Guitar players, what are your thoughts on Jesse's playing on this awsomealbum?

I have yet to play this that much. It seems uninspired, but people swear by it. It seems ot be what people wanted his 80's album to have, and thats primo geetar throughout, just tearing it up. But it's missing something to me. I don't know what it is

It's missing funk. In the 1980s, when R&B music was still good, I would have been pissed as hell with an album like this coming from Jesse. However, in the mid 1990s, when R&B music had gone to hip hop hell, I was thrilled to death to see Jesse Johnson going in a hard rock direction and not selling out to hip hop.

I love the first two tracks, "Bare My Naked Soul" and "My Life". They are ass kicking hard rock jams. The rest of the album is so so.

vainandy said:

Vain, feel what U are saying. Bare My Naked Soul was on the rock tip and was funk free. However, did dig his guitar efforts on the album.

vainandy said:

Well I seem like Im backwards in a way, only because I was loving Jesse's extended solos from Jungle Love, and the solos form 777-9311 and Get It Up. I expected that type of groove rock guitar playing. I love it, and wish I could seperate it from the other music at times. However, there is no doubt that his guitar solos are a perfect blend for the primal funk beats. Like the solo in Can You Help Me. Gawd, I wish that solo would just go on for ten more minutes. It seems on Bare My Naked Soul his playing took on traditional playing that didn't have that groove to it. So yes, as you said, it's missing the funk. I had thought all these years prior to Bare, that I would love to hear him sans funk. Guess one should be careful what they wish for lol(but I hate to put it down to something so simplistic as that but what else could it be?).

I commend him for doing a rock album during this era. If he had made a funk album, the tired state of R&B radio at that time would not have played it. The Barkays, Cameo, and War all made decent funk albums during this era and R&B radio gave them practically little or no airplay because they did not fit in with hip hop, which had taken over R&B.

I saw Jesse using the same strategy to try to achieve success that Lenny Kravitz did. Lenny was a black artist that was very successful in the rock world during this time. Unfortunately, rock radio didn't play Jesse either.

vainandy said:

That album showed that world that Jesse has mad skills on the guitar, I let some guys I know that play rock music listen to a couple of tracks and they were blown away!! they wanted to buy the album from me!!. Even though Jesse didn't make a true FUNK album, he did touch on the BLUES another form of black music that seems to be forgoten in this cookie cutter music industry,to me alot of the riffs he was doing were funky, Jesse is a bad M@%%*&%$**er. I hope he makes another album that is heavy on the FUNK!!! because we need a sign of hope...tired of this fake R&B with rappers on every song even slow songs and sampled music, need real R&B Bands we need the FUNK....MUSICOLOGY!! JESSE JOHNSON FUNK GENIUS PRODUCED:TaMara and THE SEEN, COOL SKOOL,DaCRASH,Sue Ann,Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul,Wendy & Lisa, Shiela E.and movie sound tracks.
Thanks JESSE!! blessed guitar player, blessed musician.

I absolutely love that album and was totally blown away by it. i had been waiting for jesse to drop something like that for atleast 10 years. My ex wife use to play that in her record store all the Time and people always wanted to know if it was the new Lenny. I like Lenny, but he wishes he could rock that hard

I just found this album after I thought I lost it for a year! , neighbors beware

I enjoyed the album very much! Jesse hinted to doing an album in a power trio format as far back as 1988. If you look at Jesse's musical backround prior to working for Prince you'd know that his playing and influences were firmly rooted in the hard rock/blues rock vein. I wasn't the least bit suprised.

This album featured more playing than what is featured in anything he previously released.

As a player myself I always wanted to hear "more guitar" on his recordings & I finally got my wish. The fact that there isn't much on the that could be labeled "funky" didn't phase me at all. I feel the tunes as a whole were quite good funky or not. I was just extremely happy to finally hear him cut loose on guitar. A couple of years ago I got my hand's on a copy of Jesse's live blues boot and was made that much happier!

Hopefully he'll grace us with some new material in the near future.


-KSTRAT-
[Edited 8/29/05 9:11am]

vainandy said:

One of the most accurate statements I've heard in a long time!

vainandy said:

Jesse should have done this in the 80s. A great guitarist like Jesse has to use the rock blues genre to truly stretch out and do what he is capable of doing. There isnt enough room in funk, r&b, or most forms of so called urban music for this kind of playing. This is the reason we still want a kick ass guitar album from Prince.

No reply from blackguitarist on a org post about a guitar player - Jesse Johsnon, no less?

I understand exactly what you are saying as far as Jesse Johnson being an artist truly showing off his skills to the fullest as a guitarist. However, successwise (and for my own selfish reasons as a funk lover), I think Jesse chose the perfect direction in mid to late 1980s by doing funk when he went solo.

Jesse had come from The Time, which was very well known as one of the baddest funk bands on R&B radio. Most people are not too cool with a well loved artist switching gears when they are very well known for doing a specific type of music. R&B radio would have not played him because he would have been doing rock music and rock radio would have not played him simply because he was a black artist. There have been exceptions on both sides of the fence but they have been very rare.

When Prince switched his gears in 1985, he was already a well established artist in not only the R&B world, but he had also conquered the pop world as well. Prince had always done rock tracks from the very first album, but with the rare exception of "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad", most of Prince's tracks that were played on R&B radio (the pop world didn't know who he was yet) were his funk tracks. Most of Prince's original audience (the funk fans) were pissed as hell when Prince changed his style in 1985, as well as a great deal of his new found pop fans. Many of Prince's original fans fell in love with Jesse instantly as a solo artist because he definately filled that "Minneapolis funk" void that Prince left when he abandoned that sound. I also know many people that never liked Prince from day one that loved Jesse as a solo artist for what he personally brought to the sound. In other words, Jesse had developed a fan base that knew and loved him from The Time and he had also picked up a few new fans along the way.

Andre Cymone did more rock than the other associate artists when he first left the Prince camp. He didn't have much success at all with his first album, which had a lot of rock and new wave on it. I never even knew his second album existed until years later because the radio never played it. Andre never achieved success until his third album, which was mostly funk and his production work with other artists which was mostly funk. Ironically, even with me being the huge funk fan that I am, Andre (the one that did more rock) still turned out to be my favorite to ever come from the Prince camp. Hey, Andy's mind works in mysterious ways. Anway, just giving an example of why Jesse took the right route when he first went solo. I do fully understand what you are saying about Jesse, the guitarist though.
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[Edited 8/25/05 22:02pm]

sonofblade said:[quote]No reply from blackguitarist on a org post about a guitar player - I'm here. O.k. I LOVE this album! I hail it as one of his best. Why? Cuz it has TONS of guitar on it. Jessie wouldn't release something like this in 85 although that's EXACTLY what I wanted to see him do then. Don't get me wrong, I dug his 80's albums. But, I was very let down from his first album when it first came out. The few solos that he had on there were way to low in the mix. "Can You Help Me" and "She's A Doll" contained the best leads on the album, and they should have been more prominent. I thought he should have promoted himself at that time as a guitarist. I was expecting Jessie to turn it out as a guitarist. He didn't. He went the route as the next pretty boy ala Prince. I was like, "that shit is boring." I didn't care about "Oh, P has a color. His is purple. Hey ya'll, I have a color too. Mine is pink!" A&M no doubt played up on that and was a big part of what we saw and what we heard. That's business and I understand that. Bare My Naked Soul is Jessie with freedom to do what he wants to do, musically, without having to compete with P as an artist.

blackguitaristz said:[quote]

sonofblade said:

I couldnt agree more. I am sure every label wanted a Prince back then. Jesse was A&M's and you can see how he was packaged just like a Purle Rain product. It was cool and made some business sense. Jesse had good music which carried on that Mpls Sound without Prince (no one really ever did that) but he wasnt too derivative.

I cant blame Jesse for cashing in somewhat - the wake of Purple Rain was so great and he was a part of it. In a way, it took some guts to launch a porject that was so closely modeled after Prince. He knew he has the skills to pull it off and not end up spinning off in some dubious direction like Andre Cymone did. Doing purple funk rock was going to pay him big and fast it and he had to strike while the iron was hot. No one can dispute the results that he got - commercially and creatively.

But like those of us who truly know that guitar driven rock IS black music with a lineage that goes all the way back to Chuck Berry, to have dyed in the wool guitar slinger like Jesse do anything other thana flat out rock and blues record was a little frustrating.

I have 3 copies of Bare my Naked Soul. And I use them to this day. It is hard to believe that album is 10 years old now. I consider it a classic and easily the best work Jesse has done as an artist, composer, or producer.

And, stop spelling his name with an "i" already...damn!

sonofblade said:[quote]

blackguitaristz said:

Sorry about that. It seems so odd that he doesn't have an "i'.

Jesse killed it. He shows his breadth as an artist on this album. It's a rock album, so I wasn't expecting traditional funk. Sure, I would've liked to hear an updated head-bobber like "free world" but we tend to allow Prince license when he wants to do something new. Scratch that -- "Monika" is funky as all get-out.

In his case, JJ pulls off some very cool rock -- in all sorts of incarnations of rock. It's a very robust rock album, to that point. So, I love the fact that he has some Hendrix-type deals on there, right next to some Van Halen-sounding stuff. He wears his influences on his sleeve, like a Kravitz album.

But, his chops elevate it. Deep it ain't. but it does ROCK.

What can I say about this record that hasn't already been said? That record is one of my biggest influences, guitar-wise. It's the guitar record that I always wished P would've put out. On a personal level, my guitar playing improved so much after studying the licks on this record. To this day, I'm still trying to get a tone as raw as the one on the title track. Now, that's some dirty geetar!

One of my fav memories was hopping the PATH train to NYC to J&R Music World to buy this on cassette. That's the only place I knew that had it. I was sick as a dog that day but I was determined to get my hands on Jesse's newest groove. I had just enough to get there, pick up the tape and hop back on the train to 'ol New Jersey. There's some great blues-rock playing all throughout the album. Someone should send Lenny Kravitz a copy to hear some real lead playing - he never seems to deviate from the recorded solos. I've always wondered if he can improvise and just PLAY, not adhere to the script...

Now, back to Jesse. If he never records again, at least he has this record as his no-holds barred statement. This wasn't slick Minneapolis-lite funk with just a smidgen of guitar, this was the kid from Rock Island, Illinois, who as Morris Day stated, "played twenty-minute guitar solos" in biker bars. I think that's the real Jesse Johnson, and he showed us some of the real Jesse Johnson on "Bare My Naked Soul".

"My Life" is rockin'! I love how honest the lyrics are and how great the guitars are. Jesse is on fire on this album and I also love some of the Hendrix type ballads with the reverse guitar effects.

Jesse is amazing. For me "Free World" and "Can You Help Me" are my favourite Jesse songs but Bare My Naked Soul is defintely my favourite Jesse album!

I just read Dez's book and I thought that it was funny that jesse, dez and big chick went to an Ozzy show on an off day. Not funny that they went, but that Jesse had the pink suit on

Technically...how is his playing. From a listener perspective...this guy plays a lot of notes...

I love the title track.

Shock to the System - seriously aggressive.

The whole album is so loud and well recorded....I'd pay $200 to get a DVD of him recording this stuff. For you all, I'd pay to get that video circulating of that one Bare My Naked Soul show from the 90s....r.bhadra@cogeco.ca.

Rhastus said:

I can dig it! I thought that shit with the suit was funny as well!

The non LP b-side on the "My Life" single, "Everybody Needs A Dream" is also worth checking out. I really liked that track and was a little disappointed it wasn't on the album.