Johnny Williams (blues Musician)
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Johnny Williams (May 15, 1906 – March 6, 2006) was an American
blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
guitar player and singer based in Chicago, who was one of the first of the new generation of
electric blues Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Ho ...
players to record after World War II.


Early life and career

Williams was born in
Alexandria, Louisiana Alexandria is the ninth-largest city in the state of Louisiana and is the parish seat and largest city of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies on the south bank of the Red River of the South, Red River ...
, to parents who were both musicians.Harris, S. (1981). ''Blues Who's Who''. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 570–571. He was raised in
Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
, Texas, and moved to
Belzoni, Mississippi Belzoni ( ) is a city in Humphreys County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta region, on the Yazoo River. The population was 2,235 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Humphreys County. It was named for the 19th-century ...
, to live with his uncle Anthony Williams after his mother died around 1917. There he met local musicians such as the Chatmon brothers and
Charley Patton Charlie Patton (April 1891 (probable) – April 28, 1934), more often spelled Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of America ...
(with whom his uncle played) and learned to play the guitar. After traveling north during the 1920s, he returned to Belzoni around 1930, where he occasionally played locally. Moving to Chicago in 1938, he worked at first in the defense industry and later for
Oscar Mayer Oscar Mayer is an American meat and cold cut producer known for its hot dogs, bologna sausage, bologna, bacon, ham, and Lunchables products. The company is a subsidiary of the Kraft Heinz, Kraft Heinz Company and based in Chicago, Chicago, Illin ...
. By 1943 he was playing in clubs in the evenings while working as a meat packer in the daytime.Rowe (1981), p. 54. He worked with Theodore "Hound Dog" Taylor around 1944. In 1945 he lost the end of a finger in a meat grinder and gave up playing the guitar for a year, until he saw Blind Arvella Gray, who was missing two fingers from his left hand, playing on Maxwell Street, and learned to play the guitar without the missing finger. In the late 1940s Williams was once more playing on Maxwell Street and in clubs, often working with his cousin, the
mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...
player
Johnny Young Johnny Young (born Johnny Benjamin de Jong, 12 March 1947, Rotterdam, Netherlands) is an Australian singer, composer, record producer, disc jockey, television producer and host. He had a number-one hit with the double-A-sided single, "Step Bac ...
; with the harmonica player
Snooky Pryor James Edward "Snooky" Pryor (September 15, 1919 or 1921 – October 18, 2006) was an American Chicago blues harmonica player. He claimed to have pioneered the now-common method of playing amplified harmonica by cupping a small microphone in hi ...
and the guitarists
Floyd Jones Floyd Jones (July 21, 1917 – December 19, 1989) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. He was one of the first of the new generation of electric blues artists to record in Chicago after World War II, and a number of his recor ...
and Moody Jones; or with
Little Walter Marion Walter Jacobs (May 1, 1930 – February 15, 1968), known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter, whose revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on succeeding generations, earning him ...
. He joined the musicians' union around this time. He acquired the nickname Uncle Johnny, by which he was known among his blues associates for the rest of his life.


Recordings

Williams's first recordings were made in 1947 with Johnny YoungLeadbitter, M.; Fancourt, L.; Pelletier, P. (1994). ''Blues Records 1943–1970'', vol. 2, L–Z. London: Record Information Services. p. 804. and resulted in one of the two singles issued on the Ora-Nelle label. On one side of the record Young sang "Money Taking Woman" accompanied by Williams; on the other side Williams sang "Worried Man Blues". In December 1948 Young and Williams were joined by Snooky Pryor to record a single for the Planet label. Williams continued to work in music into the 1950s, eventually joining Big Boy Spires's Rocket Four, with whom he had his final recording session, for
Chance Records Chance Records was a Chicago-based label founded in 1950 by Art Sheridan. It specialized in blues, jazz, doo-wop, and gospel. Among the acts who recorded for Chance were The Flamingos, The Moonglows, Homesick James, J. B. Hutto, Brother Joh ...
, in 1953. The session resulted in a single released under Spires's name,Rowe (1981), p. 129. but the two tracks on which Williams sang were unreleased until the 1970s.


Later career and death

After 1953 Williams continued to work with Hound Dog Taylor and others, but he stopped playing blues in 1959 after a religious conversion and joined the Baptist church, becoming a deacon in the early 1960s. Williams died in Chicago on March 6, 2006, at the age of 99. The blues musicians
John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues that he develo ...
and Baby Boy Warren have also used the name Johnny Williams.


References


Sources

*Rowe, M. (1981). ''Chicago Blues: The City and the Music''. New York: Da Capo Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Johnny 1906 births 2006 deaths Chicago blues musicians American blues guitarists American male guitarists People from Alexandria, Louisiana Guitarists from Louisiana 20th-century American guitarists Guitarists from Chicago 20th-century American male musicians