RT JOHNSON

                                                              "Fish Sober" 

                                                              CCB Nashville

CCB Nashville plunges forward this week with their uber ambitious #newmusicfriday initiative, keeping with the tradition of giving us another release on the month’s third week from their 2021 breakout star RT Johnson– his 10^th release of the year so far.

Anyone who knows Johnson and his music, knows then that feel-good drinking songs don’t allude him; just look at “Thirsty Weather” for example.

If you’ve been following Johnson’s releases throughout 2022, then you also know he has no problem wearing his southern boy, country charm on his sleeve as he’s shown us on several releases that encompass the country way of life such as “You Can’t Go Wrong,” “Daylight Southern Time,” and “Hillbilly Redneck Southern Rebel Country Club.”

With his new release, “Fish Sober,” we get both sides of his arsenal in one up-tempo, country rock blast.

Chunky guitar riffs pump through your speakers and prominently hold down the backing instrumentation while adding a southern rock grit to the otherwise 90’s country influenced modern era sound that has become RT’s signature. 

Lyrically, there’s a tilt of humor smashing into a truth factor.

When a fishing trip with the boys turns into drinking a beer, and then another, and then still another 3 or 4 more, the better halves tend to get upset. And like any good friend will do, Johnson immediately begins to back pedal and point the blame at his friends for his current state of inebriation.

Lamenting through excuses, Johnson tells how his friends were putting pressure on him to take a drink or three, that he said he’d maybe just have one sip but that they wouldn’t let him quit, and that they kept on and on and on while passing another one over to him.

Groveling through the chorus, he tries to explain all this to his non-understanding better half, but eventually just gives up and lands at the truth that “friends don’t let friend’s fish sober.”

Clever, fishing play on word lines also capture your attention as the song progresses when he sings:

“You could say they reeled me in”

“I didn’t have a bit of luck, all I caught was a buzz”

It may have been his song “Feel Good Again” that initially broke Johnson through, but 2022 has seen the veteran artist really discovering his niche and continually elevating his sound as most of his new material – including “Fish Sober” – sees him enduringly defining who he is a person through song, giving him a connectibility factor that strikes the perfect chord with the down-home, country folks like him.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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