| Genres: |
Blues
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R&B / Soul
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| Descriptive "tags": |
soul • under 2000 listeners • northern soul • southern soul • modern soul
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| Decades Active: |
1990s
•
2000s
|
Biography
Winsboro, Georgia, USA. This blues guitarist and singer worked for most of his young life as a truck-driver transporting cotton. Although at this time his musical ambitions were at best unfocused, he idolized blues and soul singers such as Clyde McPhatter, Jackie Wilson and, in particular, Bobby Bland, whom he impersonated in talent competitions. It was only when he was volunteered to deputize at a Lavelle White show, performing versions of ‘Annie Get Your Yo-Yo’ and ‘You Send Me’, that he decided to take music seriously. As he later confessed: ‘Next day, I called my day job and quit.’ He subsequently formed his own band, the Soul Blenders, who played behind several artists on record (including Fats Washington, later his manager). Johnson made his first record, ‘Lovin’ You’/‘Cold Heart’, for Washington’s Movin’ label in 1968. Washington died two years later, but Johnson followed up his debut with...
Read the Full Biography of Ernie Johnson
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