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The history of rock and roll is populated with any number of “unsung heroes,” musicians who made significant contributions to the art form but received little credit or recognition. One such individual is Johnnie Johnson. Which is why those in the know are excited about the recent release of I’m Just Johnnie, a collection of songs recorded over 20 years ago which have been gathering dust in a closet near St. Louis.
Johnson was Chuck Berry’s piano player during the ‘50s, when songs like “Johnny B. Goode,” “Maybellene” and “Roll Over Beethoven” were blasting out of transistor radios. While Berry commanded the stage, duckwalking and strutting while playing some really wild guitar, Johnson sat in the background, providing a solid musical foundation for songs that described a life full of cute girls, snazzy cars and fuse-blowing juke boxes in postwar America.
Not only did Johnson anchor Berry’s band, but it is argued that he contributed mightily to Berry’s revolutionary musical approach that codified much of the rock and roll that came after it. Some (including Chuck Berry scholar Keith Richards) believe that many of Berry’s signature guitar riffs were actually adapted from Johnson’s piano figures. Johnson brought a lawsuit against Berry in 2000, claiming that he was due a cowriter’s credit on over 50 songs. A judge, however, dismissed the case, ruling that too much time had passed since the original copyrights were filed under Berry’s name alone.
After splitting with Berry in 1973, Johnson played with blues legend Albert King while also performing periodic solo gigs. Eric Clapton and Richards championed Johnson in his later years, hiring him for various musical projects and contributing to his most noteworthy solo release, Johnnie B. Bad, in 1991. Johnson continued to live in his longtime home of St. Louis until his passing in 2005.
But, thanks to St. Louis musician Gene Ackmann, the Johnnie Johnson story doesn’t end there. Ackmann met Johnson in 1979, when the latter was playing at a small blues club. The two musicians stayed in touch, with Johnson occasionally playing with Ackmann’s band, notably at St. Louis sporting events, including the Cardinals’ baseball home openers and a parade in 2000 celebrating the Rams’ Super Bowl victory.
“I was – and still am – a huge fan of Johnnie’s,” says Ackmann, speaking from his home near St. Louis. “Initially, I sought him out because I was a big fan of Chuck Berry, and then I started digging in and realized everything Johnnie was doing on [those records].
“He would play at these little blues clubs, so I would go out and listen to him. But he also played at this place – it was called the Lemp Mansion – on Sunday nights, and he had a little trio with an upright bass and drums, and he was playing Great American Songbook type stuff. He was playing ‘Sunny Side of the Street,’ ‘Canadian Sunset,’ ‘Misty’ and stuff.”
After Johnson began to sit in with Ackmann’s band, their friendship truly blossomed when the two discovered that they had not only a love of music in common but also one of fishing. “We were bumming around, he was coming out and playing with my band, and somehow or another I mentioned that I had a lake at my house and that I liked to fish. And Johnnie was so excited to know that. He said, ‘I want to come out and go fishing sometime.’
“Johnnie lived about an hour and a half away from me, down by the Arch in St. Louis. So I would drive down early in the morning and pick him up, drive back out to my house, and we would fish all day. It was making his day, so it was making my day. It was like getting to spend the day with your grandfather again. I would have done anything for Johnnie.” One day, after another fishing outing, Johnson told Ackmann that he would like to record an album and wondered if Ackmann could produce it. Ackmann quickly assembled a group of local musicians, along with guest stars like Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Hornsby, Johnny Rivers and John Sebastian.
“I just wanted to put something together that would be really good and represent what Johnnie did,” Ackmann says. “I used some of the guys in my band, and then we used some of the guys who had played with Johnnie for a long time. We wrote some songs, and we did some cover songs.” Work took place primarily in the music room at Ackmann’s house. “Most of what Johnnie and I did, when we put all the arrangements together, was done during rain delays from fishing.”
Johnson died not long after the album was completed, and this development made it difficult for Ackmann to find a company willing to release the record. So the master tapes sat in a closet at Ackmann’s house. “Then, about a year and a half ago, which would have been Johnnie’s 100th birthday, I was out cutting the grass or something, and I thought, “I need to dig back into this thing and see if we can’t get something going,’” Ackmann recalls.
After a bit of studio tinkering, Ackmann assembled a collection of songs that included five Johnson vocals, five songs with guest artists and two instrumentals. The music business had changed markedly since the original recordings were made, leading Ackmann to head in a different direction with regard to the release of the album. “I said, ‘You know what? I’m just going to do my own thing. Because I don’t want to give the master tapes to everybody. I don’t want to do all that. I’ll just do it myself.’” Hence the release of I’m Just Johnnie on Ackmann’s Missouri Morning Records.
According to Ackmann, Johnson maintained a positive attitude throughout his life, despite an initial lack of credit and later periods when he wasn’t working much. “He was incredibly humble and gentle and just a joy to be around. He could have been a little bit bitter. Could have been. But he was not. He was not. Because as time went on, after [the Chuck Berry documentary] Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll, people discovered him, and he started working more. He got better gigs. He got an agent. He started playing better places. And all of a sudden, Johnnie rose to be an elder statesman of the blues.”
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Tom Richards
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