FAIRMONT – Go, Johnnie, go.
Johnnie Johnson, the boogie-woogie piano player and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member from Fairmont, once told an understated story about his musical collaborations with the new guy in his band.
“Well, Chuck would come in with the lyrics,” he recounted to The Dominion Post, “and I’d come up with something on the piano. It seemed to work out OK.”
Indeed.
“Chuck,” was Chuck Berry.
And one set of lyrics, put to paper and then filtered through 88 piano keys and six strings of an electric guitar, ended up as what many regard as the signature tune of rock ‘n’ roll – no matter the generation or trend.
Johnny B. Goode.
Berry, according to popular lore, penned the song in tribute to Johnson, a quiet guy who grew up on Pennsylvania Avenue in this Marion County city. Johnson was 80 when he died in 2005.
Like a lot of Blacks of his generation in Appalachia, he had to venture from the hills for steady wages.
He ended up in a factory job in Detroit at the height of World War II, where he grooved on John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker and other performers who played the jumping clubs that lined Hastings Street downtown.
Later, after he was drafted and served his hitch in the South Pacific, it was back to the Midwest.
He settled in St. Louis for more factory work and weekend gigs with his jazz and blues combo.
Music kept him busy. He had lined up a plumb New Year’s Eve gig in 1951 when his saxophone player suddenly fell ill.
Johnson scrambled and called a lanky, fast-talking guitar player whom he casually knew: Chuck Berry.
You know how it turned out.
That combo with the new frontman brought in 1952 just like a-ringing a bell. Three years later, they were in a studio at Chess Records in Chicago, making rock ‘n’ roll history.
Come hear the blues (and everything else) in Fairmont
On Saturday, Johnson’s musical history with his hometown continues with the 2023 edition of the Johnnie Johnson Festival, which gets going at 6 p.m. in Palatine Park.
For more than 20 years, the festival has hosted classic Chicago blues luminaries such as Pinetop Perkins and Bob Margolin, and Johnson himself was a headliner for the first four years of its existence.
In recent years, Palatine Park, a leafy expanse that bumps the banks of the Monongahela River, has morphed into a genuine live music venue, with shows by artists and tribute bands of every sonic stripe – and Johnson was a big reason why.
He was the original draw, said Kris Cinalli, Marion County’s administer-turned-chief concert promotor for Palatine, which operates under the county umbrella with additional support from corporate sponsors.
Visit the park’s Facebook page for its complete line up of concerts and other events.
In the meantime, there’s this event on Saturday, which would have been Johnson’s 99th birthday.
“Johnnie’s festival is one of our favorite events,” Cinalli said.
“We always try to mix it up with this one. Of course, we get the blues bands, but we want the jazz artists, too. Johnnie was a jazz musician, just as much as he did blues and rock ‘n’ roll.”
This year’s lineup features three up-and-comers steeped in a variety of stylings, with the blues and jazz serving as core ingredients in the recipe.
Everyday, Everybody brings a mix of funk and soul from Washington, D.C.
Ernie Johnson from Detroit blends Afrobeat, classic jazz and psychedelia, with the blues serving as its underlying weave.
The High and Mighty Brass Band, this year’s headliner, is a classic New Orleans-styled, horn-driven dance band and all that implies – even if the assemblage hails from Brooklyn.
In his later years, Johnson didn’t always talk about his time with Berry, preferring to focus instead on his own stardom on the blues circuit.
That came after his performances with Keith Richards and Eric Clapton in “Hail, Hail Rock and Roll,” a 1986 film centered around Richards’ efforts to put a concert together for Berry’s 60th birthday.
All of a sudden, that unassuming guy from Fairmont was the top name on the marquee at the blues club or festival – be it in West Virginia or Western Australia.
‘C’est la vie’, say the old folks …
Still, there are all those tunes he worked on and drove – a catalogue that came to be known simply as, “Chuck Berry music.”
That was in full evidence at an after-hours session following the 2006 festival in Palatine Park, which was the first after Johnson’s death.
Daryl Davis, a musician and writer from Washington, D.C., who mastered Johnson’s piano style, was playing with the festival’s house band in a supper club on Merchant Street just up from the main stage – when it happened.
A bridal party crashed the session.
The gowned-and-tuxedoed contingent was drunk and happy, as it yelled hair-metal requests for Warrant, Poison and the like.
Davis grinned and said, “You know what? This one might be more appropriate.”
Then, he counted off “You Never Can Tell,” Berry and Johnson’s Creole-tinged gem about the teen-age wedding and the old folks wishing the young people well.
Said party was converted.
“Whoo!” the best man bellowed. “Chuck Berry!”
And, Johnnie Johnson, too.
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