He’s Learned to Walk; Now He Can Fly : Freedy Johnston’s Come Far Since His First Album, Which Is Still Hard for Him to Listen To

Freedy Johnston may not be a household name--yet--but the release of his album “Can You Fly” has People talking.

That’s People magazine, which recently dropped a rave review of the album among its usual profiles of British royalty and troubled celebrities. Johnston, wrote critic Eric Levin, “has produced an extraordinary second album, one of the most tuneful, propulsive and penetrating of this or any year.”

Nice exposure for a refreshingly gimmick-free record released by tiny Bar/None Records in Hoboken, N.J. Johnston has also been noticed by writers for the usual music journalism outlets including Musician (“I like ‘Can You Fly’ so much I’m almost afraid to write about it,” one critic enthused), Rolling Stone and Spin, and it appears that all the talk is about to pay off.

Johnston’s management reports that he is very close to signing with a major label, although the singer himself is reluctant to talk about it yet (“To me, it’s just a pretty strong rumor”). He and his band will play Bogart’s in Long Beach tonight on a bill with Uncle Tupelo and the Trouble Dolls.

Reached by phone in Vancouver, British Columbia, Johnston, 32, said he has been touring in support of “Can You Fly” since the middle of last year; it’s been his first real on-the-road experience. He has been opening for such diverse acts as They Might Be Giants, Soul Asylum and the Lemonheads, and has managed a few solo dates here and there.

If he has anything in common with the bands he has toured with, it’s an independence of vision. His is heartland rock without the glossy small-town romanticism of a John Mellencamp; plaintive, sometimes haunting tales of isolation, despair--and hope--told with a remarkable eye for scene-setting detail.

For his reedy vocals and easy melding of country, folk and rock styles, he has often been compared to Neil Young. But while he professes admiration for Young, he says that what he listened to most while driving or hanging out with friends in his tiny hometown of Kinsley, Kan., were eight-tracks of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and David Bowie, artists he maintains a fondness for.

He bought a guitar by mail order when he was 16, taught himself to play over the next couple of years and started “writing kind of jokey songs” with a friend. Elvis Costello became an influence: Johnston remembers being “the first guy in town to have ‘My Aim Is True.’ That was my distinction there.”

After high school, he moved to the college town of Lawrence, Kan., for “one semester of school and six years of restaurant work,” as his press biography puts it. “I stopped writing songs for a while,” he said by phone, “and went into a deep funk.” By the time he started writing again, the songs “weren’t really jokey anymore.”

For a time, he kept the music to himself, playing and recording in his room. He moved to New York in 1985 and made his way through a variety of day jobs while continuing to work on his music.

Eventually, he hooked up with Bar/None and released his debut album, “The Trouble Tree,” in 1990. The album did well in Holland, of all places, and attracted the beginnings of a cult following in the States.

Since then, Johnston has said that he finds the album embarrassing to listen to, but after several months’ experience in dealing with press attention and seeing his words in cold print, he is softening his appraisal, at least in public.

“I’ve learned to weigh my words before I say them” in interviews, he explained, going on to say that “The Trouble Tree” contains several songs he remains proud of, and that he sees the album as a necessary step in his musical evolution.

“I didn’t have any experience in the studio. . . . I didn’t know what I wanted. I made a big step forward with ‘Can You Fly.’ ”

Johnston, who had played only a handful of live dates before the release of “Can You Fly,” feels ready to try another step forward now that he has some touring under his belt. “The more you play, the better you get. You get used to putting out on cue. It’s ‘open your veins, pal.’ ”

He was recently in the studio to record several songs for an EP to be released in spring on Bar/None. And beyond that, the major label looms. Johnston said the progress in his career has been “steady and gradual”--he just quit his most recent day job last year--but if he were to suddenly flash back four years, he expects he would be surprised by how far he’s come.

He said the steady road schedule of the past eight months hasn’t played too much havoc with his songwriting. “It’s hard for me to write anyway. I get up in the morning, and I get some things done. I get some songs done, in my slow, ponderous way.”

* Freedy Johnston, Uncle Tupelo and the Trouble Dolls play tonight at Bogart’s, 6288 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach. Show time: 9 p.m. Admission: $8. Information: (310) 594-8975.