1904 Jack Owens*
1931 Bob “Bumble Bee” Novak*
1943 Willie Murphy*
1955 James P. Johnson+
1963 Ingrid Simons - B.B. Queen*
1967 Tab Benoit*
2006 Ruth Brown+
2008 Pat Ramsey+
Happy Birthday
Tab Benoit *17.11.1967
Tab Benoit (* 17. November 1967 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) ist ein US-amerikanischer Blues-Gitarrist, Sänger und Komponist. Sein Stil ist eine Kombination aus Swamp Blues, Soul-Blues und Chicago Blues.
Die Musik des gebürtigen Cajun ist von seinen kulturellen Wurzeln, der Cajun-Musik, genauso geprägt, wie von den klassischen Blues- und Rock-Musikern Albert King, Albert Collins und Jimi Hendrix. Im Laufe seiner Karriere kam es zu zahlreichen Kooperationen mit anderen Musikern, darunter Charlie Musselwhite und Jimmy Thackery. Im Jahr 2004 gründete Tab Benoit gemeinsam mit anderen Künstlern (darunter auch Dr. John) die Voice of the Wetlands („Stimme des Feuchtlands“), eine gemeinnützige Organisation, die sich dem Erhalt der Wetlands, der Feuchtbiotope Südlouisianas verschrieben hat. Die „Swamps“ (Sümpfe) des tiefen Südens und die kulturelle Eigenart der Region werden zunehmend durch die Ausbeutung der reichhaltigen Erdölvorkommen bedroht.
Tab Benoit (pronounced ben-wah[2]) (born November 17, 1967, Baton Rouge, Louisiana)[1] is an American blues guitarist, musician, and singer.[3] His playing combines a number of blues styles, primarily Delta blues. He plays a Fender Telecaster Thinline electric guitar and writes his own musical compositions. Benoit graduated from Vandebilt Catholic High School in Houma, Louisiana in May 1985. In 2003, he formed "Voice of the Wetlands," an organization promoting awareness of coastal wetlands preservation.
Career
Early years
A guitar player since his teenage years, Benoit appeared at the Blues Box, a music club and cultural center in Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray, and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from a faculty of living blues legends. He formed a trio in 1987 and began playing clubs in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. He began touring other parts of the South two years later and started touring more of the United States in 1991. Today he continues to perform across the country.[4]
Benoit was featured in the IMAX film, Hurricane on the Bayou.[5]
Development as an artist
Benoit landed a recording contract with Texas-based Justice Records and released a series of recordings, beginning in 1992 with Nice and Warm. These Blues Are All Mine, was released on Vanguard in 1999 after Justice folded.
That same year, Benoit appeared on Homesick for the Road, a collaborative album on the Telarc label with fellow guitarists Kenny Neal and Debbie Davies. Homesick not only served as a showcase for three relatively young musicians, but also launched Benoit’s relationship with Telarc, which came to fruition in 2002 with the release of Wetlands.
Benoit playing a Fender Telecaster
On Wetlands, Benoit mixed original material such as the autobiographical "When a Cajun Man Gets the Blues" and "Fast and Free" with Professor Longhair’s “Her Mind Is Gone” and Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine".
Later in 2002, Benoit released Whiskey Store, a collaborative recording with fellow guitarist and Telarc labelmate Jimmy Thackery,[1] harpist Charlie Musselwhite, and the Double Trouble rhythm section consisting of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton.
In 2003, Benoit released Sea Saint Sessions,[1] recorded at Big Easy Recording Studio in New Orleans. In addition to Benoit and his regular crew, bassist Carl Dufrene and drummer Darryl White, Sea Saint Sessions included guest appearances by Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Cyril Neville, Brian Stoltz, and George Porter, Jr.. That same year, Benoit and Thackery took their dueling guitar show on the road, and recorded a March 2003 performance at the Unity Centre for Performing Arts in Unity, Maine. The result was Whiskey Store Live, released in February 2004.
Benoit's 2005 release was Fever for the Bayou,[1] which also included guest appearances by Cyril Neville (vocals and percussion) and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux (vocals). In 2006, Benoit recorded Brother To The Blues with Louisiana's LeRoux. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. His cover of Buddy Miller's "Shelter Me" was the theme song for the Discovery Channel TV-series, Sons of Guns. In April, 2011 Benoit released Medicine, featuring Anders Osborne, Michael Doucet of Beausoleil, and Ivan Neville.[1]
Honors
In 2007, Benoit won his first B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award presented by the Blues Music Awards, described variously as "the highest accolade afforded musicians and songwriters in Blues music"[6] and "[t]he premier blues music event in the world".[7]
Benoit was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame (LMHOF) on May 16, 2010, at the LMHOF Louisiana Music Homecoming in Erwinville, Louisiana.
In 2012, Benoit won three separate Blues Music Awards: Contemporary Blues Male Artist; Contemporary Blues Album (for 2011's Medicine); and for the second time, B.B. King Entertainer of the Year.[7][8][9]
2013 saw Benoit win the Blues Music Awards Contemporary Blues Male Artist[10][11] for the second year in a row.
Business ventures and activism
Benoit became owner of Tab Benoit's Lagniappe Music Cafe, situated in the downtown district of Houma, Louisiana.[12]
Benoit has also been involved in conservation efforts on behalf of Louisiana wetlands.[13] He is the founder of 'Voice of the Wetlands,' an organization promoting awareness of the receding coastal wetlands of Louisiana.[14] In 2010, Tab Benoit received the Governor's Award - Conservationist of the Year for 2009 by the Louisiana Wildlife Federation.[15] Tab uses his music to promote the issues that plague Louisiana's imperiled coast to his national audience. One reason Tab founded the nonprofit Voice of the Wetlands Foundation (VOW) is to support outreach and education about Louisiana's Wetlands loss and how Louisiana's rich culture is also going away as its wetlands disappear.
Willie Murphy (born in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American pianist, singer, producer, and songwriter. He is best known as a singer and pianist for the blues band Willie and the Bees and his work with Bonnie Raitt and John Koerner.
Murphy grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota in an Irish-Catholic working-class family. He began piano lessons at the age of 4. His early musical influences were Little Richard, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ray Charles.
Murphy played on the folk circuit with John Koerner and the duo recorded Running, Jumping, Standing Still in 1969. The album received positive reviews, Crawdaddy! calling it "one of the most unique and underrated albums of the folk boom, perhaps the only psychedelic ragtime blues album ever made."[1] The duo eventually split up and Koerner pursued an unsuccessful career in film-making, temporarily retiring from the music business and moving to Copenhagen, Denmark.[2] Murphy was offered a full-time job with Elektra Records as an in-house producer but declined, choosing to remain in the Minneapolis area.[3]
He produced Bonnie Raitt's 1971 debut album for Warner Bros. Records. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Murphy led the R&B, blues and rock group Willie and the Bees.[3]
Murphy performed on piano, bass, guitar and various other instruments as a session musician for Raitt, Koerner, Greg Brown, Prudence Johnson, Little Milton, as well as many others. He formed the Atomic Theory Records label in 1985 and released albums by himself, Phil Heywood, Boiled in Lead, Larry Long, and a variety of world music artists.[4]
The Minnesota Music Hall of Fame inducted Murphy along with Bob Dylan and Prince in its charter class in 1990.[3] In 2008, Murphy was inducted into the Minnesota Blues Hall of Fame.[5]
In 2010, St. Paul, Minnesota mayor Chris Coleman declared July 2 "Willie Murphy Day".[6]
Murphy's double-CD release A Shot of Love in a Time of Need/Autobiographical Notes reached number 14 in Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart in 2010.
Willie Murphy Band: I'll Be Here
Jack Owens *17.11.1904
Born L. F. Nelson, Jack Owens' mother was Celia Owens, but his father, who bore the Owens surname, abandoned his family when Jack was 5–6 years old. After that time, he was raised by the Owens family with his maternal grandfather the patriarch of 8 children according to the 1910 Census, and of them, two other children officially shared the Nelson name. (This does not account for two more children born after the census.) While very young, Owens learned some chords on the guitar from his father, and an uncle, and learned to play the fife, the fiddle, and piano while still a child, but his chosen instrument remained the guitar.[4]
As he matured, Owens did not seek to become a professional recording artist, but he farmed, bootlegged and ran a weekend juke joint in Bentonia for most of his life. His peer, Skip James, had left home and traveled until he found a talent agent and a record label to sign him, but Owens had preferred to remain at home, selling potliquor and performing only on his front porch. He was not recorded until the blues revival of the 1960s, being rediscovered by a musicologist, David Evans, in 1966, who had been taken to meet Owens by either Skip James or Cornelius Bright. Evans noted that while James and Owens had many elements in common, and a sound peculiar to that region, referred to as "Bentonia School", there were also strong differences in Owens' delivery. Both James, Owens, and others from the area, (including Bukka White), shared a particular guitar style and repertoire utilizing open D-minor tuning (DADFAD).[4] Owens, though, had experimented with several other tunings which appear to be Owens' own. He played guitar and sang, utilizing the stomp of his boots for rhythm in the manner of some other players in the Mississippi delta, such as John Lee Hooker. James employed the use of falsetto, and, by this time, was accustomed to singing quietly for recording sessions, while Owens still sang roughly in his usual singing voice loudly enough for people at a party to hear while dancing. Evans, excited to find a piece of history in Jack Owens, made recordings of him singing, which eventually showed up on Owen's first record album Goin' Up the Country that same year and It Must Have Been the Devil (with Bud Spires) in 1970. He made other recordings (some by Alan Lomax) in the 1960s and 1970s.[4]
Owens travelled the music festival circuit in the United States and Europe throughout the final decades of his life, often accompanied on harmonica by his friend Bud Spires, until his death in 1997. He was frequently billed in the company of other noteworthy blues musicians that maintained a higher profile than Owens, who nonetheless were longtime associates. One such performance was with Spires in an All-star Chess Records tribute in 1994 at the Long Beach Blues Festival, alongside acts that included Jeff Healey, Hubert Sumlin, Buddy Guy, the Staple Singers and Robert Cray's band, among many others, in Long Beach, California.
Jack Owens died, at the age of 92 in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1997.
Ingrid Simons - B.B. Queen *17.11.1963
Bürgerlicher Name: Inge Severijnse
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Ingrid Simons (Paramaribo (Surinam), siebzehn November einem tausend neun hundert und sechzig-drei) ist eine niederländische Sängerin kam von Suriname.
In jungen Jahren entschied Simons war sie zu ihrer Arbeit in Musizieren geht. In 1986 traf sie Bernadette Kraakman, die Schaffung der Duo Double Trouble gebildet. Diese Simons gewann nationale Prominenz. Sie sang auch zusammen mit Elvira Valentine im Duo Say Wenn. Sie machte ein paar Singles einschließlich Jungen im Jahr 1987, die der niederländischen Top 40 verdient.
Im Jahr 1990 kam sie wieder solo unter dem Namen BB Königin und veröffentlichte mehrere Singles wie Blue House und Soul Train, die sowohl in der hohen niederländischen Top 40 kam. Sie haben auch zwei Alben, die sehr erfolgreich waren, freigelassen.
Zusammen mit Jason Johnson, gründete sie ein Duo. Die einzigen Sonnenschein und Regen war ihr Debüt. Geschrieben und von dem Duo produziert Jochem Fluitsma und Eric van Tijn. Ingrid hat mit tourte Rob de Nijs und ist die Stimme hinter den Hit-Singles Keine Zeit 2 Abfälle, Take Me 2 Limit und Where RU Now von T-Löffel im Jahr 1994.
Sie sang auch mit ihrem Ex Gordons Lied Liebe ohne Ende. In 1995 sang sie die Intro für Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten. Sie war auch für die Stimme der Frau in zB Luv Sie Mehr und Regenbogen Hoch in den Himmel von verantwortlichen DJ Paul Elstak. In den letzten Jahren hat sie unter anderem singt, ich liebe Holland und singen. Sie hat auch eine Backgroundsängerin für den Deckel.
Sie sang auch das Programm-Opener "Es ist Freitag wieder, ist die Woche über" des niederländischen Top 40 auf Radio 538 in. Dieses Programm Opener wurde von 1997 / m 2014 Ein Remake dieses uuropener verwendet seit Ende September 2014 gespielt.
Persönlich
Ingrid ist die Mutter von Eva Simons, der als Mitglied der Girlgroup bekannt wurde raffish und jetzt hat sich international erfolgreich als Sänger. Sie ist die Tochter von Johnny Meijer, Amsterdam Akkordeonist.
In jungen Jahren entschied Simons war sie zu ihrer Arbeit in Musizieren geht. In 1986 traf sie Bernadette Kraakman, die Schaffung der Duo Double Trouble gebildet. Diese Simons gewann nationale Prominenz. Sie sang auch zusammen mit Elvira Valentine im Duo Say Wenn. Sie machte ein paar Singles einschließlich Jungen im Jahr 1987, die der niederländischen Top 40 verdient.
Im Jahr 1990 kam sie wieder solo unter dem Namen BB Königin und veröffentlichte mehrere Singles wie Blue House und Soul Train, die sowohl in der hohen niederländischen Top 40 kam. Sie haben auch zwei Alben, die sehr erfolgreich waren, freigelassen.
Zusammen mit Jason Johnson, gründete sie ein Duo. Die einzigen Sonnenschein und Regen war ihr Debüt. Geschrieben und von dem Duo produziert Jochem Fluitsma und Eric van Tijn. Ingrid hat mit tourte Rob de Nijs und ist die Stimme hinter den Hit-Singles Keine Zeit 2 Abfälle, Take Me 2 Limit und Where RU Now von T-Löffel im Jahr 1994.
Sie sang auch mit ihrem Ex Gordons Lied Liebe ohne Ende. In 1995 sang sie die Intro für Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten. Sie war auch für die Stimme der Frau in zB Luv Sie Mehr und Regenbogen Hoch in den Himmel von verantwortlichen DJ Paul Elstak. In den letzten Jahren hat sie unter anderem singt, ich liebe Holland und singen. Sie hat auch eine Backgroundsängerin für den Deckel.
Sie sang auch das Programm-Opener "Es ist Freitag wieder, ist die Woche über" des niederländischen Top 40 auf Radio 538 in. Dieses Programm Opener wurde von 1997 / m 2014 Ein Remake dieses uuropener verwendet seit Ende September 2014 gespielt.
Persönlich
Ingrid ist die Mutter von Eva Simons, der als Mitglied der Girlgroup bekannt wurde raffish und jetzt hat sich international erfolgreich als Sänger. Sie ist die Tochter von Johnny Meijer, Amsterdam Akkordeonist.
Bob “Bumble Bee” Novak *17.11.1931
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/artist-blues-musician-bumble-bee-bob-novak-dies-at-83/
The “Bee” grew up around Madison and Paulina. “Blues was my neighborhood music,” he once told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Maxwell Street was my shopping mall.”
He learned to sing and play guitar and harmonica from some of the musicians who made the words “Chicago” and “blues” click together: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Otis Rush, B.B. King, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Freddie King and Sunnyland Slim.
Slim bestowed his nickname. “He always said, `You sting like a bee’ ” with his guitar, Mr. Novak said in a 1990 Sun-Times interview. His band was Bumblebee Bob and the Stingers.
Besides being a respected musician, Mr. Novak was a renowned artist whose paintings — bold and colorful as a zoot suit — commanded thousands of dollars. He designed the official poster for the 1989 Chicago Blues Festival.
1989 Chicago Blues Festival poster by Bob "Bumble Bee" Novak. (Provided-John Fridono )
Almost every year since 1999, Rosa’s Lounge commissioned a Novak work to use on T-shirts and posters promoting the near Northwest Side club. “His paintings demanded attention,” lounge owner Tony Mangiullo said.
He knew all the good pawn shops, where he picked up classic guitars for a few dollars and re-sold them. Buyers like Neil Young, Ron Wood and the members of Foghat not only could afford the markup — they treasured his finds for their history, rarity and sound, said a friend, John Fridono.
He played music in London and Copenhagen and performed with Peter Frampton and Humble Pie in Europe.
He learned to sing and play guitar and harmonica from some of the musicians who made the words “Chicago” and “blues” click together: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Otis Rush, B.B. King, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Freddie King and Sunnyland Slim.
Slim bestowed his nickname. “He always said, `You sting like a bee’ ” with his guitar, Mr. Novak said in a 1990 Sun-Times interview. His band was Bumblebee Bob and the Stingers.
Besides being a respected musician, Mr. Novak was a renowned artist whose paintings — bold and colorful as a zoot suit — commanded thousands of dollars. He designed the official poster for the 1989 Chicago Blues Festival.
1989 Chicago Blues Festival poster by Bob "Bumble Bee" Novak. (Provided-John Fridono )
Almost every year since 1999, Rosa’s Lounge commissioned a Novak work to use on T-shirts and posters promoting the near Northwest Side club. “His paintings demanded attention,” lounge owner Tony Mangiullo said.
He knew all the good pawn shops, where he picked up classic guitars for a few dollars and re-sold them. Buyers like Neil Young, Ron Wood and the members of Foghat not only could afford the markup — they treasured his finds for their history, rarity and sound, said a friend, John Fridono.
He played music in London and Copenhagen and performed with Peter Frampton and Humble Pie in Europe.
Artist and bluesman Bob "Bumblebee Bob" Novak was a Runyonesque character from the West Side whose distinct style was showcased in a 1989 poster for the Chicago Blues Festival.
"I think his stuff is hugely underrated in the art world," said Val Camilletti, who owns Val's halla Records in Oak Park. "He had a distinctive style. Once you've seen a Bumblebee Bob Novak painting, there's not a chance you'll think it's somebody else."
Novak, 83, died of congestive heart failure July 13 at West Suburban Medical Center, according to his friend and musician John Fridono. He had lived for many years in Oak Park.
Novak was born and raised in the Humboldt Park community and attended Wells High School. He got involved in the city's blues scene by taking photos of luminaries of the genre, including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Freddie King, according to fellow musician John Pazdan.
"He used to say blues were his neighborhood music and Maxwell Street was his shopping mall," Camilletti said.
At some point Novak also ran a small business fixing up used guitars and selling them.
Army service stateside during the Korean conflict earned him GI Bill benefits, which he used to study art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. One of his classmates was the late Chicago artist Ed Paschke.
"He had his own style," said Tony Mangiullo, a founder and co-owner of blues venue Rosa's Lounge in the Logan Square neighborhood.
Mangiullo has commissioned a Novak painting every year since 1999, using the original art in T-shirts, posters, postcards and fliers. The walls of Rosa's are covered with Novak paintings.
Chicagoland 2015 notable deaths
In 1989, Novak painted the poster for that year's Chicago Blues Festival. He called the painting used for the poster "Nowadays he don't play nothing but the radio."
"My paintings and their titles are like mini soap operas," he told the Tribune at the time.
Mangiullo said Novak often tried to explain how images from a 3-D world go onto a flat surface, such as a canvas.
Art may have been Novak's first love — he was still painting a few weeks before his death — but he also was devoted to blues music. He often played for gallery shows of his own work. Pazdan said those shows included openings in Paris, Stockholm and Copenhagen, Denmark.
His nickname, Bumblebee, is said to have come from a fellow musician who commented on the "stinging" guitar sound Novak could produce. In a performance available on YouTube, he plays with other musicians referred to as "The Stingers."
Pianist Erwin Helfer met Novak in the 1970s when he was playing at a Chicago club. "He'd sit in and add some goodness to the music," Helfer said.
Helfer noted Novak's generosity. "He did a couple of portraits for me as a gift," he said.
Camilletti had a similar experience. After she asked what it would cost to get a Novak painting for her home, the artist said he would write the price on a piece of paper, turn it over and leave it for her to consider after he left.
"What he wrote was zero," she said.
Pazdan said Novak was a teacher and mentor, helping him and others learn about music and art.
"I think he was very satisfied with what he did and how he lived his life," Pazdan said.
Novak, who was divorced, leaves no immediate survivors.
A memorial jam session is planned for 3 to 7 p.m. Sept. 27 at Rosa's Lounge at 3420 W. Armitage Ave. in Chicago
"I think his stuff is hugely underrated in the art world," said Val Camilletti, who owns Val's halla Records in Oak Park. "He had a distinctive style. Once you've seen a Bumblebee Bob Novak painting, there's not a chance you'll think it's somebody else."
Novak, 83, died of congestive heart failure July 13 at West Suburban Medical Center, according to his friend and musician John Fridono. He had lived for many years in Oak Park.
Novak was born and raised in the Humboldt Park community and attended Wells High School. He got involved in the city's blues scene by taking photos of luminaries of the genre, including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Freddie King, according to fellow musician John Pazdan.
"He used to say blues were his neighborhood music and Maxwell Street was his shopping mall," Camilletti said.
At some point Novak also ran a small business fixing up used guitars and selling them.
Army service stateside during the Korean conflict earned him GI Bill benefits, which he used to study art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. One of his classmates was the late Chicago artist Ed Paschke.
"He had his own style," said Tony Mangiullo, a founder and co-owner of blues venue Rosa's Lounge in the Logan Square neighborhood.
Mangiullo has commissioned a Novak painting every year since 1999, using the original art in T-shirts, posters, postcards and fliers. The walls of Rosa's are covered with Novak paintings.
Chicagoland 2015 notable deaths
In 1989, Novak painted the poster for that year's Chicago Blues Festival. He called the painting used for the poster "Nowadays he don't play nothing but the radio."
"My paintings and their titles are like mini soap operas," he told the Tribune at the time.
Mangiullo said Novak often tried to explain how images from a 3-D world go onto a flat surface, such as a canvas.
Art may have been Novak's first love — he was still painting a few weeks before his death — but he also was devoted to blues music. He often played for gallery shows of his own work. Pazdan said those shows included openings in Paris, Stockholm and Copenhagen, Denmark.
His nickname, Bumblebee, is said to have come from a fellow musician who commented on the "stinging" guitar sound Novak could produce. In a performance available on YouTube, he plays with other musicians referred to as "The Stingers."
Pianist Erwin Helfer met Novak in the 1970s when he was playing at a Chicago club. "He'd sit in and add some goodness to the music," Helfer said.
Helfer noted Novak's generosity. "He did a couple of portraits for me as a gift," he said.
Camilletti had a similar experience. After she asked what it would cost to get a Novak painting for her home, the artist said he would write the price on a piece of paper, turn it over and leave it for her to consider after he left.
"What he wrote was zero," she said.
Pazdan said Novak was a teacher and mentor, helping him and others learn about music and art.
"I think he was very satisfied with what he did and how he lived his life," Pazdan said.
Novak, who was divorced, leaves no immediate survivors.
A memorial jam session is planned for 3 to 7 p.m. Sept. 27 at Rosa's Lounge at 3420 W. Armitage Ave. in Chicago
HAVE YOU EVER LOVED A WOMAN- Bumble Bee Bob and the Stingers
Classic Chicagoland Blues by Bumble Bee Bob Novak, Kevin Paul, Dix Risquo, Phil Balsano, Keith Kresin and Jeff Brinkman
R.I.P.
James P. Johnson +17.11.1955
James Price Johnson, James P. Johnson oder Jimmy Johnson, (* 1. Februar 1894[1] in New Brunswick, New Jersey; † 17. November 1955 in New York, N.Y.) war ein US-amerikanischer Pianist und Komponist. Er gilt als "Vater des Stride-Piano" und hat in dieser Eigenschaft eine Reihe weiterer Jazzpianisten maßgeblich beeinflusst, darunter Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Don Lambert und Thelonious Monk.
Kindheit
James P. Johnson wuchs als jüngstes von fünf Kindern auf. Prägende musikalische Eindrücke seiner Kindheit waren die von seinen Eltern veranstalteten Ring-Shouts,[2] denen Johnson bis tief in die Nacht lauschte und das Klavierspiel seiner Mutter, von der er sein erstes Klavierstück, "Little Brown Jug" lernte. Als die Familie 1902 nach Jersey City zog und seine Mutter das Klavier verkaufen musste um die Umzugskosten bezahlen zu können, trieb sich der junge James P. vor Bars und Kneipen herum, wo er den Ragtime-Pianisten, wegen ihrer Fähigkeiten im Umgang mit Klaviertasten und Frauen "Tickler" genannt, zuhörte und sich mit Gitarrespielen, singen und tanzen ein paar Münzen verdiente. In diese Zeit fällt auch sein erster, mit einem Quarter bezahlter Job als Pianist, den er in einem Bordell absolvierte, der aber laut Johnson nicht zählte.[3] Außerdem machte Johnson über einen älteren Bruder die Bekanntschaft einiger Tickler, die auf dem Weg von Baltimore oder Alabama nach New York in Jersey City Station machten.
In Sinfoniekonzerten, die er ab 1905 in New York besuchte, schulte Johnson seine orchestralen Klangvorstellungen während die klassisch-romantische Klaviermusik in den Cafés in Harlem ihm pianistische Virtuosität vermittelte. Er beschloss, als Tickler sein Leben zu bestreiten.
Ragtime-Pianist
Etwa ab 1911 spielte Johnson in verschiedenen Cabarets und Clubs im Wechsel mit anderen Pianisten, von denen er sich viele Tricks abschaute und damit seinen persönlichen Stil auf der Grundlage des Eastern Ragtime formte. Den eigentlichen Start seiner Karriere sah er selbst im Jahr 1913.[4] Hatte Johnson bis dahin viele aktuelle Hits des Tages in seinem Repertoire, begann er nun seine ersten eigenen Ragtimes zu erarbeiten. Obwohl ein Verleger Interesse an Johnsons Musik bekundete, kam es in dieser Zeit nicht zu Veröffentlichungen, da Johnson noch keine Noten schreiben konnte und niemanden fand, der seine Stücke für ihn aufschrieb. Erst in den 40er Jahren wurden einige seiner Rags im Druck veröffentlicht. Von der Mutter eines Freundes ermuntert begann er, sich von einem Prof. Giannini systematisch in Harmonielehre, Kontrapunkt und Klavierspiel unterweisen zu lassen und lernte erstmals die Bedeutung des richtigen Fingersatzes.[5] Er setzte seine Streifzüge durch die Cabarets und Bars von Harlem fort, um anderen Pianisten zuzuhören, und machte dabei die Bekanntschaft der besten Tickler New Yorks: Luckey Roberts, Eubie Blake und Willie „The Lion“ Smith. Unter ihrem Einfluss eignete er sich die Fähigkeit an, in allen Tonarten mit der gleichen Leichtigkeit und Virtuosität zu spielen, ein besonders bei der Begleitung von Sängern gefragtes Können. Ab 1914 nahm auch die Komposition von Songs in Johnsons Leben einen breiteren Platz ein. Nachdem er inzwischen das Notenschreiben erlernt hatte,[6] begann er für Musical Shows Songs beizusteuern. Mit diesen Grundlagen gehörte Johnson bald zu den besten Ragtime-Pianisten New Yorks. In den folgenden Jahren erweiterte Johnson seine musikalischen Aktivitäten, nahm seine erste Klavierrolle auf (1917) und veröffentlichte erstmals eine Komposition. In der Zeit bis 1920 reiste Johnson in unterschiedliche Bundesstaaten und nahm dabei alle Gelegenheiten wahr, sich musikalisch weiterzubilden.[7] 1920 machte er die Bekanntschaft von George Gershwin, der wie Johnson Klavierrollen aufnahm. In dieser Zeit avancierte er zum besten Pianisten New Yorks, der in dem Ruf stand, in cutting contests und auf rent parties unschlagbar zu sein und seine Position aktiv zu verteidigen.
Stride-Piano
Das Jahr 1921 war für James P. Johnson von besonderer Bedeutung. Er nahm für QRS Klavierrollen auf, darunter sein Bravourstück "Carolina Shout" (das er 1918 bereits einmal auf einer Rolle eingespielt hatte). Nach dieser Klavierrolle lernten sowohl Fats Waller als auch Duke Ellington das Initialstück des Harlem-Stride-Piano. Außerdem wurde in diesem Jahr die erste Schallplatte mit Johnson produziert (Harlem Strut auf dem Label Black Swan) und er lernte den 17-jährigen Waller kennen, den er unter seine Fittiche nahm und im Klavierspiel unterwies.[8] In den 1920er Jahren war Johnson ein vielbeschäftigter Mann. Neben seinen Verpflichtungen für QRS war er in seiner Eigenschaft als musikalischer Direktor der Tournee-Revue "Plantation Days" 1923 in England, er nahm Schallplatten auf und schrieb die Musik zu zwei erfolgreichen Broadway Shows, 1923 "Runnin' Wild" (aus der die beiden Standards "Old Fashioned Love" und "Charleston"[9] stammen) und 1928 "Keep Shufflin'" (zusammen mit Fats Waller). Darüber hinaus komponierte er zahlreiche Songs, unter anderem den Klassiker "If I could be with you one hour tonight". Außerdem wandte er sich der Komposition von Orchesterwerken zu, von denen "Yamekraw" 1928 mit Fats Waller als Solist uraufgeführt wurde.[10] Ab 1927 setzte Johnson verstärkt auf die Schallplatte als Einkommensquelle. In diese Zeit fallen seine legendären Begleitungen von Sängerinnen wie Ethel Waters und Bessie Smith, der "Kaiserin des Blues", insbesondere ihr "Backwater Blues".
Komponist
Anfang der 1930er Jahre hingegen konzentrierte Johnson sich auf den Broadway. Während "Sugar Hill" wenig erfolgreich war, lief die Show "Harlem Hotcha", bei der er mit Andy Razaf (Lyrics) und Don Redman (musikalischer Direktor) kooperierte, wesentlich besser. In der Weltwirtschaftskrise wurden Gelegenheiten für Plattenaufnahmen und damit die Einkünfte, die man als recording artist erzielen konnte, immer spärlicher. Johnson zog sich aus dem Nachtleben Harlems weitgehend zurück und beschäftigte sich erneut mit musiktheoretischen Inhalten sowie der Komposition umfangreicher Orchesterwerke. Während der Depressionszeit entstanden eine Symphonie, eine Suite und ein Klavierkonzert. In späteren Jahren kamen noch ein Ballett, ein Oper, Sonaten sowie eine Sinfonische Dichtung hinzu.[11]
Spätere Jahre
Mit dem neu erwachten Interesse an älteren Jazzstilen begann ab 1938 Johnsons zweite Karriere als Jazzpianist: Zunächst als Sideman in verschiedenen Bands tätig, war er in dem berühmten (mitgeschnittenen und wiederveröffentlichten) Carnegie-Hall-Konzert "From Spirituals to Swing" 1938 mit zwei Klaviersoli vertreten. Im gleichen Jahr entstand ein Interview mit Alan Lomax für die Library of Congress. Wenngleich Johnson ab 1940 mit einer Reihe von Schlaganfällen zu kämpfen hatte, die ihn immer wieder zu längeren Ruhepausen zwangen,[12] konnte er seine Aufnahmetätigkeit als Solist und Sideman in diversen Formationen bis 1949 fortsetzen. Der Tod seines Freundes Fats Waller stürzte Johnson 1943 in eine tiefe persönliche Krise, die er mit der Aufnahmen es Memorial Albums mit Stücken Wallers zu überwinden suchte. Die gesundheitlichen Probleme machten ihm zwar das Sprechen immer schwerer, sein Klavierspiel scheint jedoch weitgehend unbeeinflusst geblieben zu sein.[13] 1951 beendete ein massiver Schlaganfall allerdings seine Karriere endgültig. Johnson, der die letzten Jahre seines Lebens gelähmt und pflegebedürftig war und 1954 einen vorzeitigen Nachruf in der Zeitschrift DownBeat erfuhr, starb im Queens Hospital in New York an den Folgen eines weiteren, seines achten Schlaganfalls. Lediglich 75 Personen gaben im das letzte Geleit.[14]
Stil
James P. Johnsons persönlicher Klavierstil basiert auf dem Eastern Ragtime[15] und dessen individuellen Ausprägungen im Spiel einzelner Pianisten, deren bedeutendste Vertreter Eubie Blake und Luckey Roberts zu Johnsons engsten Freunden zählten. Zusammen mit Elementen aus dem Blues, der romantischen Klaviertradition (Virtuosität, vollgriffige Akkorde), Einflüssen aus der Orchestermusik (Mehrstimmigkeit in beiden Händen unter Einsatz einer differenzierten Anschlagskultur) und zahlreichen Elementen anderer Tickler formte Johnson daraus den Klavierstil, der als "Harlem Stride Piano" oder kurz "Stride Piano" bekannt geworden ist. Indem er ein Vokabular pianistischer Motive formulierte, die jeder Stride-Pianist beherrschte und in seine Improvisationen einbaute, nahm er in der Entwicklung des Jazz-Pianos eine Schlüsselposition ein.[16] Johnsons eigener Stil ließ sich jedoch nicht auf typische Floskeln und Motive reduzieren (im Gegensatz etwa zu dem Stil Fats Wallers, der sich oft eines für ihn charakteristischen Vorrats an Motiven und Phrasen bedient). Johnsons Stil war zeitlebens dem klassischen Stride-Piano verhaftet, bei dem die linke Hand den vom Ragtime übernommenen Rhythmus mit Einzeltönen, Oktaven oder Dezimen im tiefen Register auf den schweren Taktteilen (der "eins" und der "drei") und Akkorden in der mittleren Lage auf den unbetonten Taktteilen (der "zwei" und der "vier") spielt, während die rechte Hand die Melodie und oft genug auch weitere Stimmen sowie hochvirtuose Verzierungen (exemplarisch in "Crying for the Carolines" aus dem Jahr 1930) spielt. Johnson selbst durchbricht insbesondere in der linken Hand gerne das typische Schema und variiert die Abfolge von eintaktigen zu zweitaktigen, im Schwerpunkt verschobene Einheiten.[17] Auch entgeht er einer sich unter Umständen schnell einstellenden Monotonie im Spiel der linken Hand gelegentlich durch Chorusse mit halbtaktig andauernden, weit gegriffenen Akkorden an Stelle des Ragtime Rhythmus oder der Verlagerung der Melodiestimme in die linke Hand, zu der die rechte Hand dann die Harmonien spielt. Da Johnson ein immens kreativer Musiker war, finden sich darüber hinaus in seinem Stil nur wenig typische Elemente wie chromatische Durchgangstöne oder Oktavierungen bei der Wiederholung eines Formteils.[18] Das wohl charakteristischste Element in Johnsons Spiel in der rechten Hand ist ein oft perkussiver Anschlag bei Akkorden, den Johnson einer ganzen Palette von differenzierten Anschlagstechniken gegenüberstellt. Der daraus resultierende Klang unterscheidet Johnson von den anderen Stride-Pianisten seiner Generation. Johnson passte seinen Stil dem sich wandelnden Publikumsgeschmack an, ohne seine Grundlagen aufzugeben. Die weitgriffigen und orchestralen Elemente seines Spiels treten in den dreißiger Jahren mehr und mehr in den Hintergrund und werden durch klare Linien, die eher dem Swing verpflichtet sind, ersetzt. Sein Spiel wirkt dadurch glatter und eleganter.
Aufnahmen
James P. Johnsons Aufnahmekarriere begann 1917 mit den ersten Klavierrollen und erstreckte sich bis 1949, dem Jahr in dem er seine letzten Schallplatten einspielte. Ab 1921 bespielte Johnson letztgenanntes Medium als Solist, Begleiter von Bluessängerinnen, Bandleader und als Sideman in den Formationen anderer Jazzmusiker. Seine hinterlassenen Tonkonserven dokumentieren seine Wurzeln im Eastern Ragtime (die ersten Klavierrollen) sowie seine Errungenschaften in der Stilbildung des Harlem Stride-Piano (die ersten Schallplatten), nicht jedoch den eigentlichen Veränderungsprozess vom Ragtime zum Stride zwischen 1918 und 1921, da aus dieser Zeit keine Aufnahmen von Johnson existieren. "Carolina Shout" aus dem Jahr 1921 ist möglicherweise das erste aufgenommene Jazz-Klavier-Solo,[19] die Platte kam im Januar 1922 in die Charts.
Die Schallplatten, die Johnson in den 1920er Jahren einspielte, geben einen guten Überblick über seine Fähigkeiten als Stride-Pianist, Blues-Pianist und -begleiter. Sie zeigen, dass "Stride-Piano" sowohl eine eigene Gattung als auch eine Spieltechnik war (und ist), da Johnson in seinen ab 1923 entstandenen Einspielungen von Blues-Titeln ("Backwater Blues", "Snowy Morning Blues") und Schlagern ("Crying for the Carolines") Stride-Elemente verwendet, obwohl es sich nicht um originale Stride-Kompositionen handelt. Bis 1931 entstanden seine klassischen Solo-Aufnahmen, neben den bereits genannten Titeln sind dies "Keep off the Grass" und "Harlem Strut" (1921), "Riffs", "Jingles", "You've got to be modernistic" (1930). Zwei Klavierduette mit Clarence Williams von 1931 dokumentieren die Fähigkeit der Tickler, sich während des Klavierspielens zu unterhalten, auch wenn es sich hier um eine Form des Entertainments mit komischen Texten handelt. Ab 1938 nahm Johnson wieder Schallplatten mit kleinen Combos auf. Zwischen 1940 und 1949 entstanden auch wieder zahlreiche Klaviersolo-Aufnahmen, darunter einige Remakes früherer Titel, die die Entwicklung seines Stils dokumentieren. Als Bandpianist kamen Johnson seine stilistischen und technischen Fähigkeiten zugute, wobei für ihn in einer Band nicht permanent die Notwendigkeit bestand, mit der linken Hand den Stride-Rhythmus zu spielen. Wenn kein Bass besetzt war (wie in den Aufnahmen von Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools von 1925) konnte er die Rhythmusgruppe einer Band mit seiner linken Hand ersetzen, wenn aber eine komplette Rhythmusgruppe mitwirkte, konzentrierte sich Johnson auch gerne auf die rechte Hand (wie beispielhaft in seinem "Victory Stride" von 1944). Aufnahmen, die Johnson unter seinem Namen eingespielt hat, sind auf dem Label Classics wiederveröffentlicht worden.
Johnson als Komponist
James P. Johnson wollte als Komponist klassischer Werke in Erinnerung bleiben, der Jazz und Blues in größere klassisch-symphonische Formen integriert.[20] Nach seinen Studien bei Prof. Giannini beschäftigte er sich in den 20er Jahren im Selbststudium mit spätromantischer Harmonielehre, Instrumentation, Kontrapunkt und Tonsatz. In den 1930er Jahren bemühte er sich um eine Vertiefung seiner musiktheoretischen und kompositionstechnischen Kenntnisse, wofür er sich zweimal (1937 und 1942) um Guggenheim Fellowships zur finanziellen Unterstützung und institutionellen Fundamentierung seiner Kompositionen bewarb, jedoch erfolglos blieb.[21] Johnson empfand nicht zuletzt auch wegen seiner Wurzeln im Jazz einen starken sozialen Unterschied zu anderen Künstlern der Harlem Renaissance. Daher bemühte er sich, etablierte Autoren wie Langston Hughes als Librettisten und Fürsprecher für seine Werke zu gewinnen, da er aufgrund seiner fehlenden akademischen Ausbildung wenige Kontakte zum „klassischen“ Musikbetrieb New Yorks hatte[22] und daher auch wenig Unterstützung für seine Kompositionen erfuhr.[23]
Seine 1927 entstandene Rhapsodie Yamekraw für Klavier und Orchester war das erste Werk, ihm folgten zwei Symphonien (Harlem Symphony 1932, Symphony in Brown 1935), ein Klavierkonzert (Jassamine Concerto, auch Klavierkonzert in As-Dur 1934), zwei Klaviersonaten, eine Oper De Organizer, sinfonische Dichtungen (insbesondere African Drums) sowie die American Symphonic Suite. Daneben hat Johnson noch eine Reihe kleinerer Werke komponiert. Yamekraw wurde von Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue inspiriert und stellt Johnsons ersten Versuch dar, eine authentische, auf afrikanischen Traditionen basierende amerikanische Kunstmusik zu komponieren. In dieser Komposition finden sich Elemente des Jazz, des Ragtime, des Spirituals und des Blues als grundlegende Gestaltungselemente. Allerdings lässt sich Yamekraw als Ganzes keinem dieser Genres direkt zuordnen. Anstatt ein eigenes Thema zugrunde zu legen, entschied sich Johnson dazu, eine Melange aus verschiedenen Blues- und Spiritual-Themen zu verwenden, was dem Werk dann auch die Kritik einbrachte, populäre Melodien schlicht in eine klassisch-romantisch inspirierte Form zu zwängen, woraus eine sich wenig entwickelnde, kleingliedrige Struktur resultierte. Dennoch war Yamekraw sehr erfolgreich und erlebte bis in die 1940er Jahre hinein zahlreiche Aufführungen.
African Drums (auch einfach Drums betitelt) stellt einen weiteren Versuch dar, afro-amerikanische Musik zu komponieren. Johnson bedient sich hier wie auch im dritten Satz seiner Harlem Symphony, Baptist Mission, im Wesentlichen der Varitionstechnik. Zwei zentralen Themen werden in sieben Variationen kontrapunktische Motive gegenübergestellt. Auch hier steht nicht das direkte Jazz-Zitat im Vordergrund, sondern die Verarbeitung rhythmisch-melodischer Elemente aus dem Ragtime und dem Stride-Piano, die kontrastierend immer wieder rein rhythmischen Abschnitten des Schlagwerks gegenübergestellt werden.
Während einige Werke Johnsons nur unvollständig überliefert und somit weder für eine Publikation noch für Aufführungen geeignet sind, wurden lediglich einzelne Sätze aus umfangreicheren Werken bereits zu Johnsons Lebzeiten veröffentlicht. Vollständig erhalten sind die Harlem Symphony, das Klavierkonzert Jazz A Mine, ein einzelner Satz aus der American Symphonic Suite sowie African Drums. Diese Werke wurden von Marin Alsop und dem Concordia Orchestra auf CD eingespielt.
Von Johnsons Orchesterwerken entstanden keine Aufnahmen, an denen er mitgewirkt hat. Lediglich von seiner (verschollenen) Fantasie Yamekraw, von dem Orchesterwerk Drums und von dem zweiten Satz seines Klavierkonzertes (als Blues for Jimmy) gibt es stark gekürzte Klavierversionen, die Johnson 1944/45 für das Label Asch aufgenommen hat.[24]
James P. Johnson (born James Price Johnson, also known as Jimmy Johnson; February 1, 1894 – November 17, 1955) was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of the stride style of jazz piano, he was one of the most important pianists who bridged the ragtime and jazz eras, and, with Jelly Roll Morton, one of the two most important catalysts in the evolution of ragtime piano into jazz. As such, he was a model for Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Fats Waller.
Johnson composed many hit tunes including the theme song of the Roaring Twenties, "Charleston" and "If I Could be With You One Hour Tonight" and remained the acknowledged king of New York jazz pianists through most of the 1930s. Johnson's artistry, his significance in the subsequent development of jazz piano, and his large contribution to American musical theatre, are often overlooked, and as such, he has been referred to by Reed College musicologist David Schiff, as "The Invisible Pianist".
Biography
Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States. The proximity to New York City meant that the full cosmopolitan spectrum of the city's musical experience, from bars, to cabarets, to the symphony, were at the young Johnson's disposal. Johnson's father, William H. Johnson, was a store helper and mechanic while his mother, Josephine Harrison was a maid. Harrison was a part of the choir at the Methodist Church and was also a self-taught pianist. Johnson later attributed the popular African-American songs and dances at home and around the city as early influences on his musical taste. In 1908, Johnson's family moved to the San Juan Hill (near where Lincoln Center stands today) section of New York City and subsequently moved again to uptown in 1911. With perfect pitch and excellent recall he was soon able to pick out on the piano tunes that he had heard.
Johnson grew up listening to the ragtime of Scott Joplin and always retained links to the ragtime era, playing and recording Joplin's "Maple Leaf", as well as the more modern (according to Johnson) and demanding, "Euphonic Sounds", both several times in the 1940s. Johnson, who got his first job as a pianist in 1912, decided to pursue his musical career rather than return to school. From 1913 to 1916 Johnson spent time studying the European piano tradition with Bruto Giannini. Over the next four to five years Johnson continued to progress his ragtime piano skills by studying other pianists and composing his own rags.
In 1914, while performing in Newark, New Jersey with singer Lillie Mae Wright, who became his wife three years later, Johnson met Willie Smith. Smith and Johnson shared many of the same ideas regarding entertainers and their stage appearance. These beliefs and their complementary personalities led the two to become best friends. Starting in 1918, Johnson and Wright began touring together in the Smart Set Revue before settling back in New York in 1919.
Before 1920 Johnson had gained a reputation as a pianist on the East coast on a par with Eubie Blake and Luckey Roberts and made dozens of player piano roll recordings initially documenting his own ragtime compositions before recording for Aeolian, Perfection (the label of the Standard Music Roll Co., Orange, NJ), Artempo (label of Bennett & White, Inc., Newark, NJ), Rythmodik, and QRS during the period from 1917 to 1927. During this period he met George Gershwin, who was also a young piano-roll artist at Aeolian.
Johnson was a pioneer in the stride playing of the jazz piano. "Stride piano has often been described as an orchestral style and indeed, in contrast to boogie-woogie blues piano playing, it requires a fabulous conceptual independence, the left hand differentiating bass and mid-range lines while the right supplies melodic issues." Johnson honed his craft, playing night after night, catering to the egos and idiosyncrasies of the many singers he encountered, which necessitated being able to play a song in any key. He developed into a sensitive and facile accompanist, the favorite accompanist of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith. Ethel Waters wrote in her autobiography that working with musicians such as, and most especially, Johnson "...made you want to sing until your tonsils fell out".
As his piano style continued to evolve, his 1921 phonograph recordings of his own compositions, "Harlem Strut", "Keep Off the Grass", and "Carolina Shout", were, along with Jelly Roll Morton's Gennett recordings of 1923, among the first jazz piano solos to be put onto record. Johnson seemed to be at his finest when he attacked the piano as if it were a drum set. These technically challenging compositions would be learned by his contemporaries, and would serve as test pieces in solo competitions, in which the New York pianists would demonstrate their mastery of the keyboard, as well as the swing, harmonies, and improvisational skills which would further distinguish the great masters of the era.
The majority of his phonograph recordings of the 1920s and early 1930s were done for Black Swan (founded by Johnson's friend W.C. Handy, where William Grant Still served in an A&R capacity) and Columbia. In 1922, Johnson branched out and became the musical director for the revue Plantation Days. This revue took him to England for our months in 1923. During the summer of 1923 Johnson, along with the help of lyricist Cecil Mack, wrote the revue Runnin' Wild. This revue stayed on tour for more than five years as well as showing on Broadway.
James P. Johnson, Fess Williams, Freddie Moore, Joe Thomas 1948.
Photography by William P. Gottlieb.
In the depression era, Johnson's career slowed down somewhat. As the swing era began to gain popularity within the African-American communities, Johnson had a hard time adapting and his music would ultimately become unpopular. The cushion of a modest but steady income from his composer's royalties allowed him to devote significant time to the furtherance of his education, as well as the realization of his desire to compose "serious" orchestral music. Johnson began to write for musical revues and composed many forgotten orchestral music pieces. Although by this time he was an established composer, with a significant body of work, as well as a member or ASCAP, he was nonetheless unable to secure the financial support that he sought from either the Rosenwald Foundation, or a Guggenheim Fellowship, both of which he received endorsement for from the Columbia Records executive, and long time admirer, John Hammond. The Johnson archives include the letterhead of an organization called "Friends of James P. Johnson", ostensibly founded at the time (presumably in the late 1930s) in order to promote his then-idling career. Names on the letter-head include Paul Robeson, Fats Waller, Walter White (President of the NAACP), the actress Mercedes Gilbert and Bessye Bearden, the mother of artist Romare Bearden. In the late 1930s Johnson slowly started to re-emerge with the revival of interest in traditional jazz and began to record, with his own and other groups, at first for the HRS label. Johnson's appearances at the Spirituals to Swing concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1938 and 1939 were organized by John Hammond, for whom he recorded a substantial series of solo and band sides in 1939.
Johnson suffered a stroke (likely a transient ischemic attack) in August 1940. When Johnson returned to action, in 1942, he began a heavy schedule of performing, composing, and recording, leading several small live and groups, now often with racially integrated bands led by musicians such as Eddie Condon, Yank Lawson, Sidney de Paris, Sidney Bechet, Rod Cless, and Edmond Hall. In 1944, Jonhson and Willie Smith participated in stride piano contests in Greenwich Village from August to December. He recorded for jazz labels including Asch, Black and White, Blue Note, Commodore, Circle, and Decca. In 1945, Johnson performed with Louis Armstrong and heard his works at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall. He was a regular guest star and featured soloist on Rudi Blesh's This is Jazz broadcasts, as well as at Eddie Condon's Town Hall concerts and studied with Maury Deutsch, who could also count Django Reinhardt and Charlie Parker among his pupils.
In the late 1940s, Johnson had a variety of jobs, including jam sessions at Stuyvesant Casino and Central Plaza, as well as becoming a regular on Rudi Blesh's radio show. In 1949 as an 18-year-old, actor and band leader Conrad Janis put together a band of aging jazz greats, consisting of James P. Johnson (piano), Henry Goodwin (trumpet), Edmond Hall (clarinet), Pops Foster (bass) and Baby Dodds (drums), with Janis on trombone.[1] Johnson permanently retired from performing after suffering a severe, paralyzing stroke in 1951. Johnson survived financially on his songwriting royalties while he was paralyzed. He died four years later in Jamaica, New York and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens. Perfunctory obituaries appeared in even The New York Times. The pithiest and most angry remembrance of Johnson was written by John Hammond and appeared in Down Beat under the title "Talents of James P. Johnson Went Unappreciated".
Composer
Johnson composed many hit tunes in his work for the musical theatre, including "Charleston" (which debuted in his Broadway show Runnin' Wild in 1923,[2] although by some accounts Johnson had written it years earlier, and which became one of the most popular songs of the "Roaring Twenties"), "If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)", "You've Got to Be Modernistic", "Don't Cry, Baby", "Keep off the Grass", "Old Fashioned Love", "A Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid", "Carolina Shout", and "Snowy Morning Blues". He wrote waltzes, ballet, symphonic pieces and light opera; many of these extended works exist in manuscript form in various stages of completeness in the collection of Johnson's papers housed at the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey. Johnson's success as a popular composer qualified him as a member of ASCAP in 1926.
1928 saw the premier of Johnson's rhapsody Yamekraw, named after a black community in Savannah, Georgia. William Grant Still was orchestrator and Fats Waller the pianist as Johnson was contractually obliged to conduct his and Waller's hit Broadway show Keep Shufflin. Harlem Symphony, composed during the 1930s, was performed at Carnegie Hall in 1945 with Johnson at the piano and Joseph Cherniavsky as conductor. He collaborated with Langston Hughes on the one-act opera, De Organizer. A fuller list of Johnson's film scores appears below.
Pianist
Along with Fats Waller and Willie 'The Lion' Smith ('The Big Three'), and Luckey Roberts, Johnson embodies the Harlem Stride piano style, an evolution of East Coast ragtime infused with elements of the blues. His "Carolina Shout" was a standard test piece and rite of passage for every contemporary pianist: Duke Ellington learned it note for note from the 1921 QRS Johnson piano roll. Johnson taught Fats Waller and got him his first piano roll and recording assignments.
Harlem Stride is distinguished from ragtime by several essential characteristics: ragtime introduced sustained syncopation into piano music, but stride pianists built a more freely swinging rhythm into their performances, with a certain degree of anticipation of the left (bass) hand by the right (melody) hand, a form of tension and release in the patterns played by the right hand, interpolated within the beat generated by the left. Stride more frequently incorporates elements of the blues, as well as harmonies more complex than usually found in the works of classic ragtime composers. Lastly, while ragtime was for the most part a composed music, based on European light classics such as marches, pianists such as Waller and Johnson introduced their own rhythmic, harmonic and melodic figures into their performances and, occasionally, spontaneous improvisation. As the second generation stride pianist Dick Wellstood noted, in liner notes for the stride pianist Donald Lambert, most of the stride pianists of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s were not particularly good improvisers. Rather, they would play their own, very well worked out, and often rehearsed variations on popular songs of the day, with very little change from one performance to another. It was in this respect that Johnson distinguished himself from his colleagues, in that (in his own words), he "could think of a trick a minute". Comparison of many of Johnson's recordings of a given tune over the years demonstrates variation from one performance to another, characterised by respect for the melody, and reliance upon a worked out set of melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic devices, such as repeated chords, serial thirds (hence his admiration for Bach), and interpolated scales, on which the improvisations were based. This same set of variations might then appear in the performance of another tune.
Legacy
James P. Johnson may be thought of as the last major pianist of the classic ragtime era, and, the first major jazz pianist, and, therefore, as an indispensable bridge between ragtime and jazz. Johnson's musical legacy is also present in the body of work of his pupil, the more famous Fats Waller as well as scores of other pianists who were influenced by him, such as Art Tatum, Donald Lambert, Louis Mazetier, Pat Flowers, Cliff Jackson, Hank Duncan, Claude Hopkins, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Don Ewell, Johnny Guarnieri, Dick Hyman, Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton, Joe Turner, Neville Dickie, Mike Lipskin, and Butch Thompson.
Honors and recognitions
Two Romare Bearden paintings bear the name of Johnson compositions: Carolina Shout, and Snow(y) Morning.
On September 16, 1995 the U.S. Post Office issued a James P. Johnson 32-cent commemorative postage stamp.[3]
Year Inducted Title
1970 Songwriters Hall of Fame
1973 Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame
1980 Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
2007 ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame[4]
Unmarked since his death in 1955, his grave was re-consecrated with a headstone paid for with funds raised by an event arranged by the James P. Johnson Foundation, Spike Wilner and Dr. Scott Brown on October 4, 2009.
Johnson composed many hit tunes including the theme song of the Roaring Twenties, "Charleston" and "If I Could be With You One Hour Tonight" and remained the acknowledged king of New York jazz pianists through most of the 1930s. Johnson's artistry, his significance in the subsequent development of jazz piano, and his large contribution to American musical theatre, are often overlooked, and as such, he has been referred to by Reed College musicologist David Schiff, as "The Invisible Pianist".
Biography
Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States. The proximity to New York City meant that the full cosmopolitan spectrum of the city's musical experience, from bars, to cabarets, to the symphony, were at the young Johnson's disposal. Johnson's father, William H. Johnson, was a store helper and mechanic while his mother, Josephine Harrison was a maid. Harrison was a part of the choir at the Methodist Church and was also a self-taught pianist. Johnson later attributed the popular African-American songs and dances at home and around the city as early influences on his musical taste. In 1908, Johnson's family moved to the San Juan Hill (near where Lincoln Center stands today) section of New York City and subsequently moved again to uptown in 1911. With perfect pitch and excellent recall he was soon able to pick out on the piano tunes that he had heard.
Johnson grew up listening to the ragtime of Scott Joplin and always retained links to the ragtime era, playing and recording Joplin's "Maple Leaf", as well as the more modern (according to Johnson) and demanding, "Euphonic Sounds", both several times in the 1940s. Johnson, who got his first job as a pianist in 1912, decided to pursue his musical career rather than return to school. From 1913 to 1916 Johnson spent time studying the European piano tradition with Bruto Giannini. Over the next four to five years Johnson continued to progress his ragtime piano skills by studying other pianists and composing his own rags.
In 1914, while performing in Newark, New Jersey with singer Lillie Mae Wright, who became his wife three years later, Johnson met Willie Smith. Smith and Johnson shared many of the same ideas regarding entertainers and their stage appearance. These beliefs and their complementary personalities led the two to become best friends. Starting in 1918, Johnson and Wright began touring together in the Smart Set Revue before settling back in New York in 1919.
Before 1920 Johnson had gained a reputation as a pianist on the East coast on a par with Eubie Blake and Luckey Roberts and made dozens of player piano roll recordings initially documenting his own ragtime compositions before recording for Aeolian, Perfection (the label of the Standard Music Roll Co., Orange, NJ), Artempo (label of Bennett & White, Inc., Newark, NJ), Rythmodik, and QRS during the period from 1917 to 1927. During this period he met George Gershwin, who was also a young piano-roll artist at Aeolian.
Johnson was a pioneer in the stride playing of the jazz piano. "Stride piano has often been described as an orchestral style and indeed, in contrast to boogie-woogie blues piano playing, it requires a fabulous conceptual independence, the left hand differentiating bass and mid-range lines while the right supplies melodic issues." Johnson honed his craft, playing night after night, catering to the egos and idiosyncrasies of the many singers he encountered, which necessitated being able to play a song in any key. He developed into a sensitive and facile accompanist, the favorite accompanist of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith. Ethel Waters wrote in her autobiography that working with musicians such as, and most especially, Johnson "...made you want to sing until your tonsils fell out".
As his piano style continued to evolve, his 1921 phonograph recordings of his own compositions, "Harlem Strut", "Keep Off the Grass", and "Carolina Shout", were, along with Jelly Roll Morton's Gennett recordings of 1923, among the first jazz piano solos to be put onto record. Johnson seemed to be at his finest when he attacked the piano as if it were a drum set. These technically challenging compositions would be learned by his contemporaries, and would serve as test pieces in solo competitions, in which the New York pianists would demonstrate their mastery of the keyboard, as well as the swing, harmonies, and improvisational skills which would further distinguish the great masters of the era.
The majority of his phonograph recordings of the 1920s and early 1930s were done for Black Swan (founded by Johnson's friend W.C. Handy, where William Grant Still served in an A&R capacity) and Columbia. In 1922, Johnson branched out and became the musical director for the revue Plantation Days. This revue took him to England for our months in 1923. During the summer of 1923 Johnson, along with the help of lyricist Cecil Mack, wrote the revue Runnin' Wild. This revue stayed on tour for more than five years as well as showing on Broadway.
James P. Johnson, Fess Williams, Freddie Moore, Joe Thomas 1948.
Photography by William P. Gottlieb.
In the depression era, Johnson's career slowed down somewhat. As the swing era began to gain popularity within the African-American communities, Johnson had a hard time adapting and his music would ultimately become unpopular. The cushion of a modest but steady income from his composer's royalties allowed him to devote significant time to the furtherance of his education, as well as the realization of his desire to compose "serious" orchestral music. Johnson began to write for musical revues and composed many forgotten orchestral music pieces. Although by this time he was an established composer, with a significant body of work, as well as a member or ASCAP, he was nonetheless unable to secure the financial support that he sought from either the Rosenwald Foundation, or a Guggenheim Fellowship, both of which he received endorsement for from the Columbia Records executive, and long time admirer, John Hammond. The Johnson archives include the letterhead of an organization called "Friends of James P. Johnson", ostensibly founded at the time (presumably in the late 1930s) in order to promote his then-idling career. Names on the letter-head include Paul Robeson, Fats Waller, Walter White (President of the NAACP), the actress Mercedes Gilbert and Bessye Bearden, the mother of artist Romare Bearden. In the late 1930s Johnson slowly started to re-emerge with the revival of interest in traditional jazz and began to record, with his own and other groups, at first for the HRS label. Johnson's appearances at the Spirituals to Swing concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1938 and 1939 were organized by John Hammond, for whom he recorded a substantial series of solo and band sides in 1939.
Johnson suffered a stroke (likely a transient ischemic attack) in August 1940. When Johnson returned to action, in 1942, he began a heavy schedule of performing, composing, and recording, leading several small live and groups, now often with racially integrated bands led by musicians such as Eddie Condon, Yank Lawson, Sidney de Paris, Sidney Bechet, Rod Cless, and Edmond Hall. In 1944, Jonhson and Willie Smith participated in stride piano contests in Greenwich Village from August to December. He recorded for jazz labels including Asch, Black and White, Blue Note, Commodore, Circle, and Decca. In 1945, Johnson performed with Louis Armstrong and heard his works at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall. He was a regular guest star and featured soloist on Rudi Blesh's This is Jazz broadcasts, as well as at Eddie Condon's Town Hall concerts and studied with Maury Deutsch, who could also count Django Reinhardt and Charlie Parker among his pupils.
In the late 1940s, Johnson had a variety of jobs, including jam sessions at Stuyvesant Casino and Central Plaza, as well as becoming a regular on Rudi Blesh's radio show. In 1949 as an 18-year-old, actor and band leader Conrad Janis put together a band of aging jazz greats, consisting of James P. Johnson (piano), Henry Goodwin (trumpet), Edmond Hall (clarinet), Pops Foster (bass) and Baby Dodds (drums), with Janis on trombone.[1] Johnson permanently retired from performing after suffering a severe, paralyzing stroke in 1951. Johnson survived financially on his songwriting royalties while he was paralyzed. He died four years later in Jamaica, New York and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens. Perfunctory obituaries appeared in even The New York Times. The pithiest and most angry remembrance of Johnson was written by John Hammond and appeared in Down Beat under the title "Talents of James P. Johnson Went Unappreciated".
Composer
Johnson composed many hit tunes in his work for the musical theatre, including "Charleston" (which debuted in his Broadway show Runnin' Wild in 1923,[2] although by some accounts Johnson had written it years earlier, and which became one of the most popular songs of the "Roaring Twenties"), "If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)", "You've Got to Be Modernistic", "Don't Cry, Baby", "Keep off the Grass", "Old Fashioned Love", "A Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid", "Carolina Shout", and "Snowy Morning Blues". He wrote waltzes, ballet, symphonic pieces and light opera; many of these extended works exist in manuscript form in various stages of completeness in the collection of Johnson's papers housed at the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey. Johnson's success as a popular composer qualified him as a member of ASCAP in 1926.
1928 saw the premier of Johnson's rhapsody Yamekraw, named after a black community in Savannah, Georgia. William Grant Still was orchestrator and Fats Waller the pianist as Johnson was contractually obliged to conduct his and Waller's hit Broadway show Keep Shufflin. Harlem Symphony, composed during the 1930s, was performed at Carnegie Hall in 1945 with Johnson at the piano and Joseph Cherniavsky as conductor. He collaborated with Langston Hughes on the one-act opera, De Organizer. A fuller list of Johnson's film scores appears below.
Pianist
Along with Fats Waller and Willie 'The Lion' Smith ('The Big Three'), and Luckey Roberts, Johnson embodies the Harlem Stride piano style, an evolution of East Coast ragtime infused with elements of the blues. His "Carolina Shout" was a standard test piece and rite of passage for every contemporary pianist: Duke Ellington learned it note for note from the 1921 QRS Johnson piano roll. Johnson taught Fats Waller and got him his first piano roll and recording assignments.
Harlem Stride is distinguished from ragtime by several essential characteristics: ragtime introduced sustained syncopation into piano music, but stride pianists built a more freely swinging rhythm into their performances, with a certain degree of anticipation of the left (bass) hand by the right (melody) hand, a form of tension and release in the patterns played by the right hand, interpolated within the beat generated by the left. Stride more frequently incorporates elements of the blues, as well as harmonies more complex than usually found in the works of classic ragtime composers. Lastly, while ragtime was for the most part a composed music, based on European light classics such as marches, pianists such as Waller and Johnson introduced their own rhythmic, harmonic and melodic figures into their performances and, occasionally, spontaneous improvisation. As the second generation stride pianist Dick Wellstood noted, in liner notes for the stride pianist Donald Lambert, most of the stride pianists of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s were not particularly good improvisers. Rather, they would play their own, very well worked out, and often rehearsed variations on popular songs of the day, with very little change from one performance to another. It was in this respect that Johnson distinguished himself from his colleagues, in that (in his own words), he "could think of a trick a minute". Comparison of many of Johnson's recordings of a given tune over the years demonstrates variation from one performance to another, characterised by respect for the melody, and reliance upon a worked out set of melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic devices, such as repeated chords, serial thirds (hence his admiration for Bach), and interpolated scales, on which the improvisations were based. This same set of variations might then appear in the performance of another tune.
Legacy
James P. Johnson may be thought of as the last major pianist of the classic ragtime era, and, the first major jazz pianist, and, therefore, as an indispensable bridge between ragtime and jazz. Johnson's musical legacy is also present in the body of work of his pupil, the more famous Fats Waller as well as scores of other pianists who were influenced by him, such as Art Tatum, Donald Lambert, Louis Mazetier, Pat Flowers, Cliff Jackson, Hank Duncan, Claude Hopkins, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Don Ewell, Johnny Guarnieri, Dick Hyman, Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton, Joe Turner, Neville Dickie, Mike Lipskin, and Butch Thompson.
Honors and recognitions
Two Romare Bearden paintings bear the name of Johnson compositions: Carolina Shout, and Snow(y) Morning.
On September 16, 1995 the U.S. Post Office issued a James P. Johnson 32-cent commemorative postage stamp.[3]
Year Inducted Title
1970 Songwriters Hall of Fame
1973 Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame
1980 Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
2007 ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame[4]
Unmarked since his death in 1955, his grave was re-consecrated with a headstone paid for with funds raised by an event arranged by the James P. Johnson Foundation, Spike Wilner and Dr. Scott Brown on October 4, 2009.
james p. johnson bleeding Hearted Blues
Ruth Brown +17.11.2006
Ruth
Brown (* 30. Januar 1928 in Portsmouth, Virginia, geborene Ruth Weston;
† 17. November 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada) war eine der populärsten
amerikanischen Rhythm-and-Blues-Sängerinnen der 1950er Jahre.
Ruth Brown sang schon früh in verschiedenen Kirchenchören, sattelte später aber, entgegen dem Willen ihres Vaters, zur weltlichen Musik um. 1945 lernte sie den Trompeter Jimmy Brown kennen, den sie kurze Zeit später heiratete. Bei einem Auftritt im New Yorker Apollo Theater wurde sie entdeckt, als sie einen Song von Bing Crosby vortrug. Als Folge davon erhielt sie 1946 ein Engagement in der Band von Lucky Millinder, wurde aber in Washington, D.C. später entlassen, als sie zwei Musiker mit Alkohol versorgte haben soll. Es dauerte jedoch nicht lange, bis sich Blanche Calloway, Cab Calloways Schwester, ihrer annahm und sie als Solo-Künstlerin verpflichtete.
Kurz vor ihrem geplanten ersten Auftritt, abermals im Apollo Theater, wurde sie am 28. Oktober 1948 in Chester von einem Auto angefahren, brach sich beide Beine und mehrere Rippen und lag mehrere Monate im Krankenhaus. Erst 1949 nahm sie mit „So Long“ unter dem Label Atlantic Records ihre erste Single auf, die sich schon bald als Erfolg entpuppte. Der Song war die Erkennungsmelodie der Chicagoer Sängerin Little Miss Cornshucks, die sie als ihr größtes Vorbild bezeichnete. Mit dem 1950 erschienenen „ Teardrops from My Eyes “ landete sie ihren ersten Nr.-1-Hit in den R&B-Charts, dem noch weitere folgen sollten. Z. B. 1952 (Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean, mit dem sie sich gleichzeitig auch erstmals in den US-Pop-Charts platzieren konnte. 1954 sang sie Sentimantal Journey mit den Delta Rhythm Boys. 1957 schaffte sie mit dem Leiber/Stoller-Song Lucky Lips erstmals einen größeren Erfolg in den US-Pop-Charts, den sie 1958 mit This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin sogar noch übertreffen konnte.
Anfang der 1960er Jahre ließen ihre Erfolge stark nach, sodass sie Mitte der 1960er der Plattenindustrie vollkommen den Rücken kehrte, sie wurde jedoch zu allen nennenswerten Blues- und Jazzfestivals eingeladen. Erst in den späten 1970er spielte sie wieder Songs ein. Sie tourte mit dem Musical Guys and Dolls, nahm 1982 die Show The Soul Survives auf und erhielt Anfang der 1980er Jahre für ihre Rolle in dem Broadway-Stück Black And Blue einen Tony Award sowie einen Outer Critics Circle Award. Sie übernahm auch in dem Off-Broadway-Musical Stagger Lee von Allen Toussaint eine Hauptrolle und war jetzt als Schauspielerin auch in Spielfilmen wie Under The Rainbow und Hairspray zu sehen. Für ihr Album Blues On Broadway, das 1989 auf Fantasy Records erschienen war, bekam sie sogar einen Grammy in der Kategorie beste Jazz-Sängerin. 1998 wurde sie mit dem Living Blues Award als beste Blueskünstlerin ausgezeichnet.
In den 1990er Jahren trat sie weiterhin regelmäßig auf, darunter im New Yorker Blue Note und, zum ersten Mal seit 1968, auch wieder im Apollo. Sie unterstützte Bonnie Raitt bei ihren Platten-Aufnahmen und wurde 1993 in die Rock and Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen[1]. 1994 tourte sie mit ihrem Programm Ruth Brown Goes To Town durch Europa und nahm im Ronnie Scott’s Club in London das Album Live In London auf. Sie sang 1995 mit Jon Hendricks und unterschrieb 1996 bei Bullseye Blues Records. Dort erschien 1997 auch das Album R + B = Ruth Brown, auf dem Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Adams, Duke Robillard und Clarence „Gatemouth“ Brown als Gaststars zu hören sind.
2002 wurde Ruth Brown in die Blues Hall of Fame aufgenommen. Der Rapper Rakim ist Ruth Browns Neffe.
Ruth Brown verstarb am Freitag, den 17. November 2006 in Las Vegas im Alter von 78 Jahren.
Ruth Brown sang schon früh in verschiedenen Kirchenchören, sattelte später aber, entgegen dem Willen ihres Vaters, zur weltlichen Musik um. 1945 lernte sie den Trompeter Jimmy Brown kennen, den sie kurze Zeit später heiratete. Bei einem Auftritt im New Yorker Apollo Theater wurde sie entdeckt, als sie einen Song von Bing Crosby vortrug. Als Folge davon erhielt sie 1946 ein Engagement in der Band von Lucky Millinder, wurde aber in Washington, D.C. später entlassen, als sie zwei Musiker mit Alkohol versorgte haben soll. Es dauerte jedoch nicht lange, bis sich Blanche Calloway, Cab Calloways Schwester, ihrer annahm und sie als Solo-Künstlerin verpflichtete.
Kurz vor ihrem geplanten ersten Auftritt, abermals im Apollo Theater, wurde sie am 28. Oktober 1948 in Chester von einem Auto angefahren, brach sich beide Beine und mehrere Rippen und lag mehrere Monate im Krankenhaus. Erst 1949 nahm sie mit „So Long“ unter dem Label Atlantic Records ihre erste Single auf, die sich schon bald als Erfolg entpuppte. Der Song war die Erkennungsmelodie der Chicagoer Sängerin Little Miss Cornshucks, die sie als ihr größtes Vorbild bezeichnete. Mit dem 1950 erschienenen „ Teardrops from My Eyes “ landete sie ihren ersten Nr.-1-Hit in den R&B-Charts, dem noch weitere folgen sollten. Z. B. 1952 (Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean, mit dem sie sich gleichzeitig auch erstmals in den US-Pop-Charts platzieren konnte. 1954 sang sie Sentimantal Journey mit den Delta Rhythm Boys. 1957 schaffte sie mit dem Leiber/Stoller-Song Lucky Lips erstmals einen größeren Erfolg in den US-Pop-Charts, den sie 1958 mit This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin sogar noch übertreffen konnte.
Anfang der 1960er Jahre ließen ihre Erfolge stark nach, sodass sie Mitte der 1960er der Plattenindustrie vollkommen den Rücken kehrte, sie wurde jedoch zu allen nennenswerten Blues- und Jazzfestivals eingeladen. Erst in den späten 1970er spielte sie wieder Songs ein. Sie tourte mit dem Musical Guys and Dolls, nahm 1982 die Show The Soul Survives auf und erhielt Anfang der 1980er Jahre für ihre Rolle in dem Broadway-Stück Black And Blue einen Tony Award sowie einen Outer Critics Circle Award. Sie übernahm auch in dem Off-Broadway-Musical Stagger Lee von Allen Toussaint eine Hauptrolle und war jetzt als Schauspielerin auch in Spielfilmen wie Under The Rainbow und Hairspray zu sehen. Für ihr Album Blues On Broadway, das 1989 auf Fantasy Records erschienen war, bekam sie sogar einen Grammy in der Kategorie beste Jazz-Sängerin. 1998 wurde sie mit dem Living Blues Award als beste Blueskünstlerin ausgezeichnet.
In den 1990er Jahren trat sie weiterhin regelmäßig auf, darunter im New Yorker Blue Note und, zum ersten Mal seit 1968, auch wieder im Apollo. Sie unterstützte Bonnie Raitt bei ihren Platten-Aufnahmen und wurde 1993 in die Rock and Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen[1]. 1994 tourte sie mit ihrem Programm Ruth Brown Goes To Town durch Europa und nahm im Ronnie Scott’s Club in London das Album Live In London auf. Sie sang 1995 mit Jon Hendricks und unterschrieb 1996 bei Bullseye Blues Records. Dort erschien 1997 auch das Album R + B = Ruth Brown, auf dem Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Adams, Duke Robillard und Clarence „Gatemouth“ Brown als Gaststars zu hören sind.
2002 wurde Ruth Brown in die Blues Hall of Fame aufgenommen. Der Rapper Rakim ist Ruth Browns Neffe.
Ruth Brown verstarb am Freitag, den 17. November 2006 in Las Vegas im Alter von 78 Jahren.
Ruth Brown (January 12/January 30, 1928 – November 17, 2006) was an American singer-songwriter and actress, sometimes known as the "Queen of R&B". She was noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean".[1] For these contributions, Atlantic became known as "The house that Ruth built" (alluding to the popular nickname for Old Yankee Stadium).[2][3]
Following a resurgence that began in the mid-1970s and peaked in the 1980s, Brown used her influence to press for musicians' rights regarding royalties and contracts, which led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.[4] Her performances in the Broadway musical Black and Blue earned Brown a Tony Award, and the original cast recording won a Grammy Award.
Early life
Born Ruth Alston Weston in Portsmouth, Virginia, she was the eldest of seven siblings.[5] She attended I. C. Norcom High School, which was then legally segregated. Brown's father was a dockhand who directed the local church choir, but the young Ruth showed more interest in singing at USO shows and nightclubs. She was inspired by Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Dinah Washington.[6]
In 1945, aged 17, Brown ran away from her home in Portsmouth along with trumpeter Jimmy Brown, whom she soon married, to sing in bars and clubs. She then spent a month with Lucky Millinder's orchestra.[1]
Career
Blanche Calloway, Cab Calloway's sister, also a bandleader, arranged a gig for Brown at a Washington, D.C. nightclub called Crystal Caverns and soon became her manager. Willis Conover, a Voice of America disc jockey, caught her act with Duke Ellington and recommended her to Atlantic Records bosses, Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson. Brown was unable to audition as planned because of a serious car accident that resulted in a nine-month hospital stay. She signed with Atlantic Records on her hospital bed.[7] In 1948, Ertegün and Abramson drove to Washington, D.C., from New York City to hear her sing in the club. Although her repertoire was mostly popular ballads, Ertegün convinced her to switch to rhythm and blues.[8]
In her first audition, in 1949, she sang "So Long," which ended up becoming a hit. This was followed by "Teardrops from My Eyes" in 1950. Written by Rudy Toombs, it was the first upbeat major hit for Brown. Recorded for Atlantic Records in New York City in September 1950, and released in October, it was Billboard's R&B number one for 11 weeks. The hit earned her the nickname "Miss Rhythm" and within a few months Brown became the acknowledged queen of R&B.[9]
She followed up this hit with "I'll Wait for You" (1951), "I Know" (1951), "5-10-15 Hours" (1953), "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" (1953), "Oh What a Dream" (1954),[8] "Mambo Baby" (1954), and "Don't Deceive Me" (1960), some of which were credited to Ruth Brown and the Rhythm Makers. In all, between 1949 and 1955, she stayed on the R&B chart for a total 149 weeks, with sixteen Top 10 records including five number ones. Brown played many dances that were deeply segregated in the Southern States, where she toured extensively and was immensely popular. Brown herself claimed that a writer had once summed up her popularity by saying: "In the South Ruth Brown is better known than Coca Cola."[citation needed]
Her first pop hit came with "Lucky Lips", a song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and recorded in 1957. The single reached number 6 on the R&B chart, and number 25 on the US pop chart.[10] The 1958 follow up was "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'", written by Bobby Darin and Mann Curtis. It reached number 7 on the R&B chart and number 24 on the pop chart.[11]
She was to have further hits with "I Don't Know" in 1959 and "Don't Deceive Me" in 1960, although these were more successful on the R&B chart than on the pop chart.
Later life
During the 1960s, Brown faded from public view to become a housewife and mother. She returned to music in 1975 at the urging of Redd Foxx, followed by a series of comedic acting gigs. These included a role in the sitcom Hello, Larry, and the John Waters film, Hairspray, as well as Broadway appearances in Amen Corner and Black and Blue. The latter earned her a Tony Award as "Best Actress in a Musical", and a Grammy Award as Best Female Jazz Artist for her album, Blues on Broadway, featuring hits from the show.
Brown's fight for musicians' rights and royalties in 1987 led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. She was inducted as a Pioneer Award recipient in its first year, 1989, and inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992. In 1993, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Brown recorded and sang along with fellow rhythm and blues performer Charles Brown, and toured with Bonnie Raitt in the late 1990s. Her 1995 autobiography, Miss Rhythm,[12] won the Gleason Award for music journalism. She also appeared on Bonnie Raitt's 1995 live DVD Road Tested singing the song "Never Make Your Move Too Soon."[13] She was nominated for another Grammy in the Traditional Blues category for her 1997 album, R+B=Ruth Brown.
She hosted the radio program BluesStage, carried by over 200 NPR affiliates, for six years starting in 1989.[14]
Brown was still touring at the age of 77.[7] She had completed pre-production work on the Danny Glover film, Honeydripper, which she did not live to finish, but her recording of "Things About Comin' My Way" was released posthumously on the soundtrack CD. Her last interview was in August 2006.[15]
Death
Brown died in a Las Vegas-area hospital on November 17, 2006, from complications following a heart attack and stroke she suffered after surgery in the previous month. She was 78 years old.[16] A memorial concert for her was held on January 22, 2007 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.
Brown is buried at Roosevelt Memorial Park, Chesapeake City, Virginia.
Following a resurgence that began in the mid-1970s and peaked in the 1980s, Brown used her influence to press for musicians' rights regarding royalties and contracts, which led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.[4] Her performances in the Broadway musical Black and Blue earned Brown a Tony Award, and the original cast recording won a Grammy Award.
Early life
Born Ruth Alston Weston in Portsmouth, Virginia, she was the eldest of seven siblings.[5] She attended I. C. Norcom High School, which was then legally segregated. Brown's father was a dockhand who directed the local church choir, but the young Ruth showed more interest in singing at USO shows and nightclubs. She was inspired by Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Dinah Washington.[6]
In 1945, aged 17, Brown ran away from her home in Portsmouth along with trumpeter Jimmy Brown, whom she soon married, to sing in bars and clubs. She then spent a month with Lucky Millinder's orchestra.[1]
Career
Blanche Calloway, Cab Calloway's sister, also a bandleader, arranged a gig for Brown at a Washington, D.C. nightclub called Crystal Caverns and soon became her manager. Willis Conover, a Voice of America disc jockey, caught her act with Duke Ellington and recommended her to Atlantic Records bosses, Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson. Brown was unable to audition as planned because of a serious car accident that resulted in a nine-month hospital stay. She signed with Atlantic Records on her hospital bed.[7] In 1948, Ertegün and Abramson drove to Washington, D.C., from New York City to hear her sing in the club. Although her repertoire was mostly popular ballads, Ertegün convinced her to switch to rhythm and blues.[8]
In her first audition, in 1949, she sang "So Long," which ended up becoming a hit. This was followed by "Teardrops from My Eyes" in 1950. Written by Rudy Toombs, it was the first upbeat major hit for Brown. Recorded for Atlantic Records in New York City in September 1950, and released in October, it was Billboard's R&B number one for 11 weeks. The hit earned her the nickname "Miss Rhythm" and within a few months Brown became the acknowledged queen of R&B.[9]
She followed up this hit with "I'll Wait for You" (1951), "I Know" (1951), "5-10-15 Hours" (1953), "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" (1953), "Oh What a Dream" (1954),[8] "Mambo Baby" (1954), and "Don't Deceive Me" (1960), some of which were credited to Ruth Brown and the Rhythm Makers. In all, between 1949 and 1955, she stayed on the R&B chart for a total 149 weeks, with sixteen Top 10 records including five number ones. Brown played many dances that were deeply segregated in the Southern States, where she toured extensively and was immensely popular. Brown herself claimed that a writer had once summed up her popularity by saying: "In the South Ruth Brown is better known than Coca Cola."[citation needed]
Her first pop hit came with "Lucky Lips", a song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and recorded in 1957. The single reached number 6 on the R&B chart, and number 25 on the US pop chart.[10] The 1958 follow up was "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'", written by Bobby Darin and Mann Curtis. It reached number 7 on the R&B chart and number 24 on the pop chart.[11]
She was to have further hits with "I Don't Know" in 1959 and "Don't Deceive Me" in 1960, although these were more successful on the R&B chart than on the pop chart.
Later life
During the 1960s, Brown faded from public view to become a housewife and mother. She returned to music in 1975 at the urging of Redd Foxx, followed by a series of comedic acting gigs. These included a role in the sitcom Hello, Larry, and the John Waters film, Hairspray, as well as Broadway appearances in Amen Corner and Black and Blue. The latter earned her a Tony Award as "Best Actress in a Musical", and a Grammy Award as Best Female Jazz Artist for her album, Blues on Broadway, featuring hits from the show.
Brown's fight for musicians' rights and royalties in 1987 led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. She was inducted as a Pioneer Award recipient in its first year, 1989, and inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992. In 1993, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Brown recorded and sang along with fellow rhythm and blues performer Charles Brown, and toured with Bonnie Raitt in the late 1990s. Her 1995 autobiography, Miss Rhythm,[12] won the Gleason Award for music journalism. She also appeared on Bonnie Raitt's 1995 live DVD Road Tested singing the song "Never Make Your Move Too Soon."[13] She was nominated for another Grammy in the Traditional Blues category for her 1997 album, R+B=Ruth Brown.
She hosted the radio program BluesStage, carried by over 200 NPR affiliates, for six years starting in 1989.[14]
Brown was still touring at the age of 77.[7] She had completed pre-production work on the Danny Glover film, Honeydripper, which she did not live to finish, but her recording of "Things About Comin' My Way" was released posthumously on the soundtrack CD. Her last interview was in August 2006.[15]
Death
Brown died in a Las Vegas-area hospital on November 17, 2006, from complications following a heart attack and stroke she suffered after surgery in the previous month. She was 78 years old.[16] A memorial concert for her was held on January 22, 2007 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.
Brown is buried at Roosevelt Memorial Park, Chesapeake City, Virginia.
RUTH BROWN - Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean
Pat Ramsey +17.11.2008
Born in 1953
Sadly, we have to report on the passing of blues harpist Pat Ramsey, who died on Monday, November 17th, 2008 after a lengthy illness. Best known for his work on Johnny Winter's critically-acclaimed 1978 album White Hot & Blue, Ramsey was a veteran of over 30 years in the trenches.
A Louisiana native, Ramsey found himself in Denver in the early-1970s, playing with the Bunny Brooks Band. Even then a skilled harp blaster, Ramsey came to the attention of guitarist/Johnny Winter band member Rick Derringer, who recommended the young harmonica player to Winter. Ramsey later relocated to Florida to join Allman Brothers Band member Butch Trucks as part of his late-1970s band Trucks.
The Fondly-Remembered Crosscut Saw
When Trucks returned to the reformed Allman Brothers Band, Ramsey joined the fondly-remembered 1980s-era blues-rock band Crosscut Saw. As frontman and harp player for Crosscut Saw, Ramsey opened for artists like B.B. King, the Nighthawks and, of course, Johnny Winter, touring the length of the east coast.
Crosscut Saw recorded a single album, Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know for a Florida indie label, which was later reissued by the Italian rock label Akarma. After five years the band called it quits when young blues guitar prodigy Julian Kasper left to attend graduate school.
The Poulos-Ramsey Band
During the late-1980s and throughout the '90s, Ramsey kicked around with a number of well-received bands, including the Poulos-Ramsey Band that he formed with former Freddie King guitarist Greg Poulos. The Poulos-Ramsey Band made a name for itself from Sarasota to Memphis, opening for artists like Charlie Musselwhite and James Cotton.
Pat Ramsey & the Blues Disciples
In the early-1990s, Ramsey recorded his first solo CD, It's About Time, with Kasper, and would later form Pat Ramsey & the Blues Disciples with guitarist Dave Renson and drummer Steve Howell. The Blues Disciples became the Sunshine State's favorite sons, and the band kept busy playing the club circuit, entertaining fans at festivals, and releasing two live albums.
Although he wasn't well-known and flew under the radar for much of his career, Pat Ramsey is beloved by a legion of blues and rock fans across the Southeast U.S. A hard-working and talented musician, Ramsey personified the spirit of the blues, and he will be missed by many.
(Thanks to reader Sammy Collins for the heads up on this story, and Walter Potter for further information...thanks, guys!)
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