We were unaware of Duquette Johnston until a few days ago, when he was referenced as a friend and collaborator in an e-mail from MM fave Wooden Wand.

His biography on Reverbnation says “In the past Duquette Johnston was a founding member of such influential bands as Verbena and Cutgrass. Along the way sharing the stage with bands such as Pavement, Jesus Lizard, the Strokes, Bonnie Prince Billy and so many more. For several years Duquette slipped into a dark place and found himself locked up in the Etowah County Detention center facing a very long prison sentence. By the grace of God he was given a second chance and released his first solo album Etowah, on Superphonic Records. In the present Duquette is making a new record with The Rebel Kings to be released sometime this year.

That was enough for us to check him out and we were pretty excited by what we found. On his Bandcamp page we found two albums, Rugged & Fancy from March 2010 and It Sings Because It Has A Song released a year earlier. Both are available for free download. Both are outstanding.

It is a beguiling blend of catchy, lo-fi, psych-tinged folk on the one hand and fragile, acoustic ballads on the other. Here are stories of those on their way down and those who’ll never bounce back up, bar-room tales of what might have been and what should have been, and songs of hope and redemption.

Check out the first tracks from each album below and my guess is you’ll soon be clicking through to download the rest of them.

You can visit his MySpace page here.

Download Duquette Johnston – Rise Up Children mp3 (from It Sings Because It Has A Song)

Download Duquette Johnston – Broke & Lonely Ones mp3 (from Rugged & Fancy)