Biography

It’s a long way from rural Mississippi in international blues recognition, but then Johnny Rawls has never yet found a road he was afraid to travel. Between touring with such legends as Z.Z. Hill, O.V. Wright, and Little Johnny Taylor and forging a career of his own on the rough-and-ready southern blues circuit known affectionately in the African-American blues community as the "chitlin’ circuit", Rawls spent the better part of twenty years on the road before most people outside a devoted core of admirers ever heard of him. As this disk shows, it’s been worth the wait; Rawls affirms that it’s also been worth the dues… but first, we should go back to the beginning.

Johnny Rawls was born in the Mississippi town of Purvis, eight miles from Hattiesburg, in 1951. His father was a mill worker; his mother a devoted homemaker; his grandfather played the blues guitar. By the time he was twelve or thirteen years old, young Johnny was already learning the rudiments of music. Mere instrumental virtuosity, however, was never his only focus… his childhood idols included soulful vocalists like Jackie Wilson and the Impressions, and he remembers that he used to play O.V. Wright’s records whenever he had the opportunity to put a couple of nickels in a jukebox.

People like Wilson and Wright are usually considered "soul" vocalists today, but Rawls’ love for their music didn’t make him any less of an aspiring bluesman. In Mississippi in those days, most folks didn’t worry much about categories and labels when it came to good music. "Back then," Rawls attests, "they considered everybody blues… James Brown, B.B. King, whoever had a hit, had a hit. Then Earth, Wind & Fire came in, then people started saying, ‘Well that’s blues, I don’t want to hear no blues’".

Rawls began playing behind some of the south’s biggest blues and soul artists when his high school band director, Mr. Carl Gates, became so impressed with the young man’s musicianship that he asked him to play with his own professional aggregation… a show band that accompanied such stars as Z.Z. Hill, Little Johnny Taylor, Joe Tex, and the Sweet Inspirations when they came through the area. In this way Rawls became a full-fledged professional, with well-honed chops and the sophistication to play in a versatile band behind diverse and demanding performers, at an age when most musicians are still beginning to develop their talents.

In 1969, he took a trip to Milwaukee to visit a friend and ended up moving their permanently. But, although most of the musicians with whom he’d been working were based in the south, the move didn’t curtail his career… it just made the road trips a bit longer.

In the mid-70s, Rawls saw a childhood dream come true… He went to work for his old idol, O.V. Wright, as Wright’s band director. After Wright died in 1980, Rawls joined Little Johnny Taylor and led his band for several years. Restless to strike out on his own, he eventually began to tour under his own names, and he also began to record. He cut a 45 for the obscure Rainbow label in Milwaukee; in 1985, he initiated a label of his own, called Touch, and issued an LP entitled You’re The One. Most of his time, however, was still spent on the road… he continued to work the chitlin’ circuit, playing his sweet soul’d fusion of blues, R&B, and emotion-laden pop stylings for audiences throughout the south.

Rawls finally came to the attention of what might be called the "crossover" audience… the predominantly white listenership that gets most of its blues from CDs and nightclubs, instead of black-oriented blues radio and chitlin’ circuit lounges… when Willie Cobbs (of "You Don’t Love Me" fame) put him in touch with Jim O’Neal of Rooster Blues records. Rawls, along with fellow soul session stalwart L.C. Luckett, accompanied Cobbs on his widely acclaimed Rooster blues disk Down To Earth in 1994. He stayed on with Rooster, arranging sessions and working as a studio musician with such artists as Lonnie Shields and the flamboyant Super Chikan; in 1995 he and Luckett released their own disk for Rooster Blues, Can’t Sleep At Night. He also continued to perform and tour at a pace that would have exhausted a less-dedicated musician. However it wasn’t until Here We Go, his 1996 debut disk for JSP, that Rawls really had the chance to put himself out front, performing his best material. Since then there’s been no looking back… which brings us full circle to the present, and to the CD you’re holding in your hands.

These days, as both a recording artists and producer/A&R man for JSP, Rawls believes he’s finally achieved the balance… among musical styles; between vocations; between the security of home and the musical adventures of the road… that he’s always sought. Still happy as a transplanted Milwaukeean, he nonetheless proudly attests to his ongoing case of white-line fever, at least some of which is grounded in his love for the musical and philosophical approach of his native southland.

"The south has an attitude," he avows. "I would describe the attitude as more real, more serious… a lot of northern musicians are just in a hurry; it’s about money. Instead of being off into the music, they’re off into ‘What am I gonna get for this?’. I’m on the road, I play almost three hundred shows a year; most of my time is spent in the south."

As for his dual roles at JSP: "I consider myself a musician first… I’m really a road man! But I like to do both. Rawls’ musical tastes are as varied as his professional abilities are as wide-ranging as his itinerary. "My style is between gospel, blues and good hard soul music, he says; but when discussing this CD, which is seasoned generously with lush pop-structured melodies as well as hard-driving rhythmic impetus, that kicks with rock & roll energy, he eagerly affirms that he wants to "test the water" in as many other styles as possible.

Like most musicians, Rawls would rather play music than dissect it intellectually or wax philosophical about it. Nonetheless, his thoughts on what constitutes good blues improvisation are almost as instructive as the impeccably-crafted solos you’ll hear throughout this disk.

"A solo is what you feel, what a person feels," he acknowledges, but he hastens to add that this does not mean leaving one’s brains at the door; nor does it mean setting the frets on fire with speed and flamboyance every time the opportunity presents itself. I am thinking about what I’m doing; I try to get into the groove of the music. A lot of times, when I’m recording, I’ll listen to the playback and I might do a solo over it if I’m not really riding the beat of the music, or if I’m not answering the vocals like I should. I try to let the music breathe… I don’t like it when people run lines all over the music, all over the vocals. If they’d listen to B.B. King they’d know how it’s done".

You’re too modest, Johnny. When people listen to you, they’ll know how it’s done… and they won’t soon forget it. Music lovers, it’s our turn to win.

DAVID WHITEIS