John Watson Jr. (February 3, 1935 – May 17, 1996), known professionally as Johnny "Guitar" Watson, was an American musician and singer-songwriter. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, his recording career spanned forty years, and encompassed rhythm and blues, funk and soul music.
Watson recorded throughout the 1950s and 1960s with some success. His creative reinvention in the 1970s with funk overtones, saw Watson have hits with "Ain't That a Bitch" and "Superman Lover". His highest charting single was 1977's "A Real Mother for Ya".
Early life
Watson was born in Houston, Texas. His father John Sr. was a pianist, and taught his son the instrument. But young Watson was immediately attracted to the sound of the guitar, in particular the electric guitar as played by T-Bone Walker and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.
His grandfather, a preacher, was also musical. "My grandfather used to sing while he'd play guitar in church, man," Watson reflected many years later. When Johnny was 11, his grandfather offered to give him a guitar if, and only if, the boy didn't play any of the "devil's music". His parents separated in 1950, when he was 15. His mother moved to Los Angeles, and took Watson with her.
Early career
In his new city, Watson won several local talent shows. This led to his employment, while still a teenager, with jump blues-style bands such as Chuck Higgins's Mellotones and Amos Milburn. He worked as a vocalist, pianist, and guitarist. He quickly made a name for himself in the African-American juke joints of the West Coast, where he first recorded for Federal Records in 1952. He was billed as Young John Watson until 1954. That year, he saw the Joan Crawford film Johnny Guitar, and a new stage name was born.
In 1953, Shorty Rogers had Watson as part of his Orchestra perform for the famed ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, California which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 7. Also featured that day were Roy Brown and his Orchestra, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, Earl Bostic, Nat "King" Cole, and Louis Armstrong and his All Stars with Velma Middleton.
Watson affected a swaggering, yet humorous personality, indulging a taste for flashy clothes and wild showmanship on stage. His "attacking" style of playing, without a plectrum, resulted in him often needing to change the strings on his guitar once or twice a show, because he "stressified on them" so much, as he put it. Watson's 1954 instrumental "Space Guitar" was his first recording to show his "sheer off-the-wall madness" on electric guitar. Watson would later influence a subsequent generation of guitarists. His song "Gangster of Love" was first released on Keen Records in 1957. It did not appear in the charts at the time, but was later re-recorded and became a hit in 1978, becoming Watson's "most famous song".
He toured and recorded with his friend Larry Williams, as well as Little Richard, Don and Dewey, the Olympics, Johnny Otis and, in the mid-1970s with David Axelrod. In 1975 he was a guest performer on two tracks (flambe vocals on the out-choruses of "San Ber'dino" and "Andy") on the Frank Zappa album One Size Fits All. He also played with Herb Alpert and George Duke. But as the popularity of blues declined and the era of soul music dawned in the 1960s, Watson transformed himself from southern blues singer with pompadour into urban soul singer in a pimp hat. His new style was emphatic – wearing the gold teeth, broad-brimmed hats, flashy suits, fashionable outsized sunglasses and ostentatious jewelry.
He modified his music accordingly. His albums Ain't That a Bitch (included funk blues singles "Superman Lover" and "I Need It") and Real Mother For Ya (1977) fused funk and blues. Watson's album Love Jones was released in 1980. Reviewing Watson's 1977 album A Real Mother for Ya, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): "Watson has been perfecting his own brand of easy-listening funk for years, and this time he's finally gone into the studio with his guitar Freddie and his drummer Emry and a bunch of electric keyboards and come up with a whole album of good stuff. The riff-based tracks go on too long but go down easy and the lyrics have an edge. Granted, Watson can't match George Benson's chops, but this is dance music, chops would just get in the way. And I prefer his Lou-Rawls-without-pipes to Benson's Stevie-Wonder-ditto."