Who was/is Herman E. Johnson ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
Herman E. Johnson
So now we come to one of the most intriguing of the folk blues discoveries, Herman E. Johnson, born in Zachary in 1909, when, he said, "times was hard for a poor man." He came from a reli- gious family but said he didn't conform to that life. When he heard his first blues singers on records in the 1920s, he was suf- ficiently impressed by the likes of Blind Lemon Jefferson — "wasn't nobody could play the guitar like Lemon" — to try to follow suit. He took up the guitar, playing sometimes with the instrument flat on his knees, later remembering: "Didn't have the education to afford a better job, so we had to use it manually and we worked through many hard trials. We endured many things we didn't want to endure, but that was our onliest way."
Later he worked at a chemical plant and then the big Esso refinery, be- coming a janitor at the black Southern University when his better jobs failed. Johnson was recorded in Baton Rouge in 1960 and 1961 by Harry Oster, who found his songs Depression Blues and Leavin' Blues particularly powerful and original. Johnson's de- pression was not the post-Wall Street crash but his current-day inability to find a decent job. Johnson had a deep yet expressive voice and a real command of the acoustic and electric guitars he played both with and without slide. He died in February 1975 in Zachary, his very worthy contribution to maintaining blues tradi- tions in Baton Rouge largely unrecognized...
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Extract from: Various Artists - Blues Kings Of Baton Rouge (2-CD) - BCD17512
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