Search - Johnny Bowtie Barstow :: Bowtie Christmas & More

If you like Florence Foster Jenkins, Jonathan and Darlene Ed

Mark S. Carpenter | Austin, TX USA | 12/26/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have just finished laughing until I couldn't get my breath and was seeing stars after listening to "A Bowtie Christmas".



Johnny "Bowtie" Barstow is nothing less than a latter-day Florence Foster Jenkins!



I'm a trained classical musician and I've sung Schoenberg, Webern, Ligeti and Penderecki in choirs -- but *nothing* was as difficult as when I tried learning "Do You Hear What I Hear" exactly as Mr. Barstow sings it! "The First Noel" is equally fine: be sure to catch the the little bit of falsetto just before the final line of the song!



The absolute show-stopper on this CD is his rendition of "The Girl from Ipanema". I don't think a trained musician could do what he does!



I wish Charles Ives had heard Johnny Barstow when Ives was composing his 114 Songs..."

Better Than The Beatles; As Good As The Shaggs

Robert I. Hedges | 04/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""A Bowtie Christmas" by Johnny "Bowtie" Barstow is an album like no other. While Frank Zappa said that the Shaggs were "better than the Beatles," I put Barstow in that same league for his warbling and unselfconscious originality. Barstow, a professional computer programmer, started singing at open microphone nights, and gained a cult following in New York City in the mid 1990's. This CD features some of his favorites recorded at various places and times over the years.



Most of the tracks are Christmas songs, but there are plenty of others as well. My favorite has got to be the delightfully rhythm-impaired "The Girl From Ipanema," but "Mack the Knife" is a close second for the very unique interpretation Barstow gives it. The Christmas classics are likewise startling in their originality, from the baritone crooning of "The First Noel" to the more brain-addled "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer," which Barstow makes far more enjoyable than the original.



Barstow is not a gifted singer by any conventional measure, but his music has a upbeat quality all its own, and is a joy to listen to for his complete elimination of musical convention. If you are curious about unusual or outsider music, this is a great place to start."

A found object -- a once-in-a-lifetime gem.

Mr. Chips | Columbia, MO USA | 12/22/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am a competent, if average, semi-professional musician who has practiced thousands of hours and played hundreds of live shows. I have done some cool things, but I will never make music as wonderful as this.



There are accomplished musicians, like Charlie Parker, Buddy Emmons, or Sonny Rollins, who provide windows to their souls by virtue of having practiced hundreds of thousands of hours; they can express their inner music effortlessly. There are others, like Thelonious Monk or Ornette Coleman, who arrive there with less technical proficiency, but nonetheless give us everything they have.



Barstow comes out of the latter camp, although that doesn't quite capture it either. While the treatments on these songs will make you laugh, it would be ignorant and obtuse to categorize this with Weird Al Yankovic or Comedy Central; nor is Barstow the 2nd coming of Christ, as some would have it.



He is, however, a singer with a unique approach, whose vocals, when combined with Larry Goldings' solid and dutiful accompaniment, result in something that is truly novel, wonderous, and significant in its way. Did you ever notice how Eddie Cochran sang a half-step flat at the end of the verses on "Nervous Breakdown," or how Joe Strummer often sang about 1/4-step flat? What makes Barstow's music interesting is something like this -- the tension between keys, as Barstow travels in and out of the home key of each song. On some songs, he starts about 1/2 step above the home key, coming back to flirt with it at the end of a phrase or chorus; on other songs, he'll start the song more or less on-key, but take off somewhere else, while the band chugs along like a reliable freight train. These superb results are in no small part due to pianist Goldings' inutive understanding about how to best showcase Barstow's singing (Goldings "discovered" Barstow). Comedian Allan Sherman once referred to the elaborate orchestrations around his own vocals as a "velvet pillow with an onion sitting in the middle" or something like that; Goldings does much the same here, setting off the tunes with elegant arrangements using the sounds of strings, a harp, a church organ, or even a banjo. Since the musical (and comedic) interest here derives from the contrast between Goldings' accompaniment and Barstow's atonality, I had to wonder what might happen if the accompanist used chord and key substitutions paralleling Barstow's harmonic adventures. That would make for an interesting second album!



However, intellectual descriptions like these don't really do the music justice, as Barstow brings a kind of natural enthusiasm to the whole process; he does not seem to be doing any of this consciously. Any trained singer could likely learn to sing a song a half-step out of pitch, but would come off as glib and facile while doing so. Most people singing with this sensibility perform only with reluctance and inhibition, having been told repeatedly throughout their lives what "bad" singers they are -- whereas Barstow effortlessly accepts himself while pursuing his obvious love for these songs. It's ends up as some weird combination of folk art and the avant garde --like a primitive painter who ends up working with the same problems in flattened abstract space as a Matisse or a DeKooning. I agree that Charles Ives would "get" this.



At least that's my take on it. If you're looking for that rare authentic and real thing that comes along only once in a great while, and you can handle the tension and "dissonance," this music is the discovery of a lifetime."