The Real John Gary

"The Real John Gary offers us an impressive debut album in the world of folk rock and alt-country. A musical reflection of his life on a farm, searching for love, and finding a home, Goodbye Home is intriguing, relatable, and impressive in both its lyrical honesty and musical technicality.

Reminiscent of the late great John Prine, Clinard’s lyrics are poetic in their blunt simplicity and sprinkled with progressive politicism ranging from subtly quiet to obviously loud. Clinard’s rough vocals and twangy string-pluckin’ in Goodbye Home plays like a country funeral song in mourning of stability. His lyrics “can’t get work, and that’s the start of my trouble,” are timelessly relatable but hit particularly hard in the context of a global pandemic. Almost anyone anywhere could blast this track in their kitchen and suddenly become a drummer, grabbing a wooden spoon and beating the shit out of some pots and pans for all that’s been lost in their world.

While listening to his vocals, I sometimes hear glimpses of the grief and grit of Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel, but Clinard’s voice is distinctly his, as is his clean-while-still-somehow-messy-sometimes-even-violent-sounding guitar playing." - Claire Winzenburg