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  • Streaming + Download

    Immediate download of Like a Father to a Son in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire. Your payment is mightily appreciated and goes directly towards my livelihood as a musician, singer-songwriter, and artist called by God to keep doing this.
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    The original CD issue (note: the download version has 8 bonus tracks, which you get free with the CD purchase. The CD has the original track assignment.

    Includes unlimited streaming of SNAPSHOTS: LIVE & HALF-PLUGGED Expanded Reissue via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    Get all 31 Johnny J Blair "Singer at Large" releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of FIRE, Mutiny Radio - Interview & Music, Frontiers of Love (The Celtic Phase EP), UNITED single + remixes, I LIKE THE STREET, LOST & FOUND VOL. 3: PURE POP MUSIC Deep Cuts & Rarities, "(AND YOU CAN) COLOUR MY WORLD" + FUTURE FLASHBACKS, BILLTOWN BUS STOP RADIO HOUR WITH MIKE GARSON, and 23 more. , and , .

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about

“Telling tales about the One,
Who stilled the storms and walked on water…”

"Like a Father to a Son" is an open story-song--you can find your own meanings in this song. The lyrics came from dreams about the Old West and California, imagining late night tale-telling and Bible quoting around a campfire on a prairie trail. The music and vocal style is modeled after Gerry Rafferty's "Long Way 'Round" and The Beach Boys "Leavin' This Town" (Blondie Chaplin and Carl Wilson for singing style)--there's a little PET SOUNDS and “Til I Die”-style orchestration in there too, and a quote from Dennis Wilson in the second verse.

I wrote this early in 2002 while I was in Pennsylvania, feeling some kind of homesickness for California. The song served as a metaphorical connection, like a secret transcontinental train line, between the two geographical places, both of which have allures and history that somehow compliment one another:

“Over valleys over mountains,
Found somewhere safer from the cold
Starting drinking from the fountain
Makes you wise as you get bold…”

Tim Breon was at the mixing board for this track. It’s one of my personal favorite recordings.

credits

from SNAPSHOTS: LIVE & HALF​-​PLUGGED Expanded Reissue, released September 11, 2003
JJB: bass, keyboards, percussion, all vocals

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Johnny J Blair "Singer at Large" San Francisco, California

"Johnny is a virtuoso"--Brian Wilson
"Pop music with a conscience.”--Goldmine
“the Harry Houdini of rock and roll.”-- Spotlight. Listen to Johnny's fast-paced mix of old school soul, psychedelia, punk/new wave, & classic pop/rock. Singer-songwriter in his own right, he was also a sideman for Davy Jones and The Monkees + performed with David Cassidy, Al Stewart, Buddy & Julie Miller, & others. ... more

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