Music Style Real down home folk blues.

Musical Influences Hip Linkchain, Luther Tucker

Similar Artists Jimmy Dawkins, Fenton Robinson, Earl Hook, Big Smokey Smothers

Artist History My first blues gig was at Pulaski and Van Buren playing rhythm guitar for Tail Dragger. I didn't know it then, but it was the right gig at the right time. Soon after, I started playing bass lines in the Ice Cream Men behind Big Wheeler and Jimmy Lee Robinson, who drilled me tirelessly. Learning the bass lines is something a lot of guitarists don't do. They go straight to lead, where the glamour is. Two years of gigging, woodshedding and hanging out in blues clubs later, I got the lead slot in Tail's band. That summer was the most exciting time of my life. We played a lot of memorable gigs, like playing on a flatbed truck driving down Madison street from California all the way to Maywood, Ray Scott's cymbals falling over, playing "It Ain't Right" for forty-five minutes. We played at the Delta Fish Market every weekend and I met everybody on the West Side, playing behind Vera Taylor, Barkin' Bill, Vernon Harrington, Oliver Davis and lots of others. When Tail Dragger went to prison, I kept the Sunday night 5105 Club gig going and the current edition of the band was born. Lots of singers jockeyed for the gig, but Mary Lane won it hands down. She was spellbinding. We had Kenny on drums, Sho had just joined on bass, and Martin had come over from the Midnight Ramblers, a West Side band featuring Milton Houston. We jammed on the porch in warm weather in Hyde Park, played at parties and passed the hat, and drove to the West Side twice a week to play with Mary Lane. We got tight as a band. (Martin and I also did some Pinetop Perkins gigs with Dave Myers during that time, and we all hung out with Dave at the Checkerboard on Monday afternoons.) I met Sam Lay about three years ago, and was in that band too. We went all over the U.S. and Canada. He was very strict but what he wanted always sounded good. His buoyant swing and precise attack has always thrilled and brought out the best in me. It was difficult to leave his band because it sounded so great! But by then I'd met Jimmy Burns (whose singing knocked us all out), and gotten the Smoke Daddy gig going. We cut Jimmy's Leaving Here Walking, and Taildragger was out of jail. I met a beautiful guitarist named Rick Kreher and along with Sho we cut a Tail Dragger CD for St. George. Tail Dragger and I started working together again, along with Robert Plunkett on drums. That was the first time I'd heard him sing. He's a real down-home Mississippi blues singer.

Group Members Rockin' Johnny Burgin, vocals, guitar; Martin Lang, harmonica; Rick Kreher, rhythm guitar; Sho Komiya, bass; Kenny Smith, drums

Albums Man's Temptation

Location Chicago, IL - USA

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