John Egan

Egan was born in Hartford, Conn., but his family moved to Houston when he was 5. His father, also John Egan, ended his playing career in the NBA with the Houston Rockets and then coached the team for four seasons in the 1970s.

At 12, Egan got his first guitar and taught himself to play. “I ended up tuning it weird before I really knew what I was doing,” he says. He graduated from the University of St. Thomas where he spent a few years studying music, but ultimately he found his way back to the unorthodox… Show more style of playing he had when he was younger. “I gravitated toward what my ear heard, and that was more drone-y and weird.”

Egan has made three records that don’t lend themselves to easy categorization. He fits somewhere on an power blues arc that includes Jimi Hendrix and Chris Whitley, artists who put a powder keg under the venerable genre. Egan shares with Whitley a sometimes-studied, sometimes-stormy way with the resonator.

He cops to taking in a lot of Prince as a young listener, which explains the funkier moments on his first album, The Gin Diaries. Houston’s rich singer-songwriter history seems to have also found its way into his mix. As he puts it, “it’s kind of a hybridized thing. It was originally songwriter based, but it evolved into something louder.” He’s also well acquainted with old Southern soul — evident in his singing — from his mother’s music collection. He says an early record by soul-singer-turned-disco-smoothie Johnnie Taylor made an early impression.

“He’s got a way, especially when he plugs in that resonator, of really coming almost completely unhinged,” says David Rice, an Austin musician who has worked with Egan for more than 15 years. Most recently they collaborated on the score for the documentary film Crawford, about the Texas town that became home to President George W. Bush.

“It’s really impossible to put a finger on John’s style,” Rice says. “On first listen you may hear a grittiness and edginess, but underneath there’s a sensitive singer-songwriter thing as well. It gives it character.”

The lastest project Egan is working on is his album, "Phantoms". This vibrant album will keep his audience coming back for more of his haunting blues sound.

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