2001: Wireless
My second album from the musical wilderness at the start of the 21st Century, long before I started writing library music.
I was fortunate enough to get Rory McFarlane on upright/electric bass and Chris Garrick on violin.
Review from Richard Ellis at Musician magazine
John Hobson's Wireless (cover photo artfully shows a cutaway 24 fret Fylde with a missing second string) covers related sonic territory [to previous review of Vertical Stride], trio featuring John on guitars and samples,
Rory McFarlane on basses and Chris Garrick on violin.
Tunes are all original, mostly ballads, a blues - pleasant, comforting, and rewarding as a glass of warmed mulled wine in your back garden on a cold winter's night.
Some very good stuff here indeed. Maybe not as loud, colourful or fashionable as product to be found in your average High Street record store. However, when that store is closed in due course, or becomes a mobile phone shop selling
"Greatest ringtones of the last 15 minutes", I'll still whack Wireless into the CD and press the play button.
He has a very distinctive tone which recalls Pastorius' legato playing. Maybe that's why he needs the two octave fretboard. Not many of us ever get up the "dusty end" of the fingerboard, as we used to say at the old Crouch End Banjo Bar.
Listen to Wireless on Spotify...