Willie Johnson (guitarist)
Willie Johnson (March 4, 1923 – February 26, 1995) was an American electric blues guitarist. He is best known as the principal guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band from 1948 to 1953. His raucous, distorted guitar playing features on Howlin' Wolf's Memphis recordings of 1951-3, including the hit song "How Many More Years" (recorded May 1951). His early use of distortion marks him out as one of the pioneers of the electric guitar. Robert Palmer has also cited him as the originator of the power chord, in reference to his guitar playing on "How Many More Years". His guitar work is considered a distant ancestor of heavy metal music.
Read more about Willie Johnson (guitarist): Career, Namesakes
Famous quotes containing the word johnson:
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)