August Artist of The Month: J.D. Hutchison
By Roman Warmke - 8/13/2000
The term legend has been overused in the local music scene more commonly than Ritalin, but if one cat deserves the tag above all else, than I choose John Dale Hutchison.
J.D., as he is called, has charted the seas of Athens music spanning four decades time, after a friend suggested he would enjoy the atmosphere here.
"At the time (I moved here) of course, everybody's playing a role, y'know", JD says. "We're all hippies living in a haze of reefer smoke and what have you, we're all way over there,.. counter culture type people, and hell, everybody thought I was a narc when I first came down, they we're all really leery of me at the time."
But the town and region soon warmed up to J.D.'s incredibly poignant personality, and his unique interpretation of his style of folk/blues/bluegrass music. But JD is very low key concerning his accomplishments, as well as the fact that he has inspired a whole generation of new musicians in the area.
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"I like to play for people, it just seems like, I don't go out beating any drums or taking brochures around and saying hey, you should check me out 'cause I'm this folk singer or whatever you want to call me, and man you know sometimes I can do stuff that makes people giggle and blah blah blah.
Let me tell you, I don't have any concept of myself in that sense, I don't have any agenda, and if people want to hear me they can call me on the phone cause I'm not out sellin' an item, I'm not out pushing product, you know? "
J.D.'s most recent musical product that he is not pushing is his understated recording of his group Realbilly Jive, which features the extraordinary talents of guitarists John Borchard and Jimmy Smailes, as well as bassist Dave Borowski.
This self titled album, which is on sale at School Kids, Haffa's, and Blue Eagle Music, is a journey through J.D.'s song writing talents, which are quite formidable and pleasurable.
"I just decided, hell I'm gonna' croak pretty soon I might as well get these tunes down and somebody can maybe play em. If I had agenda at all (with the new album), which I'm not inclined to have many agendas, but if I did it would have been to put out something that demonstrated the potential of the songs for anybody who wanted to do 'em in whatever way they wanted to do them, and I think it does that at least adequately."
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That's an understatement for sure. Besides the aforementioned talent level, the songs have a crisp and honest feel. No bells or whistles much like JD himself. The tracks "Money To Burn" & "Rambler's Blues" show the toughness of his character, while still capturing his human side. It isn't hard to trace his musical influences upon first listen, as inspirations such as Merl Haggard, George Jones, Bob Dylan, & Donavan Leach.
"Burl Ives is a great hero of mine. I thought he had a voice like and Angel. Like a troubadour of old. He had one of the most beautiful voices for that kind of stuff, and he played the guitar in such a way to inspire anybody to play the guitar, 'cause he just barely played anything, but it worked so well with what he was doing."
On that topic, JD began to describe his attitude towards his vocal ability, his confidence, and the goals he has for performing.
"I never fancied myself as much of a singer, but you have to sing. In fact, if I was to liken my singing voice to anything, I'd say it was a, melancholic rhinosarous with a severe case of back pain. But somebody has to sing, and to me it's not an easy thing to do. I do it under duress virtually all the time. When you sing, it's like taking your pants down, you know, you gotta' be careful. I go back and forth between thinking hell I'm just a great singer to thinking I couldn't sing Come Jesus in whole notes, man."
So humble in his abilities, JD says he still gets nervous before his performances.
"Yeah, I wish right until the time that my hand hits the door handle that lightning would strike me just to give me an excuse not to go in there and face all that shit you have to go through. I don't do it with great relish, but once I get started, and everybody seems to be having a little fun, then I start, I don't know what happens, you kind of puff up, y'know I've seen you when your kinda puffed, and you feel pretty good, making a lot of noise, and everybody's groovin', and it's fun.
I can't remember a time when I didn't get a little nervous, because frankly, I don't feel like I know anything any different from the next guy. But I know that's not true. I used to credit everybody with knowing what I know, but I think that's a far cry from the truth. A lot of people don't bother to try to learn anything. They don't bother to try to dig out anything about the world they live in, or the life they're living. They just get up in the morning, they have a gig, they go to it, they come back, and they feel lucky they didn't get fired. Sometimes they go to a movie, mostly they turn on the tube, y' know drink 3 or 4 beers, scream at the wife, kick the kid and go to sleep".
But JD does truly love performing, despite his anxieties. And the appreciation he feels from his audiences help him to come to peace with his admirable modesty.
"If somebody likes what I do, I am so grateful, just totally grateful, and it may not seem that way, but I am. I'm totally grateful, if people tolerate what I do, if they just tolerate me up there that's enough to get me on your side.
I deal with music as a clown might deal with a prop", he continues.
"I've always used music as a means to establish some form of communication with other people, a reason to talk to somebody. If I do something that somebody likes, it's because I've honestly tried to say something with what I'm doing. I don't just put tunes together, just to be able to say, hey check me out, I'm pretty clever and I do this. I put them together because it's like I'm trying to talk, for God's sake. I'm trying to say a little bit of something, and if it happens to catch people a certain way and they like it, then I'm totally gratified. You can't believe how grateful I am when somebody will come up to me and say 'I really like what you do'. I can't believe that they mean it, y'know, because my opinion of myself is, well hell, I'm just like you on the street or the next guy, hell, it's just something you do like breathing, y'know, in and out. It's nothing extraordinary, it's just same as somebody else is a good mechanic or plumber, or whatever, but only it's not nearly as lucrative as that, unless you happen to hit like some people in this world happen to do."
But JD is again being modest, considering his resume does boast several impressive factoids.
Several national recording stars, such as Robert Earl Keane and K.D. Lang have recorded J.D.'s tunes. I have even heard a rumor that he once opened up for the Grateful Dead, back in the sixties.
And now, the generation of local musicians he's inspired is helping to evolve J.D.'s material into legend. Many local acoustic/folk acts cover J.D.'s tunes, but most recently, the ever popular and talented group Stella plays electric versions of a few of his songs.
So whether he's on stage performing, recording his solo or ensemble material in a studio, playing Scrabble at Blue Eagle, or watching over his self founded "Universal Church of Ever Present Fullness", (to which the ordained minister exclaims, "Everybody's a member, including you, whether they want to be or not or whether they know it or not"), JD does it all with a gentle but stern grace that has earned him the nickname, "The last of the iron-assed folk swingers".
