Note: Some excerpts below taken from a CD review of work by The Jelly Roll Kings I presented three years previously.

In late June, 1988, I was tired of summer classes at university, mowing yards every spare minute I had to just eke-out a modest living, and knew that I needed an evening of blues in Chicago to get my head and heart right.  I read the blues music listing section of The Chicago Reader and decided that I’d head to Wise Fools Pub on N. Lincoln Ave. to see Son Seals.  By that time, Seals had established himself as a go-to club attraction, having already released two superb albums on Alligator Records (The Son Seals Blues Band and Midnight Son – I know that Live And Burning was released in 1978; I’m not sure if was available at the time I decided to head to Wise Fools Pub). 

I almost worked myself into a condition of complete physical and mental exhaustion by the Friday before the Saturday I was heading to Chicago to see Seals.  When Saturday morning arrived, I found that my excitement of heading into the city to hear live blues had rejuvenated both my body and mind.  I had amassed enough cash throughout the week from cutting yards for my regular stingy elderly clientele to feel assured about having enough available for gas, a modest dinner, parking, and the cover charge and drink outlays at the club.  Nothing was ever certain in my mind when I turned to my faithful Chrysler Cordoba for a trip down the highway, but as always, I put any reservations aside and continued forward with my plans.

Arriving in Chicago, I surprisingly acquired on-street parking in the vicinity of Wise Fools Pub and soon found myself at the club’s door.  However, I overheard the doorman advising some patrons in front of me that the club would be clearing the music room between sets to allow in a new audience to hear Seals’ music (and obviously collect a new round of cover charges).  This was not going to work for me; I was all-in on Seals, and though I really wanted to hear him, I backed out of line and considered alternative plans. 

I tried to reflect upon The Chicago Reader’s blues music listings from memory, but I was drawing a blank.  Where was I going to go?  Who was I going to hear?  Would whatever I found elsewhere be a let-down, given the exalted status upon which I placed Seals?  In the moment, I made the decision to head over to B.L.U.E.S. etcetera on W. Belmont, not remembering who was there.  To this day, am I glad I made that decision.

To my great delight, and without much effort, I again found on-street parking in Chicago on a Saturday night (no small fete), and arrived at the club’s door.  I paid my cover charge, and as I stepped in, in front of the elevated stage, a noisy enthusiastic mass of blues-loving patrons was in a circle on the floor.  They were boisterously encouraging a hunched-over thin man in a brown suit with a cream-colored fedora as he blew some of the most funky, soulful, and authentic sounding blues harmonica I had ever heard.  It was a sight I still cannot dispel from memory, nor do I ever want to do so.  Who was this shadowy figure?  I looked at the stage, and the drummer was both playing his drums and the wall next to his drum kit, all the while displaying an impish grin under the ballcap he wore.  A large, imposing man was handling the guitar chores behind the comfort of dark-lensed sunglasses.  The ruckus these three men were making!  While my mind swirled, I made the most amazing summation of this musical aggregation unfolding before me; I was in the presence of a blues party being made available by the illustrious Clarksdale, Mississippi Delta blues band, The Jelly Roll Kings.

The whole of the experience that drummer Sam Carr (son of the great blues guitarist Robert Nighthawk), harmonicist, organist, and vocalist Frank Frost, and guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Big Jack Johnson imparted remains fresh in my mind these 37 years later.

The other day I pulled The Jelly Roll Kings’ Rockin’ The Juke Joint Down (Earwig Music 4901CD – a 1979 release) from my collection and it was as if it was 1988 all over again.  I was completely engrossed by Frank Frost’s Delta-hewn harmonica style, Carr’s essential rhythmic patterns that insistently urge the music forward, and Johnson’s guitar attacks. Complete with his forceful clipped passages, and conversely, tactful and tuneful turns when necessary, I was drawn to Johnson’s guitar venture.  It truly was Johnson’s guitar that really moved me upon this listening of the aforementioned CD; I was tightly hauled into his work.  It’s a nasty sound by a man fully capable of delivering the blues goods.

As I’ve not before provided a brief overview of Johnson’s life and career, now seems the ideal time to do so.

Jack L. Johnson came into the world in early April, 1939 in Lambert, Mississippi, a town in Quitman County, an area in the state’s northwest portion.  Johnson was one of 18 children, and his parents (Ellis and Pearl) were sharecroppers on Van Savage’s Plantation. 

Johnson’s father, in addition to working the land, was an accomplished fiddle and mandolin player, someone who had an ensemble who provided entertainment at the local social events, and it was from him that Johnson first drew inspiration for music.  It was also with his father that Johnson first stepped into music, performing with his father at the age of 13, and then later in his teen years he began playing the electric guitar. 

Like many rural people, for Johnson the radio provided a respite from day-to-day living, and it is said that he was especially moved by the sounds of B.B. King, along with others, he heard coming across the airwaves.  But like many eventual bluesmen, Johnson was not only moved by the blues he heard on the radio, but also by the country and western music also being played.

There were moves in Johnson’s life that highly contributed to his musical development, and the first was to Lyon, Mississippi, a city south and west of Clarksdale.  Here, Johnson continued the pursuit of his music career by working with a varying swath of individuals and outfits including Ernest Roy, Johnny Dugan  & the Esquires, and C. V. Veal & the Shufflers. 

A further move to Clarksdale, Mississippi found Johnson making a career decision that would forever change his life.  In 1962, he combined his broad musical attributes with those of drummer Sam Carr and harmonica, keyboard, and guitar player Frank Frost in becoming a part of Frank Frost With The Night Hawks, with the band releasing a tremendous LP on the Phillips International label in 1962 entitled Hey, Boss Man!.  This opportunity came about when Johnson sat-in with Frost and Carr at the Savoy Theater in Clarksdale.  For roughly 15 years, the three men enjoyed great success as Frank Frost With The Night Hawks, also recording for the Jewel label, as well.

The success and synergy that Johnson, Frost, and Carr enjoyed led to them forming The Jelly Roll Kings, an aggregation that would endure into the 1990s.  By day, Johnson drove an oil truck for the Rutledge Oil Co., and in later years that portion of his life would be instrumental when he recorded his first CD under his own name.  It is known that Johnson also worked at farming, did grounds work, owned a few night spots (the Black Fox, Untouchables, and the Possum Trot), and even was said to have boxed and participated in, if the reports are accurate, bear wrestling.  Johnson was a married man, and also had a large family of his own with 13 offspring.

The Jelly Roll Kings’ music continued that delicious meld of Delta influences that each band member brought to the table.  Their break came in 1975 when, as the story goes, Michael Frank, the visionary behind Earwig Music, took in one of their shows and was completely blown away.  Further, accounts indicate that Frank began his music venture specifically to record the group, and in 1979 Rockin’ The Juke Joint Down was released.  The collection represented the absolute best of each group member.  Exhibited was an uncanny extrasensory musical interaction among the three men, with a the 11-selection outing having a tremendously diverse gamut of songs.  What other group could place a tune entitled “Slop Jar Blues” on an LP and have it been an absolute delight?  Seriously?  Yes!  It was on this collection that Johnson first stepped out front as a vocalist.

While with The Jelly Roll Kings, Johnson was able to see the release of the first collection in 1987 under his own name with Earwig Music’s The Oil Man (Earwig Music LPS-4910).  On this sterling release, Johnson’s razor-sharp guitar work brings his Delta influences into a contemporary mold, though it retains that ”down South” approach honed in Mississippi.  His vocals are weighty, and the rendition of “Catfish Blues” Johnson presents is one of the most mesmerizing and deep one could ever hear and enjoy.  Frank Frost was on-board playing harmonica, and Ernest Roy provided percussion work.  It is a force-of-nature presentation!

Johnson continued with The Jelly Roll Kings, but now he had established his own mark on the blues scene.  He had formed B.J. & the Oilers, primarily utilizing a younger set of backing musicians, though he hired a touring band with musicians out of Pennsylvania.  He would often tour the east coast and other U.S. locales, and was on the bills of shows in Canada, Japan, Australia, and Europe.  He was in demand.

An Earwig Music release entitled Daddy, When Is Momma Comin Home (Earwig Music LP-4916) was released in 1989, and it included Frank Frost on synthesizer and a host of Chicago bluesmen, and also included horns.

Heading into the 1990s, Johnson could not possibly have seen the success he was about to achieve.  Released on M.C. Records were We Got To Stop This Killin’, a 1996 collection (MC0033), and All The Way Back (MC0035), both under the name Big Jack Johnson And The Oilers.  He saw a 1997 “live” release on Earwig Music appropriately entitled Live In Chicago (Earwig Music CD4939). 

Also in the 1990s, specifically 1992, Johnson was included on the Deep Blues documentary by music critic and author Robert Palmer, a film that highlighted Delta musicians and included Roosevelt “Booba” Barnes, R.L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill, and Jack Owens, among others.  A year earlier, Johnson had appeared in the film Juke Joint Saturday Night with Arthneice “The Gas Man” Jones.

Frank Frost unfortunately passed away in mid-October, 1999, but Johnson soldiered forward.  Johnson saw Roots Stew released on M.C. Records in 2000 (MC0039) under the Big Jack Johnson  & The Oilers name.  He also released a 2002 collection with the esteemed blues harmonica titan Kim Wilson and piano legend Pinetop Perkins on the M.C. Records label entitled The Memphis Barbecue Sessions (MC-0045), a self-release entitled Juke Joint Saturday Night, and a 2009 release on Big Jack Music entitled Katrina (no label #) as by Big Jack Johnson with the Cornlickers, the Cornlickers being Tony Ryder on bass and backing vocals, Dale Wise on backing vocals and tambourine, and  Dave Groninger on guitar and backing vocals. 

In his final years, Johnson could be found performing at Red’s in Clarksdale, and he passed away in mid-March, 2011 in a Memphis hospital.  His funeral took place at a community college facility and was very well attended. 

Johnson has been honored with a Clarksdale Walk Of Fame marker, a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker, won a W.C. handy Award in 2003.

A nine-cut posthumous release entitized Stripped Down In Memphis was offered by M.C. Records in 2022 (MC0090),  an outing that again included Kim Wilson plus Wild Child Butler.

Johnson’s music was the unabridged, unadulterated Delta blues sound.