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Johnnie Johnson 1999 Johnnie Johnson's 75'th birtday: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH June 4 / 1999 ST. LOUIS - Johnnie Johnson Birthday Celebration. In honor of his 75th birthday (dob 7/8/24), a weeklong series of events will be presented for the musician in various venues around the area. Johnson was Chuck Berry's musical collaborator for 40 years. His biography, "The Father of Rock And Roll: The Story of Johnnie "B" Goode Johnson," is scheduled to go on sale today. July 7: Free performance by Johnson from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard. July 8: Johnson will host three free performances at Kiener Plaza (times to be announced), 8th and Market streets. Later that evening, he will throw out the first ball at the Cardinals game. July 9: Johnson will perform at Borders Books & Music, 10990 Sunset Hills Plaza. A book signing will follow. (909-0300). July 10: Birthday party and jam session with guest musicians at Sheldon Concert Hall, 3648 Washington avenue. (533-9900). For more information, call Hoopla Media and Public Relations at (314) 274-4188. Johnnie Johnson's busy birthday week ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH July 2 / 1999 * Grand finale performer of the Whitaker Jazz Festival, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Cohen Amphitheater. Free "Jazz Under the Stars in the Garden" concert. * Free 75th birthday concert, 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Kiener Plaza, featuring Butch Wax & the Hollywoods, the Bel Airs, Pat & Danny Liston of Mama's Pride, and radio disc jockey Smash. * Johnson throws out first pitch at the Cardinals-Reds baseball game, 7 p.m. Thursday at Busch Stadium. * Biography "Father of Rock & Roll: The Story of Johnnie 'B. Goode' Johnson," by Travis Fitzpatrick, is released Friday. Each copy includes a new Johnson CD. * Johnson performs from 7 to 8 p.m. Friday, along with Gus Thornton, Kenny Rice and Bert Wills, at Borders Books & Music in Sunset Hills Plaza. A book signing from 8 to 9 p.m. follows. * "A Tribute to the Music of Johnnie Johnson," featuring John Hammond, 8 p.m. Saturday, July 10, at The Sheldon. Johnson is expected to perform d uets with Hammond. Other performers include Kelley Hunt, Dave Krull, Henry Townsend, Oliver Sain, Keith Doder and U.V. Hayes. Jam session follows. $15. Call 534-1111. New Johnnie Johnson CD ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH July 2 / 1999 Johnnie Johnson's favorites are on CD A new Johnnie Johnson CD is included in every copy of the book "Father of Rock & Roll: The Story of Johnnie 'B. Goode' Johnson." The CD includes new recordings of hits he made with Chuck Berry, an Albert King song, and songs with special meaning to Johnson, such as "Tanqueray," which was his first attempt at vocals. Here's the song list for the CD: 1. "Johnnie's Boogie"
Native Detroiter seeks recognition for rock pioneer Johnnie Johnson Detroit Free Press www.freep.com Aug 16 / 1999 By Desiree Cooper As Detroit-born businessman George Turek left a meeting at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland earlier this month, he sensed he was about to realize his life's dream. In the last five years, he'd spent countless hours and a small fortune trying to get the rock 'n' roll industry to recognize the contributions of his best friend, pianist Johnnie Johnson. Now living in Houston, 51-year-old Turek is the grandchild of Hungarian immigrants. He built his east-side Detroit business into a multimillion-dollar corporation. As a teen, he loved Ray Charles; he never heard of Johnnie Johnson before they met. Johnson is 30 years Turek's senior. Born in West Virginia, he started playing piano at age 4. By the time he was 30, he and Chuck Berry were changing the course of American music. For Johnnie, the rest was history. But it was a history that went publicly unacknowledged for the next 40 years. That is, until Johnnie met George. On New Year's Eve in 1952, the Johnnie Johnson Trio was practicing for a gig at the Cosmopolitan Club in St. Louis. At 28, Johnson already had learned under Chicago blues masters Muddy Waters and Albert King. When his saxophonist got sick, Johnnie called a friend to fill in: 27-year-old guitarist Chuck Berry. As soon as Berry's lyrics and his rockabilly guitar met Johnson's jump blues and boogie piano, a new language was born: the rock 'n' roll sound. In 1955, the group, renamed the "Chuck Berry Trio," recorded its first hit, "Maybellene." The duo spent the next 20 years laying down rock classics such as "Back In The USA," and "Roll Over Beethoven." The immortal "Johnny B. Goode" was Berry's tribute to Johnson. As long as he was getting paid for each gig, Johnson focused on his piano playing. He let Berry handle the contracts, copyrights and royalties. Exhausted from the years of touring, Johnson left the band in 1973. He had come full circle: from a poverty-stricken childhood, to a stint as a line worker in Detroit in the '40s, to a protege of Chicago's great blues masters, to the musical mastermind behind Chuck Berry, to having to drive a bus to make ends meet. All the rights to the music he composed were in Berry's name. In 1985, the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards was working on a Chuck Berry documentary, "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll." Richards noticed Berry's music was performed mostly in keys suited to piano, not to guitar. It was clear to him that while Berry may have been the voice of rock 'n' roll, Johnson was it's architect. The documentary spotlighted Johnson's contributions. Offers started coming in for Johnnie to perform again. But it wasn't until he met George Turek that he dared to believe he'd ever wear the title he earned more than 40 years ago: the Father of Rock 'n' Roll. George Turek and his fiancee, Linda Nutter, were listening to a blues band in Memphis, Tenn., in 1992 when George wondered: Why not fly the band up to Detroit for their wedding? By then, his medical management company was a national corporation. Money was no object. Weeks before the 1993 wedding, the band canceled. Desperate, George remembered that his brother had bought another band's CD in Memphis. "I listened to that CD and knew immediately, I had to have that band," George remembers during a phone interview. The CD was "Johnnie B. Bad," and the performer was pianist Johnnie Johnson. Turek had no idea who Johnson was. "I said to him, 'My wife wants to sing "Back in the USA" by Linda Ronstadt. Do you know that tune?'" Johnson smiled and said, "Sure, I think I can play that." Nearly two years later, George learned that "Back in the USA" was composed by Johnnie Johnson with Berry in 1958. "That's the kind of man Johnnie is," Turek says. "He's so humble, it hurts you." In the fall of 1995, Johnson was dining with the Tureks. George popped in the video of the opening ceremonies of the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Chuck Berry, who was in the Hall of Fame's first inductee class in 1986, was performing "Johnny B. Goode." "No one wanted to say what we were feeling," recalls George. "Why wasn't Johnnie up there? I turned the video off. Johnnie went to bed without saying anything. That moment I decided that I would not rest until I saw Johnnie get the recognition he deserved." Since then, Turek has lobbied tirelessly for Johnson to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He self-published a hardcover biography of Johnson's life, "Father of Rock & Roll: The Story of Johnnie 'B. Goode' Johnson," written by his stepson, Travis Fitzpatrick. He has organized a petition drive signed by the likes of Keith Richards, Bo Diddley and Little Richard. It's all cost a king's ransom. "I know people are starving, and children need help," George says. "We give to those causes, too. But this is personal to me because I know Johnnie is so humble, he'd never fight back. I could give him the money I've spent on this cause, but then he'd have money, but he wouldn't have the recognition. I want him to have both the money he needs and the recognition he deserves." What makes a man like George Turek tick? Perhaps it's his Detroit-bred determinism. At the end of his freshman year at Detroit's Catholic Central High School in 1964, George received some bad news: He'd flunked out. Born in Detroit and raised in Highland Park and Redford Township, George had come from an 80-year line of janitors. His father had sacrificed heavily to send him to the prestigious school, and he had failed. Promising never to give George another dime for school, his father took the family on vacation up north, leaving George behind to fend for himself. He moved in with a friend, found a job caddying and enrolled in summer school. "It was a great lesson," says George, who now has two stepchildren. "I learned how to work for what I got." Eventually, George graduated from Catholic Central and Eastern Michigan University, then enlisted in the Navy, where he became a pilot. In 1978, after leaving the Navy and earning his master's degree at the University of Michigan, he started his own medical management business in Detroit. By 1992, his business, now headquartered in Houston, had 35 offices nationwide. "God has given Linda and I this opportunity to help Johnnie," George says. "Sometimes I think it's a curse. It's a lot of work, and it takes from my family and my staff. But I'm too far gone. I can't stop until this is done." On Aug. 5, George got the news: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is going to host a "Johnnie Johnson Day" at the museum this fall. "I could be wrong," Turek says, "but I don't think they would be moving that quickly if they didn't already know that something good was cookin'." Terry Stewart, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, won't commit to much. "We're celebrating Johnnie because he's a great musician," Stewart says. "This is not to denigrate what Chuck Berry has done. It's just an opportunity for Johnnie to come and talk about his career and play for us. That in no way impacts the decision of the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which has its own rules about who gets in." Stewart's reserve, however, has hardly put a lid on Turek's optimism. Based on feedback he says he's received from the book, Turek speculates that the Hall of Fame's board may be considering giving Johnnie a lifetime achievement award. Or, he says, maybe they would create a new category for sidemen who contributed to the evolution of rock 'n' roll, but whose names never appeared on any records. "You've just got to pinch yourself," says Turek, who can't believe his fight is almost over. "Everyone else from that era is dead. Johnnie is 75, and Chuck is 73. I think they are both living because God wants them to witness the day things are set right. And I think it's my duty to do what I can to make sure that day comes." I'm not sure I understand what motivates George Turek, or for that matter, what has kept Johnnie Johnson from being overwhelmed by regrets. But the two of them, separated by race, class and an entire generation, somehow make two of a kind. They both live and die by the slogan George keeps in his office: Human dignity is always worth preserving. And, for me, that's reason enough to keep fighting. To find out more about Johnnie Johnson, click on "www.johnnie.com". Johnson will perform at Motor City Boogie Woogie Fest on September 4, 1999, at Ferndale's Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward. For more information, call 248-544-3030.
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