It’s rare for someone to play guitar with a style that can be described as unassuming, yet impressive enough to stop you in your tracks. John Jennings, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s longtime guitarist, arranger and producer, does an exemplary job of it on his solo CD Buddy. It’s a gentle mix of jazzy, folksy blues, one of those ideal lazy Sunday morning selections.
Starkly produced by Jennings and Bob Dawson, Buddy features Jennings on acoustic and electric guitars, lap steel, slide, dobro, some of the bass and even a bit of piano, in addition to singing. The album is easy to take for granted because of its unpretentiousness and just-another-folksinger sound, but more focused listening reveals Jennings’ fingerprints. The guitar work is beautiful, with both electric and acoustic solos sparsely sprinkled throughout, and Jennings lyrics are literary and distinct. The short-story-esque opener, “Walking to China”, finds the narrator walking down Route 30 pining for money and cigarettes: “Some guy in a Greyhound opens his window/Threw something at me and missed by a mile/Was one dollar bill and a half pack of Newports/It must be the future when Jesus takes the bus.”
Jennings runs through many moods, from the jazzy acoustic blues of “A Third Of The World” to the dark and edgy rock of “Run Run Run”, the latter featuring some of the best riffs on the record. He also has a wicked sense of humor, breaking things up with “Everybody Loves Me”, a sarcastic tribute to megalomaniacs, and the closing “Monday Night”, an accordion-accompanied Cajun romp about boredom with that particular day of the week.
“This New World Order thing has gone a little far/Unless you let ’em hear you they will not know where you are,” Jennings sings, and while he says he’ll work with Chapin Carpenter “as long as she’ll have me,” it’s a treat that he’s stepped out to be heard clearly on his own for just a moment.