Johnny Dowd Singer/Songwriter; Lo-Fi Gothic Ft. Worth, Texas; 1948 - 1997 might be remembered as the year of the troubled troubadours: Richard Buckner, Tom Leach, Edith Frost, Gary Heffern, Tom House, Will Oldham, Fred Eaglesmith, and Jim White all put out brooding lo-fi recordings that take the listener on a slow walk down the dark side of the street. Added to this list is Johnny Dowd, perhaps the gloomiest and scariest of them all. Bom in Texas and raised in Oklahoma and Tennessee, he has lived in upstate New York for the last 25 years, where his time has been split between running a trucking business and writing songs and performing in bars around Ithaca. Dowd's self-released debut CD, Wrong Side of Memphis, has been described as "country gothic" or a collection of "twisted lo-fi tales." That might be putting it mildly. The closest analogy is Jim Thompson as singer/ songwriter. Recorded by Dowd in his studio (adjacent to his moving company) with sparse accompaniment (in particular, spooky organ), his unblinking focus is on murder and/or death: "Murder" (double homicide); "One Way" (a story literally about Christ on the cross); "Just Like a Dog"; "Ft. Worth Texas" (death row); "First There Was" (mass murder); "Wages of Sin." Pretty disturbing stuff but most frightening of all is Dowd's claim that it "is about people I've known, places I've been." He adds, "I hope you enjoy it" and if you're a fan of Thompson, Tarantino, et al., you certainly will. Wrong Side was re-released by Checkered Past Records in 1998. --David Goodman, author of Modern Twang: An Alternative Country Music Guide and Directory