Johnnie Johnson - Rocking Eighty Eight

1) FRANCES (instrumental) Johnnie Johnson
2) GOIN' HOME Clayton Love
3) NEW BIG LEGGED WOMAN Jimmy Vaughn
4) BLUEBIRD Johnnie Johnson (Vernon Guy-Vocal)
5) IDA'S SONG (instrumental) Jimmy Vaughn
6) GOIN' DOWN SLOW Clayton Love
7) HEY! COME 'ERE (instrumental) Jimmy Vaughn
8) SLIDIN SERENADE (instrumental) Johnnie Johnson
9) DON'T YOU LIE TO ME Clayton Love
10) AFTER HOURS (instrumental) Johnnie Johnson
11) RIPPLE WINE DREAM Jimmy Vaughn
12) THE BIG QUESTION Clayton Love



– (taked from johnnie.com) –
You bet. Red-hot rock n' roll by three piano giants who,ve been at this game from the start long before guitar players started hogging the turf, Indeed, it was piano players who set up the game, and on whose strong shoulders guitar players climbed to reach their current dominance. This album is an exuberant celebration of rock n, roll,s piano-music origins, and a fresh reminder of the instrument,s enduring power in that music. Don't forget that Chuck Berry - the man often hailed as "the father of rock n, roll, and himself a guitar player - got his musical footin in Johnniie Johnson,s band, before rock n' roll even had a name. Or check out Johnnie,s playing on any of Chuck,s hit records for a reminder of just which instrument put the drive into rock n, roll,s first great body of work. The roots of that drive go way back - before guitars first met electricity - to the rhythmatically-intensive playing of black pianists in the American South at the turn of the century. Their music spawned an eight-to-the-bar style called "boogie-woogie that began reaching a broader, national audience by the late-1920s. Its popularity grew into a craze that crossed geographic, social, and racial boundaries until it peaked during the Second World War. Its influence over jump blues, R&B, and country music - as well as into an incipient style that would come to be known as rock n' roll. The word "boogie appears in the titles of many post-war proto-rock n, roll records, and a boogie-woogie pano pulses at the heart of the leading contender for the title of "first rock n' roll record: "Rocket 88. That 1951 recording was built on a boogie-wooge piano figure - played by Ike Turner - with a fuzzed-out electric guitar playing over the left-hand piano line. It reached number one on the R&B charts, and soon-to-be rock n, roller Bill Haley cut his own version of the tune before the year was out. The unusually-prominent electric guitar on "Rocket 88" foreshadowed things to come in the yet-to-be-named domain of rock n, roll. Ike himself would later switch from piano to guitar, turning keyboard duties over to others - including his boyhood friend Clayton Love. But we're getting ahead of our story. Boogie-woogie flourished again during rock n, roll,s first full flowering, propelled by the likes of Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Piano-based songs such as Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise and Huey "Piano Smith,s "Rockin, Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu rank among the music,s early anthems. But the piano,s rock n, roll glory days were getting shorter, as electrc guitars started casting an increasingly-large shadow over the music. Not only had the electric guitar come to rock n, roll with it,s own historical ties to the music - through blues and hillbilly traditions - it also offered some practical advantages over the piano. Unlike pianos, electric guitars are easy to transport, amplify, and record. And let,s not forget their superior appeal as props for no-playing rock n, roll showboaters.

The primitive state of audio technology during rock n, roll,s early years worked to the electric guitar's advantage. Electric guitars provided an easily-amplified musical siganl. Pianos required microphones to make themselves heard. The amplifier and speaker dstortion that flattered and shaped the electric guitar,s sound in the music hurt the piano, muddyng its tone and blurring its vocings. The guitar's steady ascent was accompanied by the piano's more fitful decline, as various attempts to electrify it made brave, short-lived bids to maintain the instrument's claim on the music. By the time technology caught up with its particular recording and amplification needs, the piano,s rock n' rollvoice and history were mostly history. Meanwhile, the instrument itself had mutated into a black-and-white plastic switch-panel controlling a new unverse of synthesized, sampled, processed sounds that somehow never touched the magic of the real thing. Well, here is the real thing - by three piano masters whose continuing creativity is testimony to the robustness of the root traditions they've forged, nurtured, and advanced.



JOHNNIE JOHNSON, CLAYTON LOVE, AND JIMMY VAUGHN



Johnnie, Clayton, and Jimmy all live in the St. Louis area. Like many of the musicians who made their mark on popular music in that city - Ike Turner and Alber King, to name just two - they began their musical careers elsewhere. All three were active in the post-war St. Louis R&B scene that was to have national influence on the sound of rock n, roll and "modern city blues. Clayton and Jimmy have worked with Ike Turner, and all three have performed wirh Little Milton and Albert King. Johnnie and Jimmy play on a number of the seminal, late-fifties/early-sixties Albert King releases reissued by Modern Blues Recordings on "Let,s Have a Natural Ball (MBR-723, all formats). Similarities aside, however, each brings a distinct, personal approach to the muical styles they share - and each probes musical territory beyond the boundaries of their common ground. This album,s focus on the rock n, roll and blues aspects of their playing can only hint at the far broader range encompassed in their individual repertoires. Johnnie Johnson was born on July 8, 1924, in the coal-mining town of Fairmont, West Virginia. He was 7 years old when his mother bought a piano for the family. "It was a gift from God, he explains. He developed a repertoire of popular tunes by Earl Hines, Count Basie, Meade Lux Louis, "Pinetop Smith, and the like - learning off of records and by listening to pianists at area house parties. After graduating from high school, he moved to Detroit, where he worked in a defense plant until his induction into the Marines for a three-year stint that ended in 1946. He returned to Detoroit to begin his music career in earnest, then moved to Chcagp in 1950, to work in that city,s burgeoning bluls scene. In March, 1952, he moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, where he took a day job with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Within a month, Johnnie had organized a trio and was working in local clubs. He was an established bandleader by year,s end, when he hird the young Chuck Berry to fill in for his saxophone player at a New Year;s Eve engagemnetn. Berry stayed on with the band, developing the music and stage act that would ead to his recording career at Chess Records, beginning in 1955, and subsequent international stardom. Johnnie's piano magic graces Berry's greatest recordings: Maybelline," "Carol," "Little Queenie," and "Roll Over Beethoven," to name just a few. Beyond his brilliant piano playing on those recordings (and despite his modesty on the subject), there is no doubt that Johnnie was a major influence on the development of Berry's
overall music style.
Between tours during the late-fifties and into the sixties, Johnnie worked with such other St. Louis-based stars as Albert King and Little Milton. Clayton Love was born the youngest of six children on November 15, 1927, in Mattson, Mississippi - in the blues-rich Mississippi River delta. He was 12 years old when his family moved a short ways up Highway 49 to Clarksdale. Clayton's playing developed in that cultural and commercial crossroad, fostered by musical activities in church and school. Among his childhood friends was Ike Turner, with whom Clayton established a personal and musical relationship that would bear rich fruit in St. Louis in the mid-1950s. "Shuffling with Love," a 1952 release on the Trumpet label, was the start of an active recording career. Subsequent recordings were for the Groove, Aladdin, Modern, Bobbin, and Federal labels.
Despite his considerable, rising success in music, Clayton took full-time work as a teacher in the St. Louis public school system in the 1960s. Although teaching provided the stability Clayton sought as he raised a growing family, it relegated his music mostly to weekend gigs. Now retired from teaching, Clayton is resuming full-time work in music. Jimmy Vaughn was born into a musical family in Chicago, Illinois, on March 20, 1925. At home, Jimmy listened to classical music as well as to tunes by Duke Ellington, Jimmy Lunceford, Fats Walker, and the like. Jimmy's family moved to Alton, Illinois, near St. Louis, when he was 9. He sang in the elementary school chorus and started plunking around on the piano at home - learning by ear
some of the classical and sophisticated popular music favored by his family. The first low-down influence on Jimmy's playing came a year later. The sound of a boogie-woogie piano was mixed with the noises coming out of a moonshine-fueled party in a shack next door to his home. The pianist turned out to be Jimmy's neighbor, Tom "Barrelhouse Buck" McPharland, who had recorded "Lamp Post Blues" in 1930. After a three-year army stint during World War II, Jimmy returned to Alton, Playing locally for about a decade before joining Albert King's band as pianist and musical director. He toured extensively with King before moving over to Little Milton's band, then out to the West Coast. Over the next 15 years he worked with Ike and Tina Turner, Phillip Walker (with whom he recorded), the Ink Spots, T-Bone Walker, and numerous other acts. He returned to Alton in the mid-1980s.


THE JOHNNIE JOHNSON BAND AND SPECIAL GUEST ARTISTS

For these recordings, Johnnie is accompanied by his own hometown of native-born St. Louis musicians: guitarist and musical director Tom Maloney, bassist Gus Thornton, drummer Kenny Birdell Rice, and vocalist Vernon Guy. Johnnie's band is also the basis for ensembles backing Clayton's and Jimmy's selections.
Johnnie Johnson Band guitarist/musical director Tom Maloney (born5/1/52) has worked with Johnnie for over four years, shaping the band's repertoire to Johnnie's particular strengths in blues, jazz, and rock ën' roll. Tom's sensitive, jazz-influenced playing incorporates some of the Ike Turner licks and tricks characteristic of the St. Louis guitar style.
Drummer Kenny Birdell Rice (born 11/1/42) plays in a muscular-yet-subtle style rooted in the jazz and R&B in which he has steadily worked since his professional debut at age 17. Kenny's link to Johnnie goes back some 30 years, when they played together in Albert King's band. He has worked with such jazz greats as Nat Adderly, Grant Green, and Sonny Stitt - and toured with Albert King and Grady Tate. Bassist Gus Thornton (born 10/30/51) started out on guitar at age 13, switching to bass about a year later. By age 15 he was playing in a recreational-program big-band, from which he graduated to professional club work. His fluent grasp of modern jazz, rock, funk, soul, and blues keep him busy in St. Louis, between tours and recording engagements with such national acts as Albert King, Shirley Brown, Chuck Berry, Katie Webster, and Larry Davis - through whom he first met Johnnie Johnson in 1979. Johnnie Johnson band vocalist Vernon Guy (born 3/21/45) started out singing in church as a child and began his performing career as a member of the Seven Gospel Singers. His soulful, gospel-rooted vocal style has been honed over years in numerous St. Louis groups and an extensive - if discontinuous - apprenticeship in the Ike and Tina Turner review. Clayton Love's backing ensemble features the Johnnie Johnson Band rhythm section and guitarist Richard "Beau" Shelby (born 1/1/62, Indianola, Miss.). Beau was 7 years old when his family moved to St. Louis, where he started learning guitar at age 11, beginning with Country & Western tunes. Today, Beau is an accomplished vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist in a variety of jazz/pop styles. The ensemble on Jimmy Vaughn's selections includes Chalmas "Bell Boy" Carter (born 11/2/39, St. Louis, Mo.) on drums. Bell Boy began singing in local church groups as a child and started his professional career at age 20, with Benny Sharp and the Sharpees - a St. Louis band noted for outstanding vocalists (including Vernon Guy). Bell Boy has sung and/or played drums for numerous St. Louis groups and touring ensembles - including several stints with Albert King.
The album's horn section is led by tenor saxophonist Willie Akins, a veteran of bebop music's late-fifties/early-sixties heyday, who continues to conjure that jazz style's distinctive magic in his
native St. Louis. Baritone saxophonist Albert Hunter and trumpeter Jim Rosse have each performed in a variety of local and national ensembles, and both have toured with Albert King. Jimmy Vaughn's selections also feature trombonist Dave Caputo, leader of the St. Louis-based David Lee and the House Rockers.



THE TUNES


Tom Maloney composed two of this album's Johnnie Johnson instrumentals. The stomping "Frances" (named for Johnnie's fiancee) showcases Johnnie's boogie-woogie pyrotechnics and features a scorching guitar solo complete with some Ike Turner trick-guitar moves. One of Johnnie's piano licks inspired the melody for Tom's slow-blues "Slidin' Serenade." The Ace Harris/Avery Parrish composition "After Hours" highlights the jazz-oriented side of Johnnie's playing. Vernon Guy's achingly-beautiful voice on "Bluebird" brings back particular depth and feeling to this Isaac Hayes/David Porter slow blues, previously recorded by Little Milton and Johnnie Taylor.
Clayton Love first recorded "The Big Question" with Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm, for the Federal label in 1957. "Don't You Lie To Me" is based on a theme first recorded by Tampa Red in 1940. Listeners curious about the recognizability of this rhumba version of the tune will find the origin of its familiarity in the five Albert's own first recording of the tune in 1962 (reissued on MBR-723). Fats Domino's medium-slow blues "Goin' Home" features a haunting Willie Akins saxophone solo followed by a particularly blistering Beau Shelby guitar break. James Oden's "Goin' Down Slow" sets up another reflective mood, with a feelingful performance capped by Clayton's closing invocation of his own Deep-South roots.
Jimmy Vaughn composed two instrumentals specifically for this album: the uptempo, horn-driven "Hey! Come ëEre," and the medium-tempo "Ida's Song" (named for Jimmy's wife).
His two vocal selections are reworkings of traditional blues themes. "New Big Legged Woman" draws from a particularly popular lyric associated with performers as diverse as Houston Stack-House and Jerry Lee Lewis. "Ripple Wine Dream" is based on a lyric most commonly associated with Big Bill Broonzy.