Mary Johnson (blues singer)

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"Signifying" Mary Johnson (* as Mary Williams or Mary Smith 1905 or 1900 in Yazoo City , † 1970 in St. Louis ) was an American blues singer .

Live and act

Johnson began her career in show business as a teenager in St. Louis. There she often worked with the blues singer and guitarist Lonnie Johnson , whom she married in 1925. The couple had six children together. They divorced in the early 1930s; joint recordings do not exist.

Johnson recorded a number of titles for Decca , Paramount and Brunswick Records from 1929-36 , including "Room Rent Blues", "Barrel House Flat Blues" (1929, with Ike Rodgers, trombone and Henry Brown, piano), "Muddy Creek Blues ", Including her own compositions" Key to the Mountain Blues "," Mary Johnson Blues "," Mean Black Man Blues "and" Western Union Blues ". She was accompanied during the recordings and a. by Kokomo Arnold , Curtis Mosby , Roosevelt Sykes , Tampa Red , Judson Brown (piano) and Peetie Wheatstraw . Until the mid-1940s, she continued to appear mainly in the St. Louis area; in later years she worked in a hospital and was only active as a church musician. According to Paul Oliver , who met her, she was a folk blues musician .

literature

  • Edward Komara, Peter Lee The Blues Encyclopedia Routledge 2004, p. 534

Discographic notes

  • Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order 1929-1936 ( Document Records , ed. 1994)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Different information on year of birth and maiden name for Mary Johnson at Allmusic (English) and Mary Johnson at Discogs (English), cf. also the entry in The Blues Encyclopedia
  2. ↑ other possible birthplaces in Stefan Wirz and in The Blues Encyclopedia
  3. ↑ a b discography and portrait (Stefan Wirtz)
  4. ↑ cf. Steve Cushing Pioneers of the Blues Revival University of Illinois Press 2014, p. 20
personal data
SURNAME Johnson, Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Williams, Mary; Smith, Mary
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American blues singer
DATE OF BIRTH 1900 or 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Yazoo City
DATE OF DEATH 1970
Place of death St. Louis