Pete Johnson › Similar Artists

Meade Lux Lewis - 97% match to Pete Johnson

Meade Anderson Lewis, 4 September 1905, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 7 June 1964, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Although he was popular in Chicago bars in the 20s, Lewis was little known elsewhere and made his living running a taxicab firm with fellow-pianist Albert Ammons. A record he made in 1927, ‘Honky Tonk Train Blues’, but which was not released until 1929, even Read more

Albert Ammons - 88% match to Pete Johnson

23 September 1907, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 2 December 1949, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Ammons began playing piano as a small child and worked in Chicago clubs while still a youth. In the late 20s and early 30s he played in a number of small bands but his real forte was as a soloist. After establishing himself as an important blues piano player in Chicago in the mid-30s, a pe Read more

Cow Cow Davenport - 87% match to Pete Johnson

Charles Edward Davenport, 23 April 1894, Anniston, Alabama, USA, d. 3 December 1955, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. One of the most distinctive themes utilized in boogie-woogie is the train imitation ‘Cow Cow Blues’ from which this consummate performer derived his nickname. Davenport’s father, a preacher, wanted to see his son follow him to a career in the church but i Read more

Matt Molloy - 71% match to Pete Johnson

Jimmy Yancey - 60% match to Pete Johnson

James Edward Yancey, 20 February 1898, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 17 September 1951, Chicago, Illinois, USA. While still a small child Yancey appeared in vaudeville as a tap dancer and singer. After touring the USA and Europe he abandoned this career and, just turned 20, settled in Chicago where he taught himself to play piano. He began to appear at rent parties and informal Read more

Tony Sheridan - 55% match to Pete Johnson

Anthony Sheridan McGinnity, 21 May 1940, Norwich, Norfolk, England. Sheridan formed his first band, the Saints, in 1955, before moving to London. There he joined Vince Taylor And The Playboys in early 1959, with whom he played a residency in Hamburg, Germany. A popular attraction at clubs such as the Kaiserkeller with the Jets, that group soon evolved into the Beat Brothers Read more

Willie "The Lion" Smith - 48% match to Pete Johnson

William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff Smith, 25 November 1897, Goshen, New York, USA, d. 18 April 1973, New York City, New York, USA. Smith began playing piano at the age of six, encouraged by his mother. He continued with his informal musical education and by his mid-teenage years had established a formidable reputation in New York as a ragtime pianist. During World War Read more

Kessinger Brothers - 47% match to Pete Johnson

As a child Clark Kessinger (27 July 1896, South Hills, Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA, d. 4 June 1975, USA) moved with his family to Lincoln County, Virginia, where his father worked as an agricultural and foundry labourer. Both his grandfather and uncle were fiddle players. On that account he took up an instrument at the age of five, inevitably gravitating from banjo to Read more

Boozoo Chavis - 46% match to Pete Johnson

Wilson Anthony Chavis, 23 October 1930, Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA, d. 5 May 2001, Austin, Texas, USA. This singer and accordionist was one of the first artists to popularise zydeco, the vernacular music of African-American Louisiana. Chavis had learned to play accordion and harmonica by the age of nine and performed around Lake Charles while in his teens. In 1954 he was s Read more

James P. Johnson - 37% match to Pete Johnson

James Price Johnson, 1 February 1894, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, d. 17 November 1955, New York City, New York, USA. Taught piano by his mother, Johnson assimilated a wide range of musical styles. In the years following his family’s relocation to New York, he continued his studies and by his late teens was working in clubs in the Hell’s Kitchen district. Johnso Read more

Johnny Mercer - 35% match to Pete Johnson

John Herndon Mercer, 18 November 1909, Savannah, Georgia, USA, d. 25 June 1976, Los Angeles, California, USA. A distinguished lyricist, composer and singer, Mercer was an important link with the first generation of composers of indigenous American popular music such as Jerome Kern and Harry Warren, through to post-World War II writers like Henry Mancini. Along the way, he co Read more

Ma Rainey - 35% match to Pete Johnson

Gertrude M. Pridgett, 26 April 1886, Columbus, Georgia, USA, d. 22 December 1939. After working as a saloon and tent show singer around the turn of the century, Rainey began singing blues. She later claimed that this occurred as early as 1902 and however much reliance is placed upon this date she was certainly among the earliest singers to bring blues songs to a wider audien Read more

The Almanac Singers - 33% match to Pete Johnson

This influential folk group was formed in 1940 by Pete Seeger (3 May 1919, New York City, New York, USA), Lee Hays (b. 14 March 1914 Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, d. 26 August 1981, Tarrytown, New York, USA) and Millard Lampell. Taking their name from ‘The Farmer’s Almanac’, the trio recorded a debut album prior to the arrival of a fourth member, Woody Guthrie ( Read more

Thomas A. Dorsey - 31% match to Pete Johnson

1 July 1899, Villa Rica, Georgia, USA, d. 23 January 1993, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Often known as the founder of gospel music. Born into a religious family, Dorsey nevertheless shunned sacred music for many years, although it is in that idiom that he was to make the biggest impact. He learned to play piano in his youth, and when he settled in Chicago in 1916 he began to carv Read more

Les Paul & Mary Ford - 29% match to Pete Johnson