ALBUM REVIEW: Jon Dee Graham Dies But Lives to Tell About It on ‘Only Dead for a Little While’

It might sound like the stuff of mythmaking, but Jon Dee Graham died for a moment a few years ago. He passed out after a long set at festival in the hot summer sun, coming back to life thanks to the reviving power of AEDs, and perhaps some greater force that sensed it wasn’t his time to go. His latest record, Only Dead for a Little While, is some kind of proof of life from the Texan stalwart, and just like a defibrillator, it brings him back with a jolt. For his first release in almost a decade, Graham growls his way to salvation, reflecting on where he’s been and where he may be headed next.

Jon Dee Graham (photo by Darin Back)

Reckoning with mortality isn’t new territory for Graham, but the resonance is more profound than ever this time. Sometimes it’s a little melancholy, as with a song like “Astronaut,” a lonely plea for connection anchored by deep, rich acoustic guitar and what sounds like a particularly haunting echo of pedal steel. Other times it’s sweet, like on “Brought Me Here to You,” in which Graham finds some peace in where he is now, grateful for whatever winding road he had to roam to get here. There’s some spirituality looming too, which Graham taps into via a cut of the Reverend Gary Davis’ “Death Ain’t Got No Mercy,” helped along by guitars equal parts slinky and percussive, like a foreboding ticking clock.

“See You By the Fire” finds Graham greeting a beloved friend in the afterlife, recalling all the ways he holds them close. “Still keep your number in the contacts on my phone / Along with 6 or 7 other good friends of mine who have gone / Start to delete ’em but I have to say / I never do just in case I wanna call them up some day,” he rasps.

Only Dead for a Little While has one foot on the ground and the other in a phantom orbit populated by the spirits of those who’ve passed on. It’s clear that Graham is channeling his own experience with and ruminations on death through these songs, though it never veers into a place too gloomy or hopeless. Instead, he finds levity in the memories and in accepting the inevitability that everyone will depart this earthly realm eventually, even him.

Jon Dee Graham’s Only Dead for a Little While is out Nov. 10 on Strolling Bones Records.