Hot off the heels of Eagle Johnson’s recently released LP Wild Heart, he has just released a short film that’ll give fans a ‘behind the scenes’ look at his creative workings. This “making of” Wild Heart was filmed in the Spring & Summer of ‘22 at Bomb Shelter Studios (Alabama Shakes, Margo Price) in Eagle’s hometown of Nashville.

After being released from a 9-mo stay in jail and a state-run mental hospital for vandalizing a church, Eagle Johnson began performing solo shows in North Florida in 2011 as Screamin Eagle. Once he rose through the local ranks as a go-to show opener in the area, including opening for Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan and Shovels & Rope, Eagle moved to Memphis, TN.

In Memphis, Screamin Eagle produced and performed with the self-proclaimed “last of the original delta-blues men,” Zeke Johnson. The two met at a Valerie June show that Eagle opened for at a small coffee shop in midtown Memphis in 2012. Zeke went on to mentor Eagle in the delta-blues ways while passing onto him (by request of Zeke and a mystical dream) his new surname, Johnson, while Eagle recorded him for the first time.  After getting some soul seasoning as a songwriter and performer from working the Memphis music scene, Eagle Johnson moved to Nashville, TN. 

In Nashville, Eagle linked up with The Bomb Shelter Studios where he recorded his debut album Tennessee Beach, as well as several other singles while learning the ins and outs of analog recording. 

After minor success with his 2017 release, Tennessee Beach (that got him signed to The Paradigm Agency and added to Wilco’s “Wilco Recommends” Spotify playlist), he was dropped during the pandemic in  2020 when his agent left Paradigm. Feeling down on his luck and needing to make something happen, Eagle responded to an online request from Lee “Scratch” Perry, who was looking for songs for a band he was producing at the time (Lee “Scratch” Perry was Bob Marley’s producer and is known widely as theGodfather of Reggae). Eagle wrote to Scratch saying that he was interested in working with him on a production with his own band and asked if he would listen to some of their demos. Scratch did and responded that he liked the music and went on to co-produce/mix a single called All My Friends just months before Scratch’s 2021 passing. 

On Friday, January 27th, Eagle Johnson released his third album, Wild Heart, the follow-up to his 2021 basement-tapes-quarantine album, The Last Gun. 

Wild Heart was recorded at The Bomb Shelter Studios in Nashville, TN with up-and-coming analog wizard Jack Tellmann engineering / co-producing while Eagle handled producing / mixing duties. This is a raw, live-to-tape rock & roll album with an extra large microdose of classic strings that ride in on the shoulders of all the rock & roll / soul giants that came before it. Patrick Carney of The Black Keys said, “it’s f***ing great…” In addition to the Wild Heart short film there are plans for a 12″ release when the monies come in. Tour dates TBA.

Photo Courtesy: Bree Marie Fish