John Van Horn has been in and around the music business pretty much all his life. He started in elementary school when he learned to play violin and was in the school band. By the time that he was 12, Van Horn had developed a penchant for guitar music from numerous hours of listening to the radio. Slingers like Chet Atkins, Les Paul and Mary Ford and a few others impressed him to the point he wanted to play guitar and put down the violin.
At the age of 14, after learning a few chords on the 1910 Gibson box guitar his mother bought from a neighbor, John got with a friend, a kid by the name of David Mosley, who was starting to play drums. This is when the Fender Benders were formed.
A personal friend of Link Wray, Anton Fig (who plays drums on "All Cried Out," "Roadway Bruiser" and "Rumble") and Mick Fleetwood, Van Horn's sound lies somewhere in between the Memphis inspired hooks of Elvis Presley ("Love Me") and the roadhouse feel of Texans Delbert McClinton and Monty Montgomery ("All Cried Out," "Tossing Stones").
Eleven tracks with the majority of them written by Van Horn or his son, guitar playing John Jr., appear on "I've Got the Cure." Humorous lyrics, excellent vocals, decent production and some fine guitar playing by John Jr. adds up to a worthy CD with rumblings of better things to come.
Fender Bender Records, P.O. Box 238, Falls Church, Va., 22040
This review is copyright © 2000 by Matt Alcott, and Blues On Stage, all rights reserved.
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