Pete Johnson

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For other persons named Pete Johnson, see Pete Johnson (disambiguation).

Peter (Pete) Johnson (24 March 1904 - 23 March 1967) was an American jazz pianist, best known as a leading boogie-woogie pianist.

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[edit] Career

Johnson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He died in Meyer Hospital, Buffalo, New York.

He began his musical career in 1922 as a drummer in Kansas City. From 1926 to 1938 he worked as a pianist, often accompanying Big Joe Turner. In 1938 he and Turner appeared in the "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall. This concert started a boogie-woogie craze, and Turner and two other performers at the concert, Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons, worked together afterwards at Café Society for a long time; they also toured and recorded together. In 1941 Lewis, Ammons and Johnson were featured in the movie short Boogie Woogie Dream.[1]

The song, "Roll 'Em Pete", featuring Turner on vocals and Johnson on piano, was one of the first rock and roll records although there is strong reason to believe he stole that piece from "Jelly Roll Morton" who neglected to register his works, leaving him without claim to them. Another self-referential title was their "Johnson and Turner Blues". In 1949, he also wrote and recorded "Rocket 88 Boogie", a two-sided instrumental, which influenced the later Ike Turner 1951 hit "Rocket 88".

In the late 1940s, Johnson recorded an early concept album Pete's House Warmin' , in which he starts out playing alone, supposedly in a new empty house, and is joined there by J. C. Higgenbotham, J.C. Heard, and other Kansas City players. Each has a solo single backed by Johnson, and then the whole group plays a jam session together. On this album Johnson shows his considerable command of stride piano and his ability to work with a group.

Johnson used to play at a nightclub in Niagara Falls where he had a climb a long ladder to the piano above the bar.[1]

In 1950 he moved to Buffalo but, despite problems with his health, he continued to tour and record, notably with Jimmy Rushing, Big Joe Turner, and on a 1958 Jazz at the Philharmonic tour of Europe, despite losing part of a finger some years earlier while changing a tyre.[1]

A stroke in 1958 left him partly paralyzed. Johnson made one final appearance at John Hammond's January 1967 "Spirituals to Swing" concert, playing the right hand on a version of "Roll 'Em Pete" two months before his death.[2]

[edit] Notable songs

  • "1280 Stomp"
  • "627 Stomp"
  • "Basement Boogie"
  • "Buss Robinson Blues"
  • "Cherry Red"
  • "Death Ray Boogie"
  • "Goin' Away Blues"
  • "Holler Stomp"
  • "Just for You"
  • "Lone Star Blues"
  • "Pete's Blues"
  • "Pete's Lonsome Blues"
  • "Rebecca"

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c (1997) The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited, p. 127. ISBN 1-85868-255-X. 
  2. ^ History-of-Rock website details

[edit] External links