Richard Wayne Johnston is an American country blues musician. [1] In 2001 he won the Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge and its Albert King Award for most promising blues guitarist. [2]
His work as a street musician on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, was documented in the Alabama PBS film Richard Johnston: Hill Country Troubadour. The film, directed by Max Shores, featured Johnston singing and playing his Lowebow cigar box guitar. It won first place in the professional documentary film category at the 2007 George Lindsey/UNA Film Festival.
Johnston studied under blues artists including R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Jessie Mae Hemphill. His first album, Foot Hill Stomp (2002), featured Hemphill on vocals and tambourine, with assistance from R.L. Burnside's grandson, Cedric Burnside, and others. [1]
His second album, Official Bootleg #1 (2004), was assisted by Hemphill, Cedric Burnside, and other artists. [3] Richard also works under the name Boozer Ramirez in the Hawaiian islands. [4]
A jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of conventional and homemade instruments. These homemade instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, bones, stovepipe, jew's harp, and comb and tissue paper. The term jug band is loosely used in referring to ensembles that also incorporate homemade instruments but that are more accurately called skiffle bands, spasm bands, or juke bands because they do not include a jug player.
The Memphis blues is a style of blues music created from the 1910s to the 1930s by musicians in the Memphis area, such as Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Furry Lewis and Memphis Minnie. The style was popular in vaudeville and medicine shows and was associated with Beale Street, the main entertainment area in Memphis, W. C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues", published the song "The Memphis Blues". In lyrics, the phrase has been used to describe a depressed mood.
Gustavus "Gus" Cannon was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands in the 1920s and 1930s. There is uncertainty about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874.
The story of Tennessee's contribution to American music is essentially the story of three cities: Nashville, Memphis, and Bristol. While Nashville is most famous for its status as the long-time capital of country music, Bristol is recognized as the "Birthplace of Country Music". Memphis musicians have had an enormous influence on blues, early rock and roll, R&B, and soul music, as well as an increasing presence in rap.
Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately 1.8 miles (2.9 km). It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of blues music. Today, the blues clubs and restaurants that line Beale Street are major tourist attractions in Memphis. Festivals and outdoor concerts frequently bring large crowds to the street and its surrounding areas.
R. L. Burnside was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He played music for much of his life but received little recognition before the early 1990s. In the latter half of that decade, Burnside recorded and toured with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fan base in the punk and garage rock scenes.
The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group active from the mid-1920s to the late 1950s. The band featured harmonica, kazoo, fiddle and mandolin or banjolin, backed by guitar, piano, washboard, washtub bass and jug. They played slow blues, pop songs, humorous songs and upbeat dance numbers with jazz and string band flavors. The band made the first commercial recordings in Memphis, Tennessee, and recorded more sides than any other prewar jug band.
Jessie Mae Hemphill was an American electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage.
David "Junior" Kimbrough was an American blues musician. His best-known works are "Keep Your Hands off Her" and "All Night Long".
Kenny Brown is an American blues slide guitarist skilled in the North Mississippi Hill Country blues style.
Adam Gussow is an American scholar, memoirist, and blues harmonica player. He is currently a professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
Alphonzo Bailey, better known by his stage name Al Kapone, is an American rapper from Memphis, Tennessee. Al Kapone is known principally for his underground success in the Memphis hip hop scene in the 1990s, and his later role in a number of more contemporary songs.
James Govan was an American blues soul singer. His most recent album, I'm in Need, was released in 1996. He had also performed alongside such artists as The Boogie Blues Band and Charlie Wood. Govan had become one of the favorite musicians on Beale Street, known for his cavernous baritone voice. He routinely performed for over two decades at the Rum Boogie Café.
Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads is a British documentary film, released in 1991, and made by music critic and author Robert Palmer and documentary film maker Robert Mugge, in collaboration with David A. Stewart and his brother John J. Stewart. The film provided insight into the location, cast and characteristics of Delta blues and North Mississippi hill country blues. Filming took place in 1990 in Memphis, Tennessee, and various North Mississippi counties. Theatrical release was in 1991 and home video release in the United Kingdom, the next year, as was a soundtrack album. A United States consumer edition came in 2000.
Scott Bomar is a Memphis-based musician, Emmy Award-winning film composer, Grammy-nominated music producer, and recording engineer. Scott Bomar's songs are represented by Downtown Music Publishing.
Olga Wilhelmine Munding is an American New Orleans-based blues musician, producer and actress.
Hill country blues is a regional style of country blues. It is characterized by a strong emphasis on rhythm and percussion, steady guitar riffs, few chord changes, unconventional song structures, and heavy emphasis on the "groove", which has been characterized as the "hypnotic boogie".
Cedric O. Burnside is an American electric blues drummer, guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the son of blues drummer Calvin Jackson and grandson of blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist R. L. Burnside.
R. L. Boyce is a Grammy nominated American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist born and raised in Como, Mississippi, United States.