Signs, the 2017 release from Jonny Lang, is not merely a return the artist's guitar-based beginnings, but an embodiment of an even more elemental sound. Beyond focusing attention on his soloing prowess, it is about recapturing the spirit of the early blues, where the guitar was front and center, fairly leaping out of the speakers. "A lot of my earlier influences have been coming to the surface, like Robert Johnson, and Howlin' Wolf," he reports. "I let the writing be what it was and that was sometimes not necessarily the blues." At 15, Jonny Lang made a blues album, 1997's Lie to Me, which went platinum and hit #1 on Billboard's New Artist chart. At 17 he made another, Wander This World, which earned a Grammy nomination. Today, at age 32, he can't listen to them. "It's like torture," he says. "It's like going back and looking at your high school yearbook or something. But no, I wouldn't change anything. It's all a part of where you are presently as a person."
