville Folk Festival, 2019 : https://youtu.be/iuFuGMjdYC4
● "Roll on Mississippi" with "Scrappy" Jud Newcomb (mandolin) and John Chipman (drums), 2018 : https://youtu.be/5yU5K6k40sQ
● Rhode Island, 2018 :
→ https://youtu.be/xGFc9moeO_0
→ https://youtu.be/uRVkwGbECBE

● With The Delinquent, The Saxon Pub, Austin, Texas, 2018 :
→ #1 : https://youtu.be/JlDOWLVxLWA
→ #2 : https://youtu.be/9hf6A3Oimsc
● "Too Many Bad Habits", Detroit, 2018 : https://youtu.be/Ydl5bhl0Emc● "Too Many Bad Habits" album release show, 2017 : https://youtu.be/B-zrDAwF8IE

● The Saxon Pub, Austin, Texas, 2017 :

→ #1 : https://youtu.be/bNFoJkrxp8M

→ #2 : https://youtu.be/bTThMpMT7ac

→ #3 : https://youtu.be/NUrzOtr3G8k

→ #4 : https://youtu.be/402Ut_gvDdc

● With Los Texmaniacs, The Knickerbocker, 2017 : https://youtu.be/MzQT2FLpHQs

● Duo with uncredited guitarist, The Bull Run, 2017 : https://youtu.be/FteCo5axHsM

● With Bruce Hughes & John Chipman, Guero's Oak Garden, Austin, 2016 :
→ #1 : https://youtu.be/Y4U0gBDFIkw
→ #2 : https://youtu.be/GI23r7H8Dek
→ #3 : https://youtu.be/lhE9ph7T388
→ #4 : https://youtu.be/rJ1q-nshIL0
● "Farther Along", 2016 : https://youtu.be/isu859QjzU4
● The Saxon Pub, Austin, with the Hell Bent band (1), 2016 :
→ "Broke Again" : https://youtu.be/gIdlEz6Mc7c
→ "Play Me Like You Play Your Guitar" : https://youtu.be/sXnxlHVPiSM
● With Hell Bent, 2016 : https://youtu.be/XC-IUkAcj9I

Cindy Cashdollar

● Abbeville, Louisiana, with Sam Broussard & David Greely (of Steve Riley’s Mamou Playboys), Chris Maresh & John Chipman, 2015 :
→ "Preaching the Blues" : https://youtu.be/TNsJCMGdVe8
→ "How To Follow A Broken Heart" : https://youtu.be/cDMm17npLlA
→ "Play Your Guitar" : https://youtu.be/V8TY4kEHYjU
→ "Too Many Bad Habits" : https://youtu.be/mZCMbSL5puc
● Send-off concert for Cindy Cashdollar with Hell Bent, Austin, 2015 :
→ First Set : https://youtu.be/kNgazmT9CVE
→ "The Weight" : https://youtu.be/frCvehEKrZ0
[Johnny Nicholas : guitar, harmonica, keyboards, vocals. Earl Poole Ball : keyboards. 'Scrappy' Judd Newcomb : guitar. Bruce Hughes : bass. Sarah Brown : bass. John Chipman : drums.]
● "Preachin' Blues", The Saxon Pub, Austin, 2014 : https://youtu.be/FFIEmuO5ygU

● Café 9, New Haven, Connecticut, with Hell Bent, 2013 :
→ "Leaving Trunk" : https://youtu.be/erq0PrCG__Y
→ "Broke-Down Engine Blues" : https://youtu.be/Tk7IK63cS2s
→ "Hard Time Livin'" : https://youtu.be/q2CqbUZ8jbQ
● "I Could've had Religion" with Sarah Brown, Cindy Cashdollar, Denny Freeman & George Rains, Antone's 38th Anniversary, Austin, 2013 : https://youtu.be/lYjsg2A3kjc
● With Hell Bent, Rhythm and Roots Fest., Charlestown, Rhode Island, 2012 : https://youtu.be/fA1yYBDgNwo
● "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" with Hell Bent, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 2011 : https://youtu.be/h3B_atIInUg

(1) Note  about Hell Bent : the band was originally formed with some of the players Nicholas and producer/bass player Bruce Hughes assembled for the 2011 "Future Blues" album : steel and slide guitarist Cindy Cashdollar, drummer John Chipman, accordionnist and keyboardist Joel Guzman, guitarist “Scrappy” Jud Newcomb and some special guests such as Sam Broussard and David Greely (of Steve Riley’s Mamou Playboys) and blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan. In the following years the band's geometry changed according to each member schedule, but basically featured "Scrappy" Judd Newcomb , Bruce Hughes, John Chipman and, until 2015, Cindy Cashdollar.