By MICHAEL ARDAIOLA

One look at the cover of guitarist Richard Leo Johnson’s latest album, with its sepia-toned photograph of a serious-looking Johnson seated with a Duolian steel-bodied guitar, and you might expect a radical departure from Poetry of Appliance (Cuneiform, 2004). And you’d not be far from wrong. Unlike Johnson's last record, which featured his esoteric working trio and a multiplicity of guitars, The Legend of Vernon McAlister is a true solo album—one man, one guitar.
Equally, the Americana of “Morning Glory,” where Johnson layers an elliptically Frisellian melody over propulsive strumming, would certainly suggest he’s gone all folksy. But while he’s always been equal parts Leo Kottke and Steve Tibbetts, it would be cavalier to assess the record on the basis of that opening track alone. As it abruptly ends, an ambient wash segues into “Love and Trouble,” a minor-key tune where fingerpicking, slide and heavily processed sonics create something that’s as idiosyncratically Johnson as Frisell’s skewed version of Americana is his own.
The album’s premise revolves around Vernon McAlister—the original owner of the guitar Johnson uses, given to him by a neighbour who simply said, “See what you can do with this.” Knowing nothing about the enigmatic McAlister, Johnson set about creating a cycle of miniatures best experienced as a whole—few of the twenty tracks break the three-minute mark, and a third of them are under two. Artists often talk about their albums having narrative flow, but in this case it’s true. Some pieces have strong thematic motifs, while others are purely textural and only work as linking passages between more conventionally structured songs. Review Continued>>>