John McDonough
Album: Dreams And Imagination
Label: McDonough
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.johnmcdonoughlive.com

An Austin-based singer-songwriter and erstwhile psychotherapist, McDonough's a jobbing musician whose spent the past 20 years playing covers and self-penned material around the city's bars, halls and even restaurants. During that time he's also self-released five albums and, if this latest one is indicative, he certainly deserves a much wider stage and audience.

His warm, easy vocal style's drawn comparisons to Elton John and Harry Chapin, and you can hear the former 's influence on piano ballad (I Need You Here) You're All That Matters while the latter 's spirit can be traced in McDonough's delivery of (I Love You More Than Yesterday) I Love You Now (a song about two lovers separated by the Berlin Wall). That said, the intro to slow building opening track I Wish I Could Fly is more likely to put you in mind of Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth.

Titles like those above, I've Loved You For So Long and the marching beat I'm Home are clearly concerned with matters of the heart, as is You Don't Know This, but there's protest and social comment here. Say My Name is themed around the treatment of Native Americans, the character in the lyrics defiantly refusing to live on a reservation, while Let Justice Ring, featuring Ginger Leigh on harmonies, finds an old singer-activist reflecting on a time when it all seemed possible and the brooding, cello-stained Lay Your Burden Down is a hauntingly intriguing offering that, as well as referencing his former profession, talks about struggle, dreams, fatigue of the soul, fall from grace and search for redemption.

With the catchy strummed Planes Fly Too Low with its crowd-friendly chorus hook and circling electric guitar riff showing he can turn up the tempo as well as weave more intimate moods, McDonough may not be the stuff of which Johns and Chapins are made, but he assuredly warrants your investigation.

Mike Davies