Here Comes The Night – David Johansen

Listening to the New York Dolls comeback album recently reminded me of what a great rock n’roll singer David Johansen was (and remains). I’m struggling to remember exactly where Here Comes The Night falls in the chronology of post Dolls solo albums that Johansen made, but its always been my favorite.

The key to this album was that Johansen found a great collaborator in Blondie Chaplin (The Band, The Beach Boys, Rolling Stones), who co-wrote most of these songs and played guitar across the album.  The album contains an inner sleeve photo of Chaplin on acoustic guitar and Johansen playing a little squeezebox that seems to capture the basic nature of the songwriting, even though the album is completely electric.

There’s a sense of urgency about these songs and they seem to benefit from a thin production that makes the album sound like a live band playing without the benefit of multiple overdubs.

The album wasn’t a huge commercial success but it contains some of Johansen’s most distinctive performances and surprisingly gave a couple of pointers to his later incarnation as Buster Poindexter. Side One closes with Marquesa De Sade, which adapts a hint of latin and calypso to the punky flavour of the rest of the album.

The title track is a barnstormer of party-pop indulgence and its matched by equally decadent sounding songs such as Bohemian Love Pad and She Loves Strangers. But it’s the bitter and biting Johansen that works best and You Fool You and My Obsession are classics within this sub-genre.

The second side of this album loses a little of its punk rock edge. There’s a little bit of reggae in Side Two’s Party Tonight and on Rollin’ Job but it’s a style that only just suits him and certainly doesn’t match his more edgy songs.

But Johansen still manages to conjure up some magic on Side Two via the closer – a seemingly standard ballad named Heart of Gold. Despite its clichéd title when Johansen intones “You think I’m a whore/But I got a heart of gold/And I need protection from the cold/I’ve been bought and I’ve been sold/And I need protection from the cold.” – you cant help but believe him. It’s a great vocal performance and together with all of Side One and the title track makes Here Comes The Night a wonderful genuine rock n’ roll record from one of its relatively unsung heroes.