ArtistInfo

Johnny Williams

voc, g, 1906-2006 US, Alexandria, Louisiana
Singer / Musician of Blues
A.k.a. Johnny Antoine Johnny Twist

Born: May 15, 1906, Alexandria, Louisiana, USA Died: March 6, 2006, Chicago, Illinois, USA Johnny Williams was a Chicago-based blues guitar player and singer, who was one of the first of the new generation of electric blues players to record after World War II. In 1944 he lost the end of a finger in a meat grinder and gave up playing the guitar for a year, until he saw Blind Arvella Gray, who was missing two fingers from his left hand, playing on Maxwell Street, and learned to play the guitar without the missing finger. In the late 1940s Williams was once more playing on Maxwell Street and in clubs, often working with his cousin the mandolin player Johnny Young or with harmonica player Snooky Pryor, guitarists Floyd Jones and Moody Jones, and with Little Walter. Around this time, he acquired the nickname "Uncle Johnny", by which he was known among his blues associates for the rest of his life. After 1953 Williams continued to work with Hound Dog Taylor and others, but stopped playing blues in 1959 after a religious conversion, and joined the Baptist church, becoming an ordained minister in the early 1960s.

Instruments

• Vocals
• Guitar