Johnnie Allan | |
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 Johnnie Allan (2004) | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | John Allen Guillot |
| Born | March 10, 1938 [1] Rayne, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Genres | Cajun, swamp pop |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, guitarist, vocalist |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar |
| Labels | Jin Records, Flyright Records, Ace Records, Swallow Records |
Johnnie Allan (born John Allen Guillot, March 10, 1938) is an American pioneer of the swamp pop musical genre. [2]
Born in Rayne, Louisiana, United States, [2] Allan, a Cajun, grew up in a musical family, and at age six obtained his first guitar. (His mother, the former Helen Falcon, was the goddaughter of Joseph Falcon and Cleoma Falcon, the first Cajun recording artists, and sometimes played rhythm guitar for their live performances. [3] ) By age 13, Allan was playing with Walter Mouton and the Scott Playboys, a traditional Cajun music band. About two years later, he switched to Lawrence Walker and the Wandering Aces, another traditional Cajun band.
In 1956, he saw Elvis Presley perform live on the Louisiana Hayride music program, and shortly afterwards Allan began to play rock and roll music. In 1958, he left Walker to form the Krazy Kats. [2] That same year he recorded "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights" for Jin Records of Ville Platte, Louisiana. [2] He later recorded for Mercury Records and the Viking label of Crowley, Louisiana, among others.
He returned to the Jin label in the early 1970s and went on to record many notable swamp pop tunes, including his versions of Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" and Merle Haggard's "Somewhere on Skid Row". [2]
A perennial favorite of swamp pop fans globally, Allan has performed in Europe many times. [2] He is author of two music-related books, Memories: A Pictorial History of South Louisiana Music (1988) and Born to Be a Loser (1992, with Bernice Larson Webb), a biography of swamp pop musician Jimmy Donley.
A retired educator, he lives in Lafayette, Louisiana.
The music of Louisiana can be divided into three general regions: rural south Louisiana, home to Creole Zydeco and Old French, New Orleans, and north Louisiana. The region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The music of the northern portion of the state starting at Baton Rouge and reaching Shreveport has similarities to that of the rest of the US South.
Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana played by the Cajuns, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Although they are two separate genres, Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based zydeco music. Both are from southwest Louisiana and share French and African origins. These French Louisiana sounds have influenced American popular music for many decades, especially country music, and have influenced pop culture through mass media, such as television commercials.
Clifton Chenier, was an American musician known as a pioneer of zydeco, a style of music that arose from Creole music, with R&B, blues, and Cajun influences. He sang and played the accordion. Chenier won a Grammy Award in 1983.
Swamp pop is a music genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s by young Cajuns and Creoles, it combines New Orleans–style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French Louisiana musical influences. Although a fairly obscure genre, swamp pop maintains a large audience in its south Louisiana and southeast Texas homeland, and it has acquired a small but passionate cult following in the United Kingdom, and Northern Europe
Freddy Fender was an American Tejano singer-songwriter, known for his work as a solo artist and in the groups Los Super Seven and the Texas Tornados. His signature sound fused country, rock, swamp pop and Tex-Mex styles.
Polycarp was a fictional character who was a local children's television show host. His program, Polycarp and Pals, was broadcast from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s on KATC Channel 3 in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA.
James Floyd Soileau is an American record producer.
Barbara Lynn is an American rhythm and blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. She is best known for her R&B chart-topping hit, "You'll Lose a Good Thing" (1962). In 2018, Lynn received a National Heritage Fellowship.
Ace Records Ltd. is a British record label founded in 1978. Initially the company only gained permission from the similarly named label based in Mississippi to use the name in the UK, but eventually also acquired the rights to publish their recordings. When Chiswick Records' pop side was licensed to EMI in 1984, Ace switched to more licensing and reissuing work. In the 1980s it also gained the licensing for Modern Records, and its follow-up company Kent Records, whilst in the 1990s, the company bought the labels including all original master tapes.
Otis Verries Hicks, known as Lightnin' Slim, was an American blues musician who played Louisiana blues and swamp blues for Excello Records.
Rod Bernard was an American singer who helped to pioneer the musical genre known as "swamp pop", which combined New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and Cajun and black Creole music. He is generally considered one of the foremost musicians of this south Louisiana-east Texas idiom, along with such notables as Bobby Charles, Johnnie Allan, Tommy McLain, and Warren Storm.
Robert Charles Guidry, known as Bobby Charles, was an American singer-songwriter.
Joseph Denton "Jay" Miller was an American record producer and songwriter from Louisiana, whose Cajun, swamp blues, and swamp pop recordings influenced American popular culture.
"This Should Go On Forever" is a popular song of the south Louisiana rock and roll genre known as swamp pop. It was written by J. D. "Jay" Miller and Bernard Jolivette
Warren Storm was an American drummer and vocalist, known as a pioneer of the musical genre swamp pop; a combination of rhythm and blues, country and western, and Cajun music and black Creole music.
Leo Soileau was one of the most prolific Cajun recording artists of the 1930s and 1940s, recording over 100 songs, which was a substantial amount considering the reluctance to record the music during its early stages. He is known as the second person to record a Cajun record and the first to record this genre with a fiddle.
David Allen Stich, also known as Rockin' Dave Allen and Dave Allen, was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. Allen performed live throughout Texas and the Gulf Coast area from the late 1950s through the early 1980s. He recorded for the Jin, Eric, International Artists, Rock-a-Billy and Big Orange record labels for a total of sixteen 45 sides and two vinyl LPs. Some of this material has also appeared on compact disc anthologies by Ace Records. Approximately eighty minutes of Allen’s recordings remain unreleased.
An ethnic Cajun, Don Rich is a popular south Louisiana swamp pop singer.
George Khoury was an American pioneer swamp pop and cajun record producer known for co-writing and composing the No. 1 hit song "Sea of Love" by Phil Phillips as well as "Mathilda" by Cookie and his Cupcakes.
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