Rockin' Johnny Band - Straight Out Of Chicago (1998)

This CD features great postwar Blues guitar work from Rockin' Johnny, a young man who has spent most of his 20's slinging his Rickenbacker in juke joints around Chicago. This is 180 degrees away from the Stevie Ray Vaughn rocked-out pseudo-Blues. There is no Jimi Hendrix influence here. Johnny's guitar is clean, thoughtful, & melodic. He really makes that Rickenbacker talk. The three guest vocalists (Robert Plunkett, Tail Dragger & Sam Lay) are all west-side veterans who add a lot of flavor to this fantastic disc.
Guitarist Rockin' Johnny has been on the Chicago blues scene since '90 and has played with countless blues artist including Mary Lane, Vera Taylor, Dave Myers, Jimmy Dawkins and Billy Boy Arnold. Johnny made his first recorded appearances accompanying Big Wheeler on the Delmark album Bone Orchard (661) and Jimmie Lee Robinson on Lonely Traveler (665). Johnny then started his own band which recorded with Jimmy Burns on the award-winning Leaving Here Walking (694) and now features Martin Lang, harmonica; Sho Komiya, bass; Kenny Smith, drums. The House Band is tight and burnin' for Johnny's five originals yet they are as lowdown and funky for the West Side sounds of Taildragger and Robert Plunkett. Often working 5 nights a week these guys love to play blues and they really show it on this great album.

1. House Band Blues 4:06
2. Undercover Lover 3:53
3. Got My Eyes On You 5:12
4. Confusion Blues 4:17
5. If You Got Money 3:48
6. Sweet Thing 5:20
7. Stranger Blues 3:58
8. Cut You A Loose 4:41
9. Stompin' At The Fishmarket 2:54
10. My Woman Is Gone 5:34
11. Tend To Your Business 5:16
12. Sugar Mama 7:04
13. I Wanna Boogie 8:25
14. Tribute To Fast Fingers 4:25

BIOGRAPHY:
The Rockin' Johnny Band has been one of Chicago's most loved blues bands since 1995. Their music has been played on WXRT's "Local Anaesthetic" and "Blues Breakers" radio shows, the band has often been featured at The Chicago Blues Festival, and they regularly work in Chicagoland's best blues clubs such as Buddy Guy's Legends. Their CDs and live performances have drawn great reviews in Living Blues, The Chicago Sun Times, Pioneer Press, and National Public Radio's "848".
Guitarist Johnny Burgin came to Chicago from South Carolina to attend the University of Chicago, and earned the name "Rockin' Johnny" as a DJ at the college radio station WHPK. Rockin' Johnny began playing in the ghetto clubs of Chicago's West Side with blues singer Taildragger, and then began touring nationally as a sideman with former Howlin' Wolf drummer Sam Lay and blues piano legend Pinetop Perkins.
After learning from the masters, he put his own band together. Things started happening for the Rockin Johnny Band after they took a Monday night residency at The Smoke Daddy in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. Their original, energetic approach soon made them a strong local draw week after week and year after year, bringing in blues afficianadoes, every musician in town, and a younger crowd that normally didn't go to hear blues bands.
The atmosphere the band generated was so electric, their Delmark recording contract was offered by the label after hearing just one set. Since those days, they've toured Europe twice, played festivals and headlined clubs all over the Midwest. The Rockin' Johnny Band has released three studio CDs and a live CD, recorded at BLUES on Halsted. Rockin Johnny has also gone on to become one of Chicago's most in-demand session men, contributing his incisive playing to over a dozen CDs.
The Rockin' Johnny Band plays modern Chicago blues, but is also known for a wide repetoire which ventures into funk, rock, and swing. Their playing shows a spontaneous sense of fun, and always showcases fantastic guitar playing. Living Blues states: "top notch ensemble work, with power, drive, and a keen sense of dynamics". They are equally at home whether playing full tilt at a rowdy blues club, playing at a convention of professionals such as the American Architecture Institute at The Blackstone Hotel; from an intimate restaurant setting to a wedding party where everyone wants to dance and have a good time. The band consists of true veterans: Rick Kreher, rhythm guitar, former rhythm guitarist with Muddy Waters for four years; John Sefner, bass, formerly with Studebaker John and Eddie Kirkland; and Rob Lorenz, drums, formerly with Chicago blues legends Dave Meyers and Little Mack Simmons.
Here's what some of Chicago's most in the know critics and music business figures have to say about Rockin' Johnny and The Rockin Johnny Band:Bruce Iglauer, Alligator Records: "Rockin Johnny delivers the raw, rough-edged spirit of real Chicago blues".Dick Shurman, writer for Living Blues, blues producer: "Rockin' Johnny has brought a refreshing jolt of talent, feeling and affirmation of the Windy City's guitar tradition. Johnny has always been known as a crowd pleaser with rawness, drive, a tight band and a scholarly and musical mastery of the local blues repertoire and vocabulary. He's extra interesting and distinctive because, instead of the overdone warhorses sometimes called "the set list from hell," Johnny mines more obscure building blocks like Little Smokey Smothers, Hip Linkchain or Willie James Lyons, adding to his appeal to hard core purists as well as more casual lovers of powerful Chicago blues. It adds up to a winning combination of depth, a bite like the winter wind, tradition and an up-to-the minute wallop, and offers a guaranteed winner for all who see or book the band."