The Davey Johnstone Band - Deeper Than My Roots 

Almost fifty years after the 1973 release of his debut solo album, Davey Johnstone, Elton John’s longtime guitarist, has released his sophomore effort (actually credited to The Davey Johnstone Band).  Recorded during the hiatus of Elton John’s Farewell Tour caused by the pandemic, Deeper Than My Roots is largely a family affair with his son Elliot contributing lead vocals on most tracks, son Charlie singing, playing keys, writing and producing some songs, son Jesse playing drums on most of the album, son Tam co-writing and playing synths on the two instrumentals and daughter Juliet contributing the album cover concept and design.  In addition to his children, other contributors include his legendary bandmate Nigel Olsson playing drums on one track and former Wings Drummer Denny Seiwell on three.  The resulting album shows that the talent pool definitely runs deep in his family, containing a dozen well-crafted, highly enjoyable tunes full of strong hooks and melodies and plenty of great guitar work.  While there’s really not a bad track in the bunch some of the highlights include “Go Easy On My Heart”, a gentle, laid-back track highlighted by some great slide guitar work, “One Look In Your Eyes”, a hypnotic track with a psychedelic groove that’s really enhanced with Charlie’s keys, the beautiful, melancholy “Melting Snow”, the swirling psychedelic “Deeper” with its solid vocal harmonies from Nigel, Elliott, Davey, Vanessa Bryan and John Mahon (also a member of the Elton John Band) and a great guitar solo at the end, and the gorgeous “The Final Quarter”, which is nothing but Elliott on vocals and Davey on acoustic guitar.  The album also includes the aforementioned instrumentals, “Walt Dizney” and “Black Scotland”, a couple of really good tracks that really allow him to showcase his guitar work and even some sitar on the latter.  Closing out the disc are a couple of bonus songs with a nice cover of The Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere” and the gospel flavored “All The Time In The World”, a single he released in 2020 featuring Vanessa Bryan on vocals.  With Elton John being on his farewell tour, hopefully Davey and family will have more time to put out more great music like what’s on Deeper Than My Roots.

(Spirit Of Unicorn Music)