Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The multitude can write a song if they so desired and in the current age it could cause some buzz, the access to a supply of listeners never greater, never more easy to find a layer of sympathetic appreciation; but at times the truth of the situation is that the song does not come from within, it may come from the heart, but it does not come from the soul, and it is to that effect which marks the difference between a song, and a soundtrack of a life, of a memoir set to music, of pain, glory, bitterness, praise, and melancholic triumph.
For Chrissy Johnson and her latest album, Shake Where You’re Steady, the art of transforming personal experience into a song is more than just creation, it is the establishment of authentic belief, one to which is driven by all that comes in the shape of trauma and hope, and that which shapes is in the end, the attitude of strength in the heart, mind, and importantly, the soul.
The artist herself espouses the nature of her work as a ‘transformative act’, indeed it could be seen as intentionally sacrificial, allowing the blood of heartache to be used as the foundation to which the human life painting comes alive, and from the opening of Greatest Abandon which comes from a place none of us ever truly would wish upon another person, the magnetic stoicism of Strange Fire, It Takes Imagination To Survive and Soldier Of Reverie, and the detailed profoundness of Runaway Love and Backwater Blues, Chrissy Johnson shows candidly her vulnerability to the listener, and that strength that serenades with intent as the various subjects captivates their own mysterious soul.
To be able to reflect is a lifeline, it is the aid we never knew was possible, the safety net to which our fall is measured in the future, and as Shake Where You’re Steady flows with grace and likeminded sorrow, where the lyrics and vocals bring heart to the exposed human suffering, that reflection is the truth of our lives laid bare; and it is with genius and true grit to witness the unveiling of such intense aural pleasure.
Chrissy Johnson’s Shake Where You’re Steady is a charming and thoughtfully direct album.
Ian D. Hall