Album Review
Johny Brown
Dream A Memory Of Home
CD/DL
released 24 Dec 2025
Band of Holy Joy’s irrepressible frontman Johny Brown returns with his second solo album, – a vivid, orchestral drift through the streets, friendships and formative moments of his North Shields youth. Dream A Memory Of Home is a reflective, tender excavation of growing up in the 60s and 70s – a time of identity-shaping upheaval, wild imagination and constant change. Following the widescreen sweep of 2024’s Gut Feels, Brown lifts the baton once more but lets it spiral somewhere more intimate. From kickabouts in the sand dunes (When Football Was Our Game) to life-altering schoolyard alliances (Michael The Eagle), going to his first gig via a local pub (My First Pint) to the ignition spark of forming a punk band (A Hymn To Speed), Brown roams the lost map of his youth with warmth, wit and a fragile kind of wonder.
Johny Brown is the poet-crooner who conjures with magic-realism and puts his heart into his art. He is unrivalled, says Ged Babey
Released on Christmas Eve and a beautiful gift for us all… the True Believers in JB’s unique blend of Holy Joy. Words & Music. Memories & Dreams. Positivity & very few regrets.
You can keep your false idols, algorithmically carved and marketed like product…. this is music from the heart, full of soul.
The memories, although personal and unique to Johny have a universal appeal, as anyone roughly the same age and class as Brown had similar experiences. (Yep, even I played football as a kid. I was crap, last to be picked and put in goal until they realised I was useless at that too. My cheap imitation red and white striped Saints shirt faded to pink after a year… much to my peers amusement. I remember a Michael the Eagle type character from the playground. Cleft-palate, dishevelled and dirty – he gravitated to me as I never mocked him like others did….)
Bowie-type chords, lush strings and Browns unique wavering phrasing make When Football.. a joyous start. Comparing growing up in New York -the village, in 1965 with Warhols New York City in the same timeframe is genius. Whether Our Janice actually looked better in a striped t-shirt than Edie Sedgewick, we’ll have to take Johnnys word for.
As a song title ‘My First Pint‘ is just irresistible and in Johnys case the occasion coincided with His First Gig at age 14. The Sensational Alex Harvey band at Newcastle City Hall 1975 (Mine was XTC, Salisbury City Hall. 1978). Musically the song is a beautiful Velvets-type drone ‘n’ chug. Brilliantly narrated rather than sung… it has some laugh out loud moments amongst the poetry. My first pint was a tangible beauty / I held it like a golden trophy.
‘Dream A Memory Of Home‘ again has a Bowie sound and is a walk around the streets that are left in the hometown.
Michael The Eagle features James Stephen Finns distinctive chiming guitar.
A Burning Thief’s Lament speeds things up and cello and violin frame a story of feral delinquency and the thrill of petty theft. The repeated ‘put those matches down boy put those matches down’ is fabulous.
Memories Are The Dreams We Sail On is a stately wander around a graveyard with Johny reciting the inscriptions on the graves in a half-spoken, half-sung quaver. John Michael Brown presumably his grandfather and Margaret Chisolm Brown his nan. Violin, piano and guitar waltz together beautifully at the end.
Shirley Down The Road – This is brilliant -an opportunity to get Surely and Shirley used in tandem in song – Steve Martin eat yer heart out! Even includes sha-la-la’s from the era.
Dream A Memory Of Home is just a wonderful, warm album full of great songs. It could’ve been a maudlin, self-indulgence in less-skilled hands – but like all of Johnys work it has that air of ‘magic realism’ about it. His distinctive authorial voice is as unique as his singing voice – or vocalising as he calls it in the sleeve notes. (He has so much soul and his voice is so loaded with it, it does ‘wobble’ off-key a bit. – I once wrote.)
Longtime fans of the Band of Holy Joy will no doubt love this album – but it could act as a great introduction to newcomers – to the great, under-appreciated man and his work with The Band Of Holy Joy. Start here and work backwards thru 40 years of Joy.
Johny Brown’s own website can be found here
Band of Holy Joy music can be found and purchased here
Check also their Facebook page
All words Ged Babey with PR content/quotes in italics
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