Johnny G - Sharp & Natural (2021)

A lot of songs can claim to have zapped the punk Zeitgeist as 1977 blurred into 1978, but few did the job as well as "Hippy's Graveyard," the second single by Johnny G, a wonderfully eccentric singer/songwriter (born John Gotting) who emerged along much the same lines as Patrik Fitzgerald and Johnny Rubbish, but with an even more endearing edge. G's first band of note was the early-'70s act Johnny G & the Claimants, although he was already solo by the time his first single was self-released in 1972. G was signed by Beggars Banquet in late 1977, and at the end of the year became the first artist outside of the Lurkers to have a single released on the label, the wonderfully un-PC "Call Me Bwana!" "Hippy's Graveyard" followed, alongside an excellent album, Sharp & Natural. G-Beat followed in 1979; since then, new G releases have been few and far between but always worth waiting for -- Water into Wine (1981) and Sand Dance Ska (1984) are both worth checking out, while G's entire career was encapsulated by the two-CD A Month of Sundays (1994), a self-financed limited edition that married a then-recent live show with a 21-track best-of drawn from across his entire career. ! ~ Dave Thompson