Feature Interview: Henry Johnson

Feature Interview: Henry Johnson

Date Posted: July 08 2009

Written By: Chicago Jazz

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Chicago-born guitarist Henry Johnson began playing at age twelve. While spending some formative time in Memphis, he started playing gospel music at age thirteen. By age fourteen, Johnson was playing in R&B groups. Although Johnson’s parents brought him up hearing the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Joe Williams, and other artists of that era, it was not until 1967 that Johnson was formally introduced to jazz by hearing guitarist Wes Montgomery. In 1969, Johnson and his family returned to Chicago where he developed a reputation on the South Side as a good local jazz guitarist. In 1976, he went on the road with organist Jack McDuff and was called to work with vocalist, Donny Hathaway in 1977.

In 1979, Johnson began playing with jazz pianist, Ramsey Lewis, and in 1985, jazz legend Joe Williams added Johnson to his regular group. Johnson’s musical roots run deep into gospel, blues, and jazz. His strongest and earliest influences were Kenny Burrell, George Benson, and most significantly, Wes Montgomery. While influenced by these great guitarists, Johnson also cites the music of Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson, Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, big bands, and jazz orchestras as integral forces that have shaped his sound and style.

Johnson’s most recent group is patterned after the hard-swinging jazz groups of the sixties using guitar, saxophone, organ, and drums. Henry Johnson’s Organ Express, has been exciting audiences the world over. In addition to his solo recording projects and working with the Organ Express, Johnson has found time to record with the likes of Ramsey Lewis, vocalists Joe Williams and Vanessa Ruben, and saxophonist Richie Cole, among many others. He has performed with Nancy Wilson, Marlena Shaw, Dizzy Gillespie, the Boston Pop Orchestra, Sonny Stitt, Freddie Hubbard, Grover Washington Jr., Stanley Turrentine, Dr. Billy Taylor, organist Jimmy Smith, James Moody, David “Fathead” Newman, Terry Gibbs, Bobby Watson, Nicholas Payton, Claudio Roditi, and many other great jazz artists.

Chicago Jazz Magazine:How did you get started on the guitar?

Henry Johnson: My grandfather, John Brooks, used to play guitar in the church. I wasn’t interested at the time in the gospel music he was playing, but I was interested in the sound of the guitar. The guitar was always around my house, but I wasn’t allowed to touch his guitar. He had a real expensive guitar, but the guitar my friend and I used to practice with was sort of an old Gibson copy. It was just an electric guitar––I think it was called a Silvertone, something Sears sold. Then in junior high school I started playing clarinet because I wanted to be in the band. I actually wanted to be a trumpet player, but at that particular time there were no trumpets left. The only instruments left were the bass clarinet, a bassoon and the clarinet. I looked at the bassoon and the bass clarinet and I said, “No way, I don’t want to play those.” [laughs] So I chose the clarinet, and I figured no matter what it was, that I was going to learn how to read music, and to appreciate the music of great classical composers. I played clarinet all throughout junior high school and high school, and that taught me how to read and write music. The band director––his name was Paul Meacham, we still keep in contact––he worked us very, very hard. Because at that time in the Deep South, you had to be twice as good as any of the white musicians to compete. Our reading had to be above their level just to compete, so he drilled us day in and day out. And we had a little thing in the orchestra: there’s first chair clarinet and second chair clarinet, and if you wanted to take somebody’s seat––to move up in the clarinet section––you had to challenge them. So every week you could say, “I want to challenge so-and-so for their chair.” Then the band director would pull out two pieces of music that you both had to sight read, neither having ever seen them before. And the person who sight-read them the best got the seat. I got all the way up to the first clarinet section, third seat, and then I graduated from junior high school. During all this time, I was practicing guitar as well, and what I learned on clarinet about reading music also taught me how to read on guitar. It was hard, but fun, and little did I know how well it would serve me throughout my life.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So you never had formal guitar lessons?

Johnson: No, but something I didn’t learn till later––after talking to Dizzy Gillespie and all these other great jazz artists––is that transcribing was the key to building my ear, building my technique and also learning the language of jazz. In learning the language of that particular music I found that each genre has its own language. So if you are playing R&B, it has a specific language; jazz has a specific language. In order for you to play those genres authentically, you have to learn the language. It’s just like learning French. You can’t speak Spanish to a French person and expect for them to understand you. Either you speak French or you don’t.

Chicago Jazz Magazine:When you started guitar, were you picking individual notes as opposed to strumming chords?

Johnson:I was doing both. I was picking notes, but loved the sound of chords. I think the first song I ever learned was “Green Onions,” by Booker T & the M.G.s. It was on the radio when I was growing up. And after I learned that, I used to get a stack of 45s and sit in front of the record player, and just learn every guitar part on those recordings. I didn’t realize that this was how everybody learned how to play; it just never occurred to me. So within a year’s time, I got good enough to be in an R&B band. So I joined this R&B band that was pretty popular around Memphis. The bass player in that band thought my ego had gotten to me and said, “You’re really not that hot of a guitar player.” And I said, “Says who?” So he brought a record to rehearsal one day, and told me, “Says this guy!” That record was Wes Montgomery’s Tequila, and I had never heard of him. He said, “Take this home and I bet you any amount of money you can’t play anything on this record.” So I took it home, and I put it on the record player, and thought, “Oh my God, what is this?” And he was right: I could not play anything on there. So the next day I came to rehearsal and he said, “Where’s my record?” And I said, “I need a little more time.” And he replied, “That’s my dad’s record and I need it back!” So after two weeks I gave it back to him and my mom bought me my own. After that, I saw Wes Montgomery on Johnny Carson and other TV shows. I thought, He doesn’t have an effects box or anything. He’s just unbelievable. That’s what kind of got me into jazz. My band teacher took us to see the University of Illinois Jazz Band perform when they came to Memphis, and that was my first live jazz concert. Seeing that big band closed the deal for me; I was hooked on jazz from that time on. I had heard it around the house because my parents were big Joe Williams and Count Basie fans, but that was their music. My music was Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder, you know? [laughs] But after I saw that big band, I wanted to know everything about jazz. I wanted to know who created it, who was involved with it, I wanted to learn how to play it… all of that, and still including the music of my generation. That was when I noticed something different about each genre.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: When you are playing, the sound seems to be a hybridization of blues and jazz. It’s clean, but there’s a hard attack on the notes and a lot of feel. Did you adopt this sound because it works in both genres?

Johnson: When I was playing with Jack McDuff, there was one thing that he told me. I was really involved with trying to get my chops together trying to play all the bebop language, and I was listening to a lot of Charlie Parker. One night I played a solo, and afterwards nobody clapped. I was playing all my bebop stuff, you know? So after the set, Jack took me aside and said, “Listen, playing bebop is alright, but if you don’t play the blues with it, then nobody is going to feel it. You don’t have no jazz without the blues.” That’s the thing that helps everything you play to go over well with the audience. If you don’t play the blues, you take the feeling out, and if you take the feeling out, that goes over people’s heads. They won’t relate as well to something that they can’t feel. I was twenty-two at the time, and I was like, “Come on man, you gotta be joking.” And he said, “Hell no, I’m not joking. You ain’t the first guitar player playing with my band that has had to learn that–– George Benson and everybody else has been through here, and they had to learn the same damn thing.” I thought, I’m not going to question that; this guy is my musical mentor and I’m here to learn from him. So I went and did some listening, and the next night I could see what he was saying was true. The saxophone player had it in his, and he got the applause; and Jack was a master of this, and he got the applause. And when I was soloing I thought, Okay, it’s a mixture of everything. When I was transcribing artists, I started to notice what I call a one-two punch: blues, bebop; blues, bebop; Bam! Pow! It seems to be in every great player’s playing, even John Coltrane had it. So I started adapting my style in that way too. A jazz blues has certain blues language in it, but it can be more harmonically complex. A B.B. King-style blues, well that’s a different kind of language. Earlier in my thirties I started experimenting with mixing other genres, and found out they didn’t work for me. Like, if you are playing a jazz standard like “Days of Wine and Roses,” you can’t make it sound like Earth, Wind and Fire. That’s like speaking Spanish in a room full of German people. I also have a gospel background, and playing with Ramsey Lewis taught me how to take all of those things and put them into my playing as well, along with my one-two punch: blues, bebop; Bam! Pow! And it seems to follow everything I do. Even when I choose to play more harmonically complex, like McCoy Tyner or John Coltrane concepts, I still bring the people back with a little blues. You can take them out a little and then bring them back with the blues. And they still feel it, still get the content, and you as a player still get to challenge yourself with the harmony: Okay, I’m going to paint myself into this corner and then figure out how to get out. That’s also one of the main points of improvisation. That’s how I ended up with the style I have now. It’s a hybrid of many, many things, but I think the basis of it is still bebop and blues. I have been able to play and record, what we called in the 1980s, contemporary jazz. Marketing people called it something else in the 1990s but that’s another story. Anyway, contemporary jazz was a genre of music played by jazz musicians who spoke the language of jazz, bebop and blues. So we would take funky contemporary beats and play the jazz language on the top of it, changing the rhythmic phrasing a bit. It sounds funky, but it’s still harmonically hip. The jazz language is still there, it’s just being spoken over a different backdrop. That’s what made it different. So when you hear players like George Benson playing on top of a funk groove, they’re still playing the jazz language, they just changed the groove. That’s what contemporary jazz was. What replaced it is called and marketed as smooth jazz. My assessment of smooth jazz is that it’s instrumental R&B, and not jazz, because the language of jazz is not there. And when you look at all the jazz guys, even way back, with artists like Joe Sample, and Grover Washington Jr, these guys are all straight-ahead guys, speaking the jazz language. George Duke was another one. When I first saw him, he was playing straight-ahead jazz with Cannonball Adderley. But they were able to adapt that language to play on the top of the funky beats of the time, and that’s what made it interesting and contemporary. You’ll never see any of the smooth jazz artists sitting in with jazz artists like Cedar Walton and Jimmy Cobb, because to play songs like “Bolivia,” you have to know the jazz language.

Chicago Jazz Magazine:When did your family relocate back to Chicago?

Johnson: We came back to Chicago in the fall of 1969, and it was right after Martin Luther King got killed. We were down in Memphis, and I actually went to his last speech. My dad wanted to move us back to Chicago––he felt like the South still had too much racism. And a lot of racist stuff flared up there after that, because the riots were going on. Man, we had curfews and there were tanks rolling down the street, that kind of crap. So my dad said he didn’t want his kids growing up with that kind of stuff. I was just graduating from junior high school when that happened.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: That must have been a tough transition, given your music connections.

Johnson: Well I had a lot of friends there, man. Al Green had moved from Texas to Memphis before that stuff happened. He still lives there today. But when he came from Texas, nobody knew who he was. But when he started doing live dates at the clubs, he was unbelievable. His shows were mesmerizing, entertaining, and electrifying, but he was performing like that all the time.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did coming to Chicago affect you musically?

Johnson:Well, when I came back to Chicago, musically the jazz scene was much bigger there than in Memphis. Most of the jazz players who were in Memphis had left. One of the guys I grew up with was Donald Brown, another pianist who spoke both the languages; he could play funk for days. But he is an amazing composer, and when I saw him playing with Art Blakey I freaked out. I thought, Wait a minute. I know this guy! And we were both teenagers playing in these funk bands around Memphis––him in one band, and me in another. But when I moved back to Chicago, I was around all the Chicago jazz greats. Man, there was a great jazz scene in Chicago at that time: Wilbur Campbell, John Young, Eddie Johnson, Ken Chaney, Eddie Harris, and so many more great jazz guys who were around. One of my first professional gigs was with Isaac Hayes back in Memphis. I’d been playing in clubs since I was fourteen years old, so when I moved to Chicago, I just started playing in jazz clubs here.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you get a gig with Isaac Hayes when you were fourteen?!

Johnson:Well the R&B band I was in, the Soul Diplomats, were one of the hottest bands in Memphis at that time. So when Isaac’s first recording came out––it was called Hot Buttered Soul––he didn’t have a band. He was totally unprepared for the success of that record. And when that record came out, there was a demand for him to perform. He had heard of us and called up our manager to hire us. We had to learn all his tunes by ear because he didn’t have any written music for his songs. This was before Shaft––he did Shaft in 1971 or so. People were just finding out who he was at this point. So after learning all of his music, we went and did these gigs around Memphis with him.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Where did you go to high school?

Johnson: I went to Horace Mann High School in Gary, Indiana. When we moved back to Chicago, there was a lot of gang stuff going on, so we moved to Gary, but my dad still worked in Chicago. The schools were better there––there wasn’t much gang stuff going on then. Horace Mann had the same kind of music program as Lincoln Junior High in Memphis. I had to challenge every clarinet player in the band again, but I didn’t have a problem with that because I was over-prepared by my previous teacher.

Chicago Jazz Magazine:Were you still playing clarinet then?

Johnson:Yeah, I played clarinet all through high school. I went through All-City band––went downstate for all the musical awards and stuff like that. I won two gold medals. A friend, Rich Nathaniel and I did a duet where we took the arrangement for the Nutcracker Suite and re-wrote it for just alto saxophone and clarinet. [laughs] And the judges had never heard anything like that––we played all the famous parts just between the two of us. When they heard this, they freaked out and we both won gold medals. That was my first taste of arranging.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You said you were playing bars when you were fourteen years old. When did you actually get into the jazz scene itself?

Johnson: Before we left Memphis, I was totally hooked in to jazz; that was the music I wanted to learn everything about. When we moved back to Chicago, I was indoctrinated into the jazz scene.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was that primarily because of Wes?

Johnson: Definitely. Also Jimmy Smith and Kenny Burrell. They are also among the guys that I heard first.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So even though your parents played jazz records, it wasn’t jazz that you related to necessarily?

Johnson:No. They played Nat Cole and Count Basie. That was cool, but it wasn’t my music. I was into the Impressions, the Four Tops, and the Temptations. I love all that stuff, even now. But jazz was the one music that allowed me to express myself musically more than any other genre. And that’s what kind of hooked me. I started playing in society gigs first. I was doing clubs around in Gary, Indiana. Then I started expanding and doing clubs and society gigs in Chicago. I was working with a bandleader who is still here; his name is Morris Ellis. Back then he was really big––he had an office on Michigan Avenue, he was involved with all the recording studios, any commercials, I mean his hands were into everything. We were working all the time; sometimes I would do three gigs a day with Morris, and so I was on his payroll. I stayed with Morris for a year and a half. The only reason I left Morris was because I got an offer to go play with Jack McDuff. Morris told me, if you are going to go out on the road, make sure you take care of yourself. You know, no drinking, drugs, and that kind of stuff. I wasn’t into that anyway. I was high on the music all the time. It was phenomenal to me, no matter how much I learned, there was just so much more to learn––enough that I would never catch up in this lifetime. So, when I left Morris, I went out with Jack McDuff. That was my first road gig, and I realized how important it was to be an apprentice with these jazz masters, because they created the music that we heard and loved. To be able to do that with them, the correct way that they meant it to be, that was very important and rewarding to me. We don’t have that anymore. There’s no bands around right now that can mentor young musicians out of school like Art Blakey, Horace Silver or Jack McDuff. When I was traveling, there was like five or six major jazz clubs in every city that had all out-of-town acts, so we would cross each other’s paths all the time. We as musicians were able to spend time, sharing musical ideas and life experiences with each other in person.

Chicago Jazz Magazine:: Did you ever say, “I’m going to be a musician,” or did it just evolve that way?

Johnson:It just evolved that way. I never thought that I wouldn’t be a musician. When I started playing clarinet and guitar I never thought about life without music.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was the Jack McDuff gig your first big break?

Johnson:Yeah, that was the first time I actually went out on the road. But when I moved to Gary, Indiana, there was one guy I met––a pianist, who I later found out lived right around the corner from me. His name is Billy Foster. He started out with just a trio. And he added two pieces, guitar and trombone, which was a kind of odd combination, and it was called the Billy Foster Jazz Unit. I was a part of that group for about two years, and I was still a teenager. His knowledge and his jazz record collection is what opened another door for me. I hadn’t heard about all these other jazz musicians. I learned about Art Farmer, more about Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Wes Montgomery even more. It seemed that he had every jazz recording that was available. He used to take me to jazz shows. He actually took me to my first jazz show in Chicago at the Jazz Showcase. The first jazz guitar player I ever saw live was Kenny Burrell. That was at a place called the North Park Hotel, right up on Lincoln. I remember that very well, I never heard a guitar player sound like that live. It’s different when you hear it on records, because you aren’t really aware of what’s really being done until you see it being done live. And when you realize that what you just saw, you’ll never really hear it done that same way again, that was something really absolutely incredible to me.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did Jack McDuff discover you?

Johnson: Jack McDuff––when I discovered his music, Billy Foster was the one who had all of Jack’s recordings, and he played a live recording for me. I said, “Man, who’s that guitar player?” The guitar player was George Benson, and he was only seventeen at that time. Man, he was something else. I loved that recording, I always liked organ music, because I came up seeing Jimmy Smith at that time on television and movies. So I took all of those recordings and learned all of Jack’s songs. When he came to Gary to play, I went to hear him and asked if I could sit in––you know, how bold and stupid of me. I said, “Mr. McDuff, I am one of your biggest fans and I love your music.” and he said, “What do you play?” And I said, “Guitar.” And he said, “So you want to play a song with us?” And I said, “Okay!” [laughs] So when he called me up, he asked me what song I wanted to play, and I told him he could play any of his regular stuff. He said with one eyebrow lifted, “Oh, really?” So he called one of his songs, and I played all the guitar parts to it, played a solo, and I thought he was just going to send me away after the first song. He said, “Stay up here and play another one, man.” I ended up playing the whole set of all his material, and the guitar player who was in the band at the time, he was watching. And it really was bad, because Jack said to him, “See here? That’s how you are supposed to play these songs!” And I thought, “Oh my God!” I felt really bad. After the set, he said, “What’s your name?” So I told him and he took my phone number down. Maybe eight months later he was playing in Chicago again and he called me and said, “Henry Johnson, I’m in Chicago. You want to come sit in with us?” And I said, “Sure! Where are you playing at?” And he said, “The Jazz Showcase.” So I went down there and played a couple of tunes with them. After the show, Jack asked if I wanted to hang out with him. So I went to his hotel and we were hanging, then he said the guitar player would be leaving in three months, and he wanted me to play with his band. And I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah, I’m gonna call you up in three months.” He told me I would meet them in New York, we would rehearse with the band, and then go out on the road. And I said, “Wow, it’s that simple?” And he’s like, “No, but you’ll see what I mean when you get there.” I was just twenty-one then, and I stayed with him for almost two years, and even long after I left, if he needed a guitar player, I would fill in. I said, “Jack, you know, I’m in your debt, man. You can call me whenever you need a guitar player.” And he did. We stayed in contact until his death.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Touring with Jack McDuff must have opened up a whole new door for you. What did you learn?

Johnson: I learned discipline. If you really are serious about music, there’s a lot of music to learn. And a lot about performing. One of the things about young jazz musicians is that they want to solo forever. Well in Jack’s band you couldn’t do that. He would tell us all the time, “You have two choruses to get in and get out because there’s other people up here besides you. You got to fire up quick and get out quick and still make that point in order to get to the people.” So I was practicing that, getting in and getting out: Getting in––Bam!––then––Pow!––getting out.

Chicago Jazz Magazine:That seems to be a rule that’s abused right now.

Johnson: Yeah, but just because the musicians are young and inexperienced. One of the things I also learned from Jack was, never be afraid to play the music of other great composers. Even if you are a good writer yourself, you still need to play music that the audience recognizes. They can’t have a whole set of just your music, because not everyone is Duke Ellington or Billy Strayhorn and you will lose them. You got to be able to play something the audience recognizes, then you can play what you want and take them with you. I wouldn’t subject an audience to that. Because no matter how good it may sound to you, the truth is, it might not be that great to them. You’ve got to give people something they like, something they know or you will eventually lose them. Silence in an audience can like death.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Who are the composers who in your mind could write songs that touch the heart and yet are intellectually interesting?

Johnson: You know, there’s a long list of composers. You’ve got the standards composers like Gershwin, but then you got the jazz standards composers, like Horace Silver, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, and Benny Golson, all prolific composers. Lee Morgan, who composed “Sidewinder,” and Dizzy, Charlie Parker, as well as Wes. All those guys to me are kind of on the same level as writers and on the same page in terms of trying to reach people with their compositions.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: So there’s no one you gravitate towards for good material? If it’s a good tune, do you play it?

Johnson: Well, if the tune touches me melody-wise I’m going to really like it. On the other hand, I’ve been around a whole lot of jazz vocalists, and I realized one thing about the vocalist. The voice is the first instrument––people recognize words first before they recognize notes. So if a person is singing a song, it is a story. I need to know the words so I know what story I am trying to convey. If you notice, all the great players are trying to imitate the phrasing of vocalists. Because it’s more voice-like, and it communicates better to a listener that doesn’t know anything about music. But yes, I love melodic and harmonically hip songs in all genres, not just jazz. Stevie Wonder is a great composer.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: They say many of the great drummers do that.

Johnson: Of course. Music is still music. Music has peaks and valleys, but it has air, space, and breath. A vocalist is not going to sing words exactly the way they are written, because if you try to talk like that, it doesn’t make any sense. Vocalists sing conversationally. So if I sing [sings “On Green Dolphin Street”], “Love, one lucky day,” but I play, [intentionally out of synch] da, daaaaa, daa, daaaa, da, daa, it wouldn’t make any sense, because that’s not how you would say that to someone. If I’m going to really learn this melody, I have to learn how the person would sing it, with the breath in it. As in a personal conversation with someone; a complete thought.

Chicago Jazz Magazine:Choir music may be the only example of music that is sung exactly as the notes are written, with no interpretation.

Johnson: Exactly, and even in a choir there are vocal solos. But in jazz, the interpretation of the story using the lyrics comes into play. You learn about a vocalist by the way they phrase, by the way they take a vowel, twist and color it. And if you do that on your instrument, you will stand out. Like Miles, he did that––he loved vocals and ballads. He loved Joe Williams. One time he told Joe Williams, “Man if you were a woman I would marry you!” [laughs] Because he loved the way Joe phrased.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Tell us about Joe Williams.

Johnson:Well I played with him for thirteen years. I learned a lot about jazz history. I mean back when I was with Jack McDuff, he always told us, “If you learn a song, learn the words.” All of those guys knew that. But the younger guys coming up, they don’t want to learn the words, they just want to learn the melody. But when we were growing up, they didn’t have the Real Book. Those came out in the seventies. We had to learn songs off the record. So that way it’s built in––you learn the melody and chords correctly. What Jack pounded into our heads was, “Look, if I’m going to feature you on a song, learn the words to the song so you know what the song is about. Then you can phrase it the way it makes sense to someone who doesn’t know anything about music.” I learned how to make it voice-like so a regular person could gravitate towards it, and feel something for it. And with Joe, it was the exactly same thing. Oh my God, it seemed like he knew every song, and he knew a lot of the composers of these songs, because they would bring these songs to him first. It was incredible the number of people that would come around Joe. He knew actors, comedians, producers and directors––people were around him all the time. But he was one of the most gracious guys I have ever met or worked with, and more forthcoming in sharing all his knowledge. And he actually got me into singing. I had gotten into singing when I was a teenager, but my voice was real high like Smokey Robinson’s, and when I got older my voice dropped. I didn’t like the way it sounded anymore so I stopped singing [laughs]. But I used to go to Joe’s sound checks so he wouldn’t have to. And I’d be testing the mics––I’d be singing his songs. And one time he sneaked into sound check and heard me. He acted like he didn’t know. So one night we were on this gig in Boston, and he’s singing this song, and he puts the microphone under my mouth for me to finish it. And I look at Norman Simmons in bewilderment and he yells, “Henry, sing!” So I did, and Joe made that a part of the show from then on. After that he said to me, “You have the talent to sing, as well.” And I said, “Well Joe, I’m only a guitar player.” And he said, “No, you can do both.” So he started sharing his singing secrets with me: phrasing, coloring, all of this kind of stuff. Later I realized that he didn’t have anybody to share all his knowledge with––at least not that was around him all the time. So he chose me to share it with. And I was so honored. I figured that out later, after he passed.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What years were you with him?

Johnson: I toured with Joe in 1987 until his death.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you first hook up with him?

Johnson: He had a gig in Chicago at Rick’s Cafe, and he had been using a piano trio so he wanted to augment the group with a guitar player that week. The drummer at the time was Gerryck King, who was from also from Chicago. Gerryck told Joe he knew a guitarist to get: He’ll come in and smoke this stuff. Joe said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright.” So Joe called me for this gig, and I go to Rick’s Cafe for this rehearsal, and Joe has this thick book of about 150 songs’ arrangements. And this was just what he was traveling with––he probably knew over 2,000 songs. But these are what he had in his repertoire at the time. Thank God I could read. So I go through all the stuff and read all the parts and he says, “I like his sound.” I worked with him all that week, and afterwards he says, “Kid, give me your number, because we are definitely going to work together again.” And he gave me an autographed picture saying, “See You Soon!” Then, three or four months later, he called me and asks, “You ready to go to work, kid?” And I said, “Yes Sir!” From that moment on we became really fast friends.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Your guitar-playing style and his singing style are very comparable. He had that same sensibility of combining blues with jazz.

Johnson: Yeah, he had command of both languages and we would really work off each other. It got to the point where we were doing some numbers, just he and I. I would always ask, “How did you do this?” “What made you come up with this?” and, “Why did you phrase this that way?” And he started sharing these things with me. So I started using those things on guitar. And when we would play together, he would hear that in my playing and he’d change how he was singing something.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Wasn’t that around the time you put out your first record?

Johnson: Now that’s an interesting story. When I did that gig at Rick’s Cafe, John Levy who was Joe’s manager, Nancy’s manager, Wes Montgomery’s manager, and manager of every major artist…

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