I’m working in my office at home when a Buddy Guy song comes on the Internet radio, and in the recording, he introduces his pianist for the session – Johnnie Johnson. It brought back a few memories of my contact with the rock and blues pioneer.
Johnny’s piano licks, even in his later years, were always spot on. Top musicians in rock studied his work, and he was involved in sessions and concerts with the likes of Clapton and The Stones. But Johnnie always was an Everyman, living modestly with his wife Frances in their small home.
I won’t pretend that I knew him well (but I still proudly display the autographed photo of the two of us on stage when I introduced him at a blues festival). That didn’t stop me from really appreciating his talent. His piano work was a lot like Basie’s: a tinkle here, a gliss there, and then kicking in with that powerful left hand to pull out the stops. When he was done, he’d shuffle off the stage, waving at the cheering audience.
Johnnie Johnson passed several years ago, and I knew I had to go to the wake, because there would be magic there. I spent ten hours, just soaking up all the music and the memories. At a later tribute concert, a young piano player was introduced. He told the crowd he had spent years studying all of Johnnie’s recordings, memorizing the licks. The band began and the kid started playing. But it wasn’t the same.
It hadn’t occurred to the kid that you can memorize and play all the notes, but you can’t duplicate the feeling – the personality. The notes weren’t enough. If the player didn’t feel it the way Johnnie did, it was nothing but notes.
A year or so later a radio station I consulted got an audition tape from a kid who was graduating from a college that had an active radio department. On the tape, the kid did everything he could to sound just like Casey Kasem. At first I thought it was a joke, but he honestly thought that was the best way to get a job.
Without a real personality, it was nothing but notes, kind of like programming your radio station on “shuffle.” Copying is never as good as the real thing, but the real thing requires hiring legitimate talent. To do that, you have to be willing to spend good money, and there has to be a pool of talent. Good luck with that.
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