Touch over technique: Inside Jonathon “Boogie” Long’s Courage In The Chaos
19 September 2025
Newsdesk
When Jonathon “Boogie” Long talks about the guitar, he talks about language. The Baton Rouge player grew up translating church-house harmony into six-string phrases, then learned to strip away excess while backing New Orleans soul singer Luther Kent. That arc comes through on Courage In The Chaos, out November 14th on Myrical Media. It is a guitar record that avoids the clinic. Notes feel chosen, not stacked.
The lead single “A Fool Can See” is a study in economy. The rhythm section lays a thick pocket. Long answers with vocal-like bends and clipped bursts that escalate only when the lyric does. He frames the theme with a succinct image. “I kept hearing this idea of fool’s gold – how something shines until you get close. The rest wrote itself,” he says. The solo narrows to the melody rather than sprinting from it.
That approach traces back to his earliest gigs. As a kid, Long played “Amazing Grace” in rooms where dynamics mattered. As a teen on the road with Henry Turner Jr., he learned to listen. Later, JazzFest stages with big horn sections taught him to leave air. Those lessons sidestep cliché throughout Courage In The Chaos. The tones are warm and present. Overdrives are thick but never mask the hands.
Beyond touch, the writing packs the weight of lived time. The album collects ideas he kept on the back burner for years alongside new sketches. You can hear Baton Rouge in the shuffles, gospel in the phrasing, and a bit of jam-band spark when energy calls for it. The musical vocabulary is broad, but the sentences are plainspoken.
“A Fool Can See” arrives with an official video and the album is open for pre-save now. Players who value feel over fireworks will find plenty to study in the spaces between Long’s notes.
