David Johansen And The Harry Smiths: David Johansen And The Harry Smiths

If eccentric filmmaker and folk archivist Harry Smith were alive today, he'd likely find David Johansen a suitably strange subject. Johansen, of course, was the drag-queen singer of the Stones-influenced pre-punk band New York Dolls, a Harry Belafonte-inspired calypso singer under the name Buster Poindexter, and an occasional Hollywood actor, all different hats to complement one ugly face. Johansen takes another turn toward the unexpected with David Johansen And The Harry Smiths. With a crack band of musicians (drummer Joey Baron and bassist Kermit Driscoll, both borrowed from Bill Frisell, and guitarists Larry Saltzman and Brian Koonin from The Golden Palominos and The Buster Poindexter Band, respectively), the album offers surprisingly sensitive takes on the sort of traditional blues, folk, and country Smith documented on collections such as Anthology Of American Folk Music. What Smith originally discovered is that some of this stuff is far stranger than any modern songwriter might imagine, but Johansen treats songs by the likes of Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt, and a half-dozen or so traditional pieces of unknown origin with great respect. Johansen's voice, once exploited to near minstrel effect, is here an instrument of great nuance, finding the creaky nooks and crannies of such songs as "Darling, Do You Remember Me," "Delia," "Well, I've Been To Memphis," and "Oh Death." The disc is a treat through and through, a modern but by no means modernized portrait of early Americana played with just the right level of yearning and sadness.