Johnny Maddox

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Johnny Maddox (* 4. August 1927 in Gallatin , Tennessee ; † 27. November 2018 ) was an American ragtime - pianist .

biography

Maddox's interest in ragtime and blues was sparked early on by his aunt, Zula Cothron. She played ragtime piano at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition and taught him to play the piano. He gave his first public concert at the age of five and began his professional career at the age of twelve.

His friend Randy Wood, at whose Randy's Record Shop he worked, founded the record company Dot Records in 1950 . The very first recording from this start-up was Maddox's first single Crazy Bone Rag , entitled St. Louis Tickle on the B-side, which sold 22,000 copies in five weeks. Maddox continued to record for Dot Records; even after the company was bought by the Music Corporation of America (MCA) in the 1970s , he remained loyal to her. In his career he recorded 50 albums and 87 singles for Dot Records and MCA. Among them were nine “gold records” with a total sales figure of over 11 million pieces.

In 1955 Maddox recorded the record The Crazy Otto Medley . It was composed of pieces written by the German comedian, pianist and composer Fritz Schulz-Reichel , known under the stage name Otto der Schräger or Schräger Otto . The medley stayed at number 2 in the charts for 14 weeks and became the first ragtime recording ever to sell over a million times. Ultimately, it was sold over 2 million times. After this success, "Crazy Otto" became a nickname for both Johnny Maddox and Schulz-Reichel.

Maddox was also known as an outstanding collector of old collectibles from the Ragtime and Dixieland periods. His collection included more than 30,000 old gramophone records, Edison wax cylinders and piano rolls ( "piano rolls"), but also Sheet music of more than 200,000 pieces of which Maddox own words 3000 piece by heart dominated. Maddox continued to play annual concerts in Durango, Colorado until 2012 . He died in November 2018 at the age of 91.

Honors, trivia

  • The group Grateful Dead mentions 'Crazy Otto' in their song Ramble on Rose , referring to Johnny Maddox.
  • In 1954, Maddox was named America's Number One Jukebox Artist by the Music Operators Association .
  • The blues composer WC Handy described Maddox in 1952 as "the white boy with the colored fingers" (roughly translated: "The white boy with the black fingers").
  • Maddox received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ US catalog number: Dot 15325; Whitburn, Joel: Top Pop Records 1940-1955 . Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research, 1973, p. 34
  2. ^ Piano Legend Johnny Maddox has Died The Syncopated Times, accessed November 28, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Maddox, Johnny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Crazy Otto (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ragtime pianist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Gallatin , Tennessee
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 2018