Daniel Johnston – The Early Recordings, Volume 1

This double-disc set comprises the first two releases by Daniel Johnston, recorded more than twenty years ago. Beset by mental and emotional problems, Johnston used songwriting as a sort of personal exorcism, unmasking his own troubles either in direct first person or via equally riveting third-person narratives.

Yet his writing is much more than merely therapeutic self-examination. It is informed and inspired by the same traditions of songcraft that were the hallmark of Johnston’s heroes, the Beatles. In fact, listening to Johnston’s music as tilted offerings by the Fab Four places it in its proper context.

As with all of Johnston’s work at the time, these songs were self-distributed as homemade cassettes sold to a small following in Austin, Texas. His fans included members of the local music scene who began covering his songs (including Zeitgeist, True Believers and the Texas Instruments), creating a buzz which brought Johnston to the attention of MTV’s The Cutting Edge show and, eventually, his first indie-label releases.

Recorded in his parents’ basement in West Virginia in the early 1980s, Songs Of Pain and its successor, More Songs Of Pain, have the immediacy and passion of field recordings, plus the pop smarts of a true music fan. While he’s been grouped variously with lo-fi practitioners and even the avant garde, these recordings would not been out of place on Folkways (had Moses Asch been born a generation or two later than he was).

There’s a primitive quality to these 37 songs, but that element is particular to the recording quality, not to Johnston’s aims and interests as a writer and performer. He knows what he’s doing, but he went through the recording process with the most basic recording equipment. That he used sub-studio, KMart-level cheap consumer products and was able to capture the undeniable urgency in his songs is a testament to his skills. His personal troubles do not imply similar aberrations in his art — quite the contrary.

Artists including Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Wilco and Built To Spill have covered Johnston’s songs for the simple reason that they’re great songs. Hearing them here in their unchecked romantic glory is a powerful treat. Self-recorded and performed, they resonate in a way that his more recent proper producer/studio efforts achieve only sporadically, having sacrificed not just these potent sonic edges but a bit of Daniel as well.