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  • Streaming + Download

    Immediate download of The Compleat Angler (remastered) 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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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    We recently found a short stack of the original issue LP as it appeared on record store racks in 1985. Johnny is signing each of these copies while they last!

    Includes unlimited streaming of DOOR IN THE WATER 25th Anniversary Expanded Edition via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days
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  • Full Digital Discography

    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

“As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.”—Isaak Walton.

Friends were amused by my interest in this topic, as I am a terrible fisherman.

“The Compleat Angler” was the title of a wildly popular book published in 1653. It was written by an iron-monger named Isaak Walton (who was also friends with legendary poet John Donne). After the success of “Angler” (and, later, a biography series on famous Brits), Walton spent the last 40 years of his life as a Celebrity Fisherman “gone fishing” (mostly in the company of clergymen).

The book celebrates the art and gentility of fishing. The virtues of being with bait and water are expounded with light-hearted wit. Walton lived to be 89 years old, and in his lifetime the book went through over 13 reprintings. Years marched on, and Walton’s book was name-checked in popular culture by Charles Dickens, Zane Grey, Thomas Hardy, and in a 1946 “Sherlock Holmes” film starring Basil Rathbone.

My introduction to “Angler” came via famed British keyboardist-singer Gary Brooker (of Procol Harum and the George Harrison/Ringo Starr orbit). He is, apparently, a fisherman, and he referenced Walton’s book on his excellent 1982 album, LEAD ME TO THE WATER.

On my recording, the keyboard and water layers were inspired by Mike Oldfield’s “Hergest Ridge,” and it became an instrumental “bridge track” for on my first album, DOOR IN THE WATER. The DX7 keyboard gets a workout. The keyboard itself was once owned by Michael Jackson (the studio I recorded at did the backline for The Jacksons's Victory Tour).

The busy tapping-bass imagines dragonflies skirting over a forest stream, with fishermen about, waiting in quietude for the fish to bite.

Photo: Viator's bridge near Milldale (Peak District) is named for its reference in the book THE COMPLEAT ANGLER.

credits

from DOOR IN THE WATER 25th Anniversary Expanded Edition, released April 23, 1985
Johnny J Blair: bass, keyboards.

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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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