Johnny Shines and Scott Dirks at the 1991 Chicago Blues Festival.
"Johnny Shines" is the answer to the question, "What if Robert Johnson had lived into the post-war blues era?" He was one of the all-time greats in my opinion, and it's a tragedy that his name isn't spoken in the same breath as Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Elmore James.
L-R, Big Smokey Smothers, Dave Myers, and Little Walter's sister Lillian Jacobs Marshall.
This photo is from the 1992 Little Walter grave marker dedication ceremony. Both Smokey and Dave were members of Little Walter's band at different times, and of course Lillian is Walter's sister. Lillian has lived in Oakland, CA since the late 1940s, and when Dave played on a tour of the west coast with Walter in 1953, they all stayed at Lillian's house for a short time. While they were there, Dave's amp broke, so he had to buy a new one to finish to tour, and left the broken one at Lillian's to be repaired later. He had not spoken with her from that day until the day this photo was shot almost 40 years later, and when he saw her, the very first words out of his mouth were, "Hey, do you still have that amp I left at your house?". She didn't - Little Walter had "borrowed" it for a gig when he was staying with Lillian in 1966.
L-R, Dave Specter, Snooky Pryor, and Mark Fornek at Buddy Guy's Legends, c. 1994.
Snooky was (probably) the first blues harp player to record his harp through an amplifier, back in the late 1940s, and he's still at it today (as of this writing anyway.)
"Uncle" Johnny Williams c. 1994, former blues guitarist and singer, now a minister. He only made a couple of obscure recordings "back in the day", but he knew and played with EVERYBODY in Chicago from the 1930s onward. He retired from blues in 1959 (I think he got out at the right time!), and still lives peacefully and happily in the heart of Chicago's west side. Hoping he might play a little, I asked him if he'd hold a guitar when I photographed him - he wouldn't even TOUCH it, for fear that he might be tempted to fall back into his former "wicked ways".
Guitarist Willie Johnson, at Kansas City Red's birthday party. One of the seldom-acknowledged heroes of blues guitar, he's the guy who played the jazzy, heavy-toned guitar on most of Howlin' Wolf's Memphis-era recordings (like "Moanin' In The Moonlight", "Smokestack Lightnin'", etc.) and then followed him to Chicago and played on some of Wolf's Chess sessions as well. He also played in Muddy's band for a short time - I wish someone had recorded some of THAT! He drifted away from the center of the blues scene after the '50s, and only reappeared periodically. But he still had it - one of my greatest blues memories was Sunnyland Slim backed by Willie Johnson at a pre-Blues Fest gig at Legends c. 1994. It was brilliant! They both turned back the calendar to 1952 and played like young(ish) men again. It seldom got any better for me, and I doubt that it will again.
