BluesBlues Legend to Lead W.Va. Festival
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Thursday, July 08, 2004
www.post-gazette.com/pg/04190/343130.stm
By Ed Masley

Johnnie Johnson played piano on some of the most inspired, most enduring records of rock 'n' roll's first decade.

And it's all because his saxophonist called in sick on New Year's Eve in 1952.

Johnson brought in a fledgling St. Louis guitarist, Chuck Berry, who'd been playing professionally for only maybe six months, "I asked him to sit in for me that night. And that night lasted many years."

He could tell from start, he says, that Berry was a different breed.

"We were doing standards back in that time, and what Chuck came in there doing, this rock 'n' roll, it was a novelty thing," he says. "There wasn't no black American doing hillbilly music."

No one sounded like Chuck Berry by the time the Johnnie Johnson Trio came to Chess Records in 1955, the same year Berry "motorvated" all the way to No. 5 on the U.S. pop charts with a hillbilly-flavored car-chase song called "Maybellene." It also spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the R&B charts.

And the hits kept coming, positioning Berry as both the archetypal rock 'n' roll guitarist and the poet laureate of pre-Bob Dylan rock 'n' roll: "Roll Over Beethoven." "School Day." "Rock & Roll Music." "Sweet Little Sixteen." "Johnny B. Goode." "Carol." "Almost Grown." "Back in the U.S.A."

And those were just the hits. The album cuts were often better.
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The Times West Virginian printed some articles about
the Johnnie Johnson Blues & Jazz Festival in 2003.
Below are some excerpts from those articles.

Come and Jam with Johnnie and Friends
Thursday, July 03, 2003, Fairmont, WV. By Kelly Barth

Blues & jazz fest brings legend back to his hometown...It’s only in its second year, but the three-day Johnnie Johnson Blues & Jazz Festival has some new twists this year. During its run, July 11-13, at Palatine Park, food vendors will set up shop closer to the music and in addition to the hot sandwiches, sweet treats and other munchies, beer and wine will also be available. But just like the last festival, this one, too, promises to bring international recording and award-winning acts to town.

On the traditional side, Big Bill Morganfield, son of blues legend Muddy Waters, will be on the bill, but the Codetalkers will also be sharing their alternative sound of the south with the festival goers. The festival is named in honor of Fairmont native Johnnie Johnson, a musician that helped shape and create what we now know as Rock and Roll. Chuck Berry’s song “Johnny B. Goode” is a tribute to Johnson, a fact that was an obscure footnote in Fairmont’s history until Bill Stalnaker of the Johnnie Johnson Blues & Jazz Society Inc. brought it to the public’s attention.

Big Acts Hitting Stage
Thursday, July 10, 2003, Fairmont, WV. By Kelly Barth