JIMMY JOHNSON
Price: $10 Advance, $12 day of showLink: http://www.shauntemusic.com
A consummate bandleader, his soulful vocals and jazzy guitar licks are rendered with a tasteful passion that emphasizes the groove, placing the group sound above the individual. Jimmy's performing experience spans the globe from Europe to Japan, as well as prestigious festivals, concert halls and universities across the US and Canada.
Raised in an exceptionally musical family in the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi, Jimmy's younger brothers became professional musicians while older brother Jimmy was still working as a welder.
Mac spent many years as Magic Sam's bassist, while brother Syl Johnson, became a popular soul singer with a string of R&B hits to his credit (including the original version of 'Take Me To The River').
Jimmy began singing in the local church choir, and later, sang and played guitar with several spiritual groups in Memphis and eventually Chicago.
It wasn't until the late fifties that Jimmy became a professional performer himself. In 1959 he began playing with bluesmen Magic Sam and Freddie King, and gigged with harmonica Slim Willis and others. Though his first love was the blues, there was a better living to be made as a R&B artist. Jimmy spent the next 20 years jobbing as a highly successful soul/R&B guitarist and bandleader on Chicago's south and west sides.
But Jimmy grew tired of covering everyone else's hits. He wanted to be his own man, a bluesman. In 1974 he began his 'back to the blues' campaign when he signed on as rhythm guitarist with Jimmy Dawkins. He toured Japan with Dawkins and Otis Rush, appearing on Rush's live Japanese recording and two Dawkins' studio LPs, before putting together his own band.
Jimmy's approach to the blues is straight-ahead and sincere, earning him a variety of national and international awards. In 1978, Johnson's name first garnered national attention, as well as a Grammy nomination, when Alligator included four of his tracks on Living Chicago Blues, Vol 1. These cuts, and the soon-to-follow records on the Delmark label (Johnson's Whacks in 1979 and North/South in 1982), established Johnson as a witty and prolific songwriter combining elements of soul, R&B, jazz, and gospel into a blues style all his own.
His first W.C. Handy Award (presented by the International Blues Foundation) for Best Contemporary Foreign Blues LP of the Year came by way of his 1985 album on the Red Lightnin’ label.
I'm A Jockey (1995), his first world wide release on Verve/Polygram, garnered yet another Handy Award for Comeback Album of the Year. This followed his critically acclaimed album Bar Room Preacher (1985), on Alligator Records where Village Voice called his original compositions 'as thoughtful and every bit as striking as Robert Cray's.' Jimmy’s latest world-wide release Every Road Ends Somewhere (1999), is available on Ruf Records.
Whether preaching the blues from festival and concert hall stages, or packing the dance floor at colleges and clubs, Jimmy has the special ability to please any audience, uninitiated and die-hard blues lovers alike.