Albums 1996-2012
Human Cry & SPIRITUAL WAR Cassette Tape 2010-2011
"Human Cry" (2010) was released on Toronto's Barnyard Records featuring elegiac torch songs backed once again by Toronto's The South Seas - Jean Martin (drums), Andrew Downing (bass), Justin Haynes (guitar), as well as singers Daniela Gesundheit and Felicity Williams. U.K journalist Chris Evans on "Human Cry": "This being John Southworth, such a potentially mawkish progression from misery to joy is embellished with gorgeous, winding melodies and dizzying lyrical excursions that take you far from humdrum reality"
Self-recorded onto a SONY CASSETTE-CORDER model TCM-939, "SPIRITUAL WAR Cassette Tape" was inspired by Mussorgsky's "A Night on Bald Mountain". Stephen Cooke of the Halifax Chronicle Herald called it "post-modern Woody Guthrie".
Mama Tevatron 2009
Southworth’s sixth record “Mama Tevatron” was released on Dead Daisy Records in Canada in October 2009. Michael Barclay of Radiofreecanickstan reviewed it as "a strange hybrid of Esquivel, the Ramones and Dirty Mind-era Prince—that has to be heard to be believed".
Yosemite & The Pillowmaker w/The South Seas 2004-07
“Yosemite” was recorded with a group of Toronto jazz and avant-garde improv musicians, consisting of Jean Martin (drums), Justin Haynes (guitar) and Andrew Downing (bass), later dubbed by Southworth as ‘The South Seas’. To promote “Yosemite”, Southworth took on a persona he called “the lost child of the railroad” and completed a cross-country Canadian tour by train. Inspired by Nature artists like Andy Goldsworthy, he planted ceremonial turnip seeds along the way.
In 2006, Southworth and ‘The South Seas’ recorded “The Pillowmaker”. The record was co-produced with drummer Jean Martin and featured nineteen songs. Two of the songs have since garnered cover versions by Canadian artists Sarah Slean (“Eyes Are The Flowers” on the “Black Flowers” CD with The Art of Time Ensemble), as well as Veda Hille and Kim Barlow’s CBC Radio duet of “We Can Live Life”. ‘The Pillowmaker’ was digitally released on Minnesota-based Grimsey Records in 2007.
Sedona Arizona & Banff Springs Transylvania & Rose Milk Appalachia E.P 1999-2001
In 1999 Southworth released the high-energy lo-fi “Sedona Arizona”, produced by fellow Canadian cohort Hawksley Workman. Both “Sedona” and the self-produced “Banff Springs Transylvania (2000)” were released only in Canada on Water Street/Outside Music and Perimeter Records/Universal respectively. The folk-orchestral “Banff” contained a duet with Mary Margaret O’Hara on “Cat Mountain”. To promote these records, Southworth performed theatrical shows in white face with a three-piece bluegrass band. An apartment recording of the bluegrass Sedona songs would later surface on the self-released “Rose Milk Appalachia” EP in 2001.
Mars Pennsylvania 1996-98
Southworth’s signature debut album "Mars Pennsylvania", co-produced with Jono Grant, was released in 1996 on Water Street/AM Records in his native Canada, and later in 1998, on Bar None Records in the U.S and Quattro in Japan. The record received rave critical acclaim. One reviewer said, “If Burt Bacharach and Bobby Vinton had a sexually ambiguous alien love child, John Southworth would be it. Damn odd music. But catchy and wonderful at the same time.” Exclaim Magazine called it “the most original Canadian debut album since Mary Margaret O’Hara’s ‘Miss America’”; the Toronto Star called him a “pop poet”.
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