Johnson, Will
No Ordinary Crown (black)
Will Johnson's ninth solo album 'No Ordinary Crown' hums with palpable motion. Travelers, runners and conductors fill its lyrics, and gesticulating storms and emotional highs and lows seep through the instinctual quality of its rock 'n roll performances. It's also cabled by ephemeral momentum. The songs were conceived in stolen moments and brief windows of time between the responsibilities of family and a multi-hyphenate career. The singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, painter and novelist describes the demo process as a gathering and stitching of audio snippets recorded via cell phone and dictaphone over a year and half. With 'No Ordinary Crown', people may behave badly, and the road may get rough, but the reward is in the journey.