Enotris Johnson

On Enotris Johnson are in the Library of Congress and the Broadcast Music co-authorship for the three rock 'n' roll rhythm song Long Tall Sally , Miss Ann and Jenny, Jenny registered. There are different statements in the literature and on the Internet about the exact identity of Enotris Johnson.

background

Between 1955 and 1957, the American rock 'n' roll musician Little Richard was under contract with the Californian independent label Specialty Records and its music publisher Venice Music. His recordings, which were mainly made in Cosimo Matassa's J&M studio in New Orleans , were produced by Bumps Blackwell .

Little Richard wrote only a part of his songs himself, other songs were covered by him or written exclusively for him by songwriters . For some of his songs he shares the author credits with Blackwell or other songwriters under his real name Richard Penniman . The exact proportions of the compositions and texts cannot be deduced from the entries in the relevant databases. Buying author's shares in songs via cut-in was not uncommon at the time.

plant

Enotris Johnson has registered three tracks, Little Richards, and several adaptations of these songs.

• Long Tall Sally (Blackwell, Penniman, Johnson), first recorded November 29, 1955 as The Thing , copyright entry March 8, 1956 initially for Johnson only
• Miss Ann (Penniman, Johnson), first photographed November 1955, copyright entry March 8, 1957
• Jenny, Jenny (Penniman, Johnson), first photographed October 15, 1956, copyright entry March 8, 1957

In addition, there are three titles Eating and Sleeping , I'm Your Best Bet, Baby and (Til I Say) Well Done at BMI , whose copyrights are assigned by the Library of Congress, however, to their interpreters, Earl King , whose real name is " Earl Silas Johnson IV "in the author information on his specialty singles also with" E. Johnson ”is abbreviated.

Enotris Johnson received a songwriter award from Billboard Magazine for 1956 and a BMI award each for Long Tall Sally and Jenny, Jenny .

Enortis Johnson from Appaloosa / Opelousas / Bogalusa

The location of Opelousas and New Orleans in Louisiana

According to Bumps Blackwell's remarks on Charles White's authorized 1984 biography The Life and Times of Little Richard , Johnson was a girl of about 16 or 17 who walked from Appaloosa, Mississippi, to New Orleans to see Little To offer Richard a song in order to be able to take care of her sick aunt with the proceeds. The local radio giant "Honey Chile" acted as intermediary, and Blackwell found it difficult to turn down his request for help. However, the song only consisted of three lines of text at that time, which Blackwell worked out with Little Richard first for The Thing and then for Long Tall Sally .

But the biography misspells the girl's first name and swaps the “r” and “t” so that the name is “Enortis”. The girl's place of residence is also unclear, as there is no place called Appaloosa, Mississippi and the correction of the third edition of the biography on "Opelousas, Mississippi" is misguided because Opelousas is in Louisiana . Furthermore, this version of the story does not mention how the girl came to be co-authorship of Jenny, Jenny and Miss Ann .

The organizers of the Bogalusa Blues & Heritage Festival reported in an obituary about the "secret" of a Mrs. Enotris Johnson (October 3, 1935 in Hammond, Louisiana - August 2, 2015 in Bogalusa ), who had been married to a pastor in Bogalusa since September 1956 and out of consideration for his profession, I kept silent about her early successes in the pop industry for decades. Relatives of the deceased had confirmed that Johnson had received songwriting royalties.

Enotris Johnson from Macon

According to the fourth edition of the Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock in 1983 and following Eugene Chadbourne's article in the Allmusic Guide, Enotris Johnson was a man from Little Richard's hometown of Macon , Georgia, who with his wife Ann Johnson had raised Richard Penniman and other children. Out of gratitude, Little Richard gave his “adoptive father” Enotris Johnson co-authoring rights for the three compositions. In a contradicting obituary , it was the club owner Ann Grace Fellows Howard who ran the city's first gay bar, the Tic Toc Club, and who offered accommodation to Little Richard as a teenager because he had to leave home due to his homosexuality . The song Miss Ann is dedicated to her. Her husband is introduced by the name of Johnny Howard.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Larry Birnbaum: Before Elvis. The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll . 1st edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham / Toronto / Plymouth 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-8638-4 , pp. 414 .
2. ↑ John Garodkin: Little Richard Special . 2nd Edition. Mjoelner Edition, Praestoe 1984, ISBN 87-87721-14-7 , Specialty Records, pp. 23-66 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Valeri Orlov: Little Richard. All rock 'n' roll and blues rock studio recordings. In: Little Richard. The Quasar of Rock. Retrieved September 4, 2013 . 
4. ^ Songwriter / Composer: Enotris Johnson. (No longer available online.) In: BMI Repertoire Search. Formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 1, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
5. ^ BMI Citations of Achievement 1956 . In: Billboard . February 2, 1957, p. 47 .
6. ^ ^{A b} Charles White: The Life And Times Of Little Richard. The Authorized Biography . Omnibus Press, London / New York / Paris / Sydney / Copenhagen / Berlin / Madrid / Tokyo 2003, ISBN 0-7119-9761-6 , pp. 60 ff .
7. ^ Bogalusa Blues & Heritage Festival: Bogalusa Blues & Heritage Festival. August 25, 2015. In: Facebook. Retrieved June 6, 2017 . 
8. ^ Mike Clifford: The Harmony illustrated encyclopedia of rock. 4th edition. Harmony Books, 1983, ISBN 0-517-55261-2 , p. 132.
9. ^ Eugene Chadbourne : Enotris Johnson. In: Allmusic. Retrieved October 31, 2013 . 
10. ↑ Phillip Ramati: Little Richard Benefactor dies at 82 . In: Macon Telegraph . January 18, 2007 ( online ). online ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.