John Brennan – Down Home
Guitar One Records – 2026
10 tracks; 37 minutes
This album by John Brennan is aptly named. It has a definite “down home” feel. Some of the songs would feel good on the front porch at dusk, others like “One Way Ride Revisited”, “Last Night”, and the Sun Records classic “Mystery Train” feel like a ride on a southbound freight train. The whole record has a southern gothic and rural feeling. Brennan is from New Jersey, but Collingswood is South Jersey, which is its own thing and can certainly feel like small town U.S.A. He mentions in the liner notes that he has been traveling to Memphis and the Mississippi Delta almost yearly and the record emanates from those experiences. He feels at home in the “Home of the Blues” as the second track goes.
Half of the ten songs are originals. “Don’t You Lie to Me”, originally written and performed by Tampa Red (aka Hudson Whittaker) in 1940, fits in well and is a good showcase for Brennan’s electric guitar chops. This one also has echoes of The Little Willies/Richard Julian (high compliment) and is one of the stronger songs on the record. Brennan busts out the slide very effectively on several songs like “The Things That I Used To Do” by Guitar Slim, an old-time, traditional Delta blues. “Keep Rollin’” is an original tune with chooglin’ Texas guitar and an overall ZZ Top feel. The Muddy Waters classic “Honey Bee” wraps the record and sails along at a relaxed pace. The whole thing is a little more stripped down than his last record, 2025’s Bring It On Back To Me, which had more of an upbeat electric groove.
Robert Johnson’s “Ramblin’ On My Mind” is the one live track on the record and it might be the most countrified blues on the album with Brennan taking us into a Delta time machine with his slide. It was recorded at one his regular haunts, Jamey’s House of Music in Lansdowne, PA, an intimate listening room. The rest of the album is DIY – mixed, mastered, engineered, produced by Brennan, and he plays all the instruments. It’s refreshing that there are artists out there listening to and producing their own versions of foundational, analog blues music. You can tell that Brennan has a respect, love, and knowledge of old-time blues and he executes it superbly on Down Home.
I’m sure these songs go over well in juke joints, folk clubs, and neighborhood blues bars. Brennan has a gaggle of dates booked for the next few months in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I may just have to take a jaunt down the New Jersey Turnpike to check it out. Mr. State Trooper, please don’t ya stop me.
