Big Jack Johnson

Jack N. Johnson, known as Big Jack Johnson (July 30, 1939 He was one of a small number of blues musicians who played the mandolin. He won a W. C. Handy Award in 2003 for best acoustic blues album.

Biography Johnson was born in Lambert, Mississippi, in 1940, one of 18 children in his family. His father, Ellis Johnson, was a sharecropper, and his family picked cotton, but he was also a working musician, leading a band at local functions and playing fiddle and mandolin in country and blues styles. He was the father of 13 children.

His earliest professional playing, apart from his father's band, was with Earnest Roy, Sr., C. V. Veal & the Shufflers, and Johnny Dugan & the Esquires.

In 1962, Johnson, Sam Carr and Frank Frost formed the Jelly Roll Kings and the Nighthawks, in which Johnson played bass, releasing two albums, Hey Boss Man (1962) and My Back Scratcher (1966). Johnson's first recordings as a vocalist are on the 1979 album Rockin' the Juke Joint Down, issued by Earwig Music. With Frost as the bandleader, they performed and recorded together for 15 years. His album Daddy, When Is Mama Comin Home? (1990) presents social concerns. He also has a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Clarksdale.

Partial discography The Oil Man (1987) Rooster Blues (1987) Daddy, When Is Mama Comin Home? (1991) We Got to Stop This Killin''' (1996)Live in Chicago (1997)All the Way Back* (1998)Live in Chicago* (1998)Roots Stew* (2000)The Memphis Barbecue Sessions (2002)Black Snake Moan (2007)Juke Joint Saturday Night Live (2008)Katrina (2009)Big Jack's Way (2010) Stripped Down in Memphis with Kim Wilson and Wild Child Butler (2022)

FilmographyThe Jewish Cowboys (2003) (TV)Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads'' (1992)