Frank Johnson

Frank Johnson (c. 1789 – 1871) was an American popular fiddle player and brass band leader based in North Carolina, near Wilmington, United States, for most of the nineteenth century. Although largely forgotten by history books and often confused with composer Francis "Frank" Johnson, he helped define the sound of African-American fiddle and brass-band music in the mid-19th century.

He was buried in Pine Forest Cemetery, Wilmington, after a well-attended funeral: "the largest, we think, that has ever occurred in this city, it being estimated that there were at least two thousand persons in the procession, including the colored fire companies in uniform, with standards draped in mourning, the colored Masonic fraternity in regalia, etc., the whole preceded by a brass band."

Career Johnson assembled his freed sons and various nephews into an eponymous brass band by 1830. The band consisted of about 15 members. Johnson himself played many instruments, but was known for his mastery of the fiddle, clarinet, and cornet. Johnson called the dance moves while dressed in a "spike-tailed coat with brass buttons and a stove-pipe hat."

As recalled by Woodson, in 1901, the Band's repertoire included: "Who'll Take Sugar in his Coffee" "Mocking Bird" "My Dark Virginia Bride" "Old Folks at Home"

During the Civil War, Johnson remained in the South and performed for Confederate ceremonies. When Col. A. M. Waddell was ordered to raise a Confederate company in Chatham County in 1861, he hired the band to play for Confederate recruiting functions. The War ended in 1865, when Johnson was probably in his 70s. The band never returned to its former popularity. According to Tom Parramore, "Old Frank was too much a party of the planters' culture to survive its destruction. When the cotton and slave society were gone, there was no place anymore for Old Frank Johnson and his music."

Legacy Johnson's music, among that of other old-time African-American fiddlers, inspired Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons and led to the creation of the Carolina Chocolate Drops in 2005.