Johnny Dowd - Is Heaven Real: How Would I Know (2023)

This is where Johnny Dowd's heart lives, where he twirls his writerly pen like Cormac McCarthy doing the soft shoe. “Settle in, we're gonna be here a while,” he calls out to the band, and his ensemble of Memphians, straight out of the old, weird America, are only too happy to oblige.

The air was charged at producer Bruce Watson's Delta-Sonic Sounds when some of Memphis' hippest players gathered to record with Dowd. In addition to his longtime bandmates, drummer Jif Dowd (his sister) and guitarist Mike Edmondson, Dowd had a slew of ringers: twin stars Will Sexton, who co-produced and played guitar, and Amy LaVere, on bass and vocals, a touring couple who embody the Great American Songbook; Rick Steff (Lucero) on piano; Alex Greene (Reigning Sound) on organ and trombone; Jim Spake (Lucero, Alex Chilton) on reeds; Krista Lynne Wroten (Memphis Dawls) on fiddle and vocals; and Will McCarley and Shawn Zorn adding percussion.