Article contributed by Doug Bygrave.Johnny “Guitar” Watson is Gangster of Love, The Superman Lover, The Original Rapper.
He is the blues-screaming, ballad-slinging, smooth-talking lady singer with the guitar mirrors, guitar swimming pool, guitar shirts and guitar Jacuzzi.
Born in Houston in 1935, John Watson was taught piano by his father, and became inspired to take up guitar at age 11 after hearing the first wave of electric bluesmen such as Pee Wee Crayton, T-Bone Walker and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.
By the time he moved to LA in 1950, he had already developed a totally unique style, boasting a thundering guitar attack designed to knock an unsuspecting listener’s head clean off and a flamboyant stage persona that has become legendary.
His double gigs with is Louisiana neighbour Guitar Slim are particularly famous, when the would play guitar with their teeth while standing on their heads, then sit on each others shoulders and walk through the stunned crowd into the car park, all the while firing off devilish guitar solos.
His first break came in 1953, when he signed with Federal Records, recording as Young John Watson.
Amongst these early releases were “Motorhead Baby”, “Highway 60”, and the groundbreaking “Space Guitar”, an instrumental on which he used echo and reverb techniques which pre-dated Jimi Hendrix by 10 years.
As none of these great songs got the promotion they deserved, he switched to Modern Records in 1955.
It was about this time he christened himself Johnny Guitar Watson, after watching an old Sterling Hayden western.
“Johnny Guitar” – as he said, “it sounded like sort of an outlaw or gangster name, but he was a good guy, like Lone Ranger, you dig”.
And in true Johnny Guitar Watson fashion, it wasn’t the movie hero’s guitar playing he wanted to be associated with – “He couldn’t play worth shit, but man, what a lover!
He continued label hopping throughout the 50’s, recording a series of real humdingers (especially “Gangster of Love” for Keen in 1957), before scoring his first national R&B hit with “Cuttin’ In” in March 1962, in association with Johnny Otis.
The following decade was particularly productive for Johnny while he “found himself”.
He did an album of piano-trio recordings for Chess, three albums with rock’n’roll veteran Larry Williams, toured Europe as “Elvis Presley’s private guitar player”, recorded with Little Richard, Herb Alpert (the “Rise” album) toured with Sam Cooke, Frank Zappa, recorded a solo piano tribute album to Fats Waller, a live recording with Taj Mahal – before emerging as a solo force for Fantasy in 1974/5, playing his hybrid blend of disco meets funk meets soul meets wild Texas guitar demon.
It is these later disco-style recordings he is proudest of “because that’s what made me rich”.
Watson has always had the ability to write like no one else.
Capable of searingly emotional lyrics (as on “Hit The Highway”), many of his early 50’s sides in particular were novelty items – “Gangster of Love” (later an underground hit for Steve Miller) boasts what must be one of the hippest macho lyrics of all time: “Robbed the local beauty contest of their first place winner / They caught her with me having a big steak dinner / When they came to get her to go and claim back her prize / She stood up and told them “you just don’t realize / He’s the Gangster of Love”.
Classic!!
Guitarists best know Watson, though, for his edge – the bright metallic pop of low-strung strings slapping against the frets, the incredible treble.
Zappa said it best when he said “his guitar sounds like an icepick in the forehead, its got that “I don’t give a @-!# about nothing. I’m gonna play what I want in here and you guys can hand it in your ass’ type of primitive abandonment”.
He is a key link in the lineage of Texas guitar players from T–bone Walker to Freddy King, and is never less than riveting (check out “Three Hours Past Midnight” – in the middle of a beautiful slow blues, his guitar literally spews out scalding licks that are just plain obscene).
Among the prime movers in the Johnny Guitar Watson school of cool guitar playing are Duke Robillard (e.g. his playing on Kim Watson’s “Tigerman” album, which incidentally includes two Watson tracks, is full of Watsonisms), Jimmie Vaughan, Robert Cray and Alex Schultz of the William Clarke / Rod Plazza bands.
Given the diversity of musical styles Watson has experimented with, he has recorded something to please just about anyone.
So, where to start?
“Three Hours Past Midnight”, available on Flair CD, contains a broad cross-section of his early 50’s work, from the rocking “Too Tired” to the gospel-fired “Someone Cares For Me”.
Once you have this, buy all the rest.
Whether he’s cruising his way through a jazz piano album, or rapping coaxing jive, his music is always a compelling breath of fresh air in clichéd genres.
Doug is a currently Treasurer of the Auckland Blues Club and is the guitar player in The Flaming Mudcats.
