Ethan Johns and support act Moteh Parrot

Ethan Johns is renowned for the vividness and purity of his productions with the likes of Ryan Adams, Ray La Montagne, Laura Marling and Paul McCartney. But Johns has always worn more than one hat; for starters, he’s an accomplished musician on a variety of instruments. He first came into view as the drummer/guitar player with Crosby, Stills and Nash and then as a guitarist in Emmylou Harris’ band, and subsequently, as a producer, Johns frequently contributed on both sides of the control room glass. He played all the lead guitars, drums, bass and piano on La Montagne’s 2004 breakthrough debut album, Trouble, for example, while handling a variety of instrumental duties on the various Adams LPs he helmed. More recently, the rarefied level of this polymath’s talents as a songwriter and performer have been revealed through his belated entry into the artist arena.

“There’s never really been much of a distinguishing demarcation,” Johns begins, “between the way I ‘produce’ records and the way I am as a musician, sideman, whatever it is that I’m doing—I’m just somebody who just does music in a bunch of different roles. For the first 25 years of my career, the stuff that was getting released was me collaborating with other people—just being a musician. As for my own stuff, it was enough for me to just write and record them at home. I never really thought about putting them out; I don’t really know why.

“The only thing that’s changed is now I’m releasing them,” he continues, “but I feel like I’ve joined the two ends of the circle together, and I’m exercising every aspect of what I do, and that’s very fulfilling to me. I’m learning more, and it’s allowing me to progress as a writer and as a musician. If you don’t play the songs you write live, if you don’t share your music with other musicians, you can stagnate. So the experience of making my own music has benefited me as a musician, and it’s making me a better producer as well; it allowed me to get deeper into understanding what artists go through when they make records, and I’m a lot more empathetic, because I’m going through the same stuff.”

When plotting Silver Liner, by contrast, Johns decided to return to his sweet spot, assembling a virtuosic set of core players—pedal steel legend BJ Cole, in demand bass player Nick Pini and drummer Jeremy Stacey, who would be entrusted with producing, engineering and mixing the album in Stacey’s own London studio—the aim being to capture the moment so fully and with such immediacy that the term “performance” no longer applies.

“It was important to me to put a band together on this record because I wanted to cut it live,” he explains. “I just wanted to play guitar and sing. What knocks me out about this record is what everyone else is playing in it. The musicianship from the band is extraordinary.” The album’s emotional resonance is deepened by Cole’s evocative playing. “I really wanted a pedal steel on this record, and BJ uses the instrument in a unique way; he’s a fascinating character to play with. I was really fortunate to get him. It was a fantastic experience to be in the room with that band playing those tunes. And besides being a great drummer, Jeremy did a brilliant job on the production and sound. He’s an incredible creative force.”

“I know what this record is about, but I don’t want to plant any seeds of preconception into anyone else’s mind,” he says coyly. “It’s pretty specific to me, but that’s almost immaterial. It’s more important for me for people to come to this batch of tunes on their own terms and have their own ideas about what they’re about.”

The album unfolds with the burnished, three dimensional expansiveness of recordings from the late ’60s and early ’70s. “Those records were made on 16track tape, pretty much live, and that’s how we did this record, so it just came out that way,” Johns points out. “But that’s the way I like to work, anyway. This record has got a great feeling to it, partly because of the way it was captured by Jeremy, but also because we performed it as an ensemble.

Everything Johns has done during the course of his distinguished and varied career has led him to this deep, enthralling album. “The fact that I’ve been playing and performing as much as I have the last few years is showing in the performances that we got on this record, and I’m happy to be progressing,” he says. “I really enjoy listening to this record, and that’s primarily because of the sound that Jeremy got and the way the guys are playing on it. I’m still hearing new things in the intricacies of the way they played as an ensemble. “I’m appreciative of the opportunity to play with these guys, to continue to grow as a musician and as a writer, and to explore new territory. I’m already looking forward to the next one.”

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