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.

Contents

[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. 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

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Johnson"
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