John Doe

Ever a rock star but always a poet, John Doe is also a genuinely good-to-great rock singer, a determined, prolific songwriter and a live performer who you never want to miss.

Ever a rock star but always a poet, John Doe is also a genuinely good-to-great rock singer, a determined, prolific songwriter and a live performer who you never want to miss. More than 40 years after his former band X burst out of Los Angeles with an album named after their hometown, Doe has settled into being a dusty, urban, cowboy poet. Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos)—who per the liner notes also plays "assorted sneaky things"—and recorded at Public Hi-Fi Studios in Austin, TX, by Dave Way, Doe is now backed by bassist Kevin Smith and drummer Conrad Choucroun in what he's calling the John Doe Folk Trio for Fables in a Foreign Land. With an uncluttered, unprocessed sound where the drums are often pushed too far forward in the three-player mix, Fables was recorded live on acoustic instruments in whole takes that were edited later, a method Doe compares to Rudy Van Gelder's Blue Note sound.

Some call him a hero. Some call him a villain. He's "John Doe: Vigilante" - an ordinary man who decides to take the law into his own hands.

Some call him a hero. Some call him a villain. He's "John Doe: Vigilante" - an ordinary man who decides to take the law into his own hands. Frustrated with a failing legal system that continues to allow violent criminals to go free, John Doe begins exacting justice the only way he knows how - by killing one criminal at a time. Soon he becomes a media sensation and inspires a group of copycat vigilantes, but who is the real John Doe - a pillar of justice or a cold-blooded murderer? You decide.