Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon ''Breakin' Down The Walls Of Heartache: The Best Of 1968-1975''

Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon

''Breakin' Down The Walls Of Heartache: The Best Of 1968-1975''
( Compilation, Kent Records, UK, 2008 )
Catalog # 307

Tracklisting:

1 Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache (Linzer, Randell) 2:36
2 When Love Has Gone Away (Lilljequist) 3:08
3 Let's Hang On (Crewe, Linzer, Randell) 3:07
4 Stoned Soul Picnic (Nyro) 3:05
5 I Ain't Lyin' (Johnson) 2:08
6 Baby, Make Your Own Sweet Music (Linzer, Randell) 3:00
7 On the Day We Fall in Love (Linzer) 2:46
8 Dancing Master (Linzer, Randell) 3:10
9 I Wish It Would Rain (Penzabene, Strong, Whitfield) 2:55
10 You Blew Your Cool and Lost Your Fool (Fullilove) 2:46
11 Are You Ready for This (Adams, Barkan, Ross) 2:31
12 People Got to Be Free (Brigati, Cavaliere) 2:56
13 Don't Let It In (Fullilove) 3:03
14 You (Randell) 2:48
15 Girl from Harlem (Linzer, Randell) 3:13
16 Sweet Inspiration (Cameron) 3:06
17 In the Bad Bad Old Days (Before You Loved Me) (Macaulay, MacLeod) 3:09
18 United We Stand (Goodison, Hiller) 2:35
19 Sally, Put Your Red Shoes On (Cook, Greenaway, Macaulay) 2:57
20 Mr. Tambourine Man (Dylan) 3:07
21 Blame It (On the Pony Express) (Cook, Greenaway, Macaulay) 3:05
22 Gasoline Alley Bred (Cook, Greenaway, Macaulay) 3:35
23 High and Dry (Macaulay) 2:32
24 Music to My Heart (Knight, Neiman) 2:21

Notes:
Nick Robbins - Mastering
Tony Rounce - Liner Notes, Compilation

Review:
Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon were kind of oddballs as soul groups went, not so much for their music as for their unusual career path. Though Johnson and his group had little success in their native U.S., it was a different story over in the U.K., where they landed three Top Ten hits and a couple smaller ones in the late '60s and early '70s. This well-chosen compilation has a couple dozen of their tracks, all but one from 1967-1972 (the 1968-1975 date range of the title being off by one year), variously billed to the Bandwagon, Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon, or Johnny Johnson & His Bandwagon. Certainly the biggest and best of them is the 1968 number four British hit "Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache," which sounds a little like a Motown record that you think you must have heard sometime on AM radio, but haven't (and which was later covered by Dexys Midnight Runners). None of the other late-'60s cuts are in the same league, and the Bandwagon often sound like a Motown group that couldn't quite stay on the roster. Sometimes, indeed, it seems as if they can't decide whether to emulate the Four Tops or the tougher side of the Temptations, sometimes coming off like a somewhat poppier version of the Four Tops. But while Johnson was far from the most original or talented of artists (and there are a few forgettable covers of soul and rock hits padding out his recorded repertoire), the discs he cut for Epic were on the whole pretty likable, if a little lightweight in their somewhat ersatz Motown feel. The Epic material takes up almost two-thirds of this compilation, but the disc does also include just slightly poppier stuff he did in the early '70s, including the big British hits "Blame It (On the Pony Express)" -- whose chorus lifts a hook from the theme to the Scooby Doo cartoon -- and "Sweet Inspiration." Also among the later cuts is what has to be the strangest cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man" this side of William Shatner, done with such an overt belting early-'70s soul arrangement that you might not even recognize the song until the chorus.
By Richie Unterberger (AMG)

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