I don't mind you grinnin' in my face," sings Ethan Johns on "Morning Blues," the second track off his new solo album. "I got a shuffle and a shake, a little noise to make." In a number of collaborative forms, he's put that proverbial noise to tape for years: producing and performing on inspired moments for a run of records so well-received they require little introduction. But now comes Johns' moment on lead vox, his own reel of tunes in tow, for a full-length set brought to fruition with the help of talented friends.
Aptly titled If Not Now Then When?, the LP found its own time to coalesce, to sprout in the spaces between the multi-instrumentalist's other projects. First, though, a few seeds were planted: Upon playing a piece for regular collaborator Laura Marling, she encouraged Johns to share it with a live audience. "So I did and I survived it," he says, recalling initial reluctance. Soon enough, more originals would debut onstage and be written in spare rooms during a tour with Ray LaMontagne, when the fuse was lit: "I just thought, 'Well, wow, maybe these things don't have to live on the shelf at my studio anymore. Maybe I can roll these out. Because it's so much fun.'"
Fun for Johns means keeping the creative spirit organic and open enough to trap an honest tune buzzing through a room -- a feat he, drummer Jeremy Stacey, and engineer Dom Monks managed for a pair of early album tracks. From then on, more friends (Marling, Danny Thompson, Ryan Adams, Richard Causon, and others) would be gathered in rooms from London to Bath, England, to Johns' own studio. Letting go of control and placing faith in the players — many of whom had entrusted his ears with their own work at times — was central to the sessions. "I'm asking them to trust me and so I then have to put myself in that position," says Johns. "I have to look to the people I respect and admire in the room and go, 'Okay guys, what do you think?'"
