HALLMARKS OF WATSON’S STYLE
Johnny “Guitar” Watson at a 1975 R&B festival in Frankfurt, Germany,
sharing the stage with Bo Diddley, James Booker, and Screamin’ Jay
Hawkins. Photo by Klaus Hiltscher/Affendaddy
One of Johnny “Guitar”
Watson’s biggest influences
on the 6-string was bluesman
Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.
Like Brown, Watson played
with a capo (or “clamp,” as
Watson called it), moving
it up and down the neck to
change keys, allowing him
constant access to open strings.
Like B.B. King, Watson rarely
played chords in live performance, sticking mostly to
single-note solos and fills.
Watson loved the stinging
sound of Fender guitars, and
when he switched to Gibsons
he continued to seek that
brightness. His first Gibson
ES-335, nicknamed “Fred the
First,” gave him some of the
top end he sought, but it was
the Gibson ES-347 that deliv-
ered a more Fender-like sound
when he needed it. It is likely
he owned the version with
coil taps, as he talked about
having the “filter” down for a
clean sound. His later use of
SGs rather than Les Pauls was
doubtless due to their greater
clarity and top end.
sound than King’s plectrum-driven style,
while his “ice-pick” tone also lent the record
a very different mood than the smoother
King version. This side also enticed Zappa,
who reportedly played the song three times
a day on the jukebox at a local restaurant
during his school lunch hour.
In 1955, once again without a record
deal, Watson performed on package tours
with all the stars of the day, including Sam
Cooke, B.B. King, Louis Jordan, Little
Richard, Jackie Wilson, the Shirelles, Ben
E. King, and the Coasters.
A Gangster Is Born
In 1957, Watson went into the studio for
Keen Records to rework a piano-and-vocal
demo called “Love Bandit” that he had
recorded while at Modern Records. The
resulting full-band version became “Gangster
of Love.” Though sometimes touted as an
early “rap” record—not the least by Watson
himself—“Gangster” was more in the tradition of talking R&B as practiced by Louis
Jordan and the Coasters. It was the beginning
of an image makeover that would in later
years evolve into early “gangsta,” decked out
in “bling” and “pimpin’ the hos.” Once again
Watson’s work proved more influential than
lucrative. Though the song was not a hit at
the time, it has been covered a lot since then.
A version appears on a pre-Columbia Records
Johnny Winter recording, but it was the one
on Steve Miller’s Sailor that finally earned the
struggling Texan some serious money.
140 PREMIER GUITAR JUNE 2012
As he engaged in more label-hopping for
the next few years, Watson cut “Looking
Back” in 1961 for Escort Records. That
tune would be covered in England by both
John Mayall—who credited Watson—and
Spencer Davis, who didn’t. In 1961, thanks
again to Johnny Otis, Watson ended up at
Syd Nathan’s King Records, where he had
an R&B Top 10 hit with a string-drenched
slow blues tune called “Cuttin’ In.” His first
and only full LP for King, Johnny “Guitar”
Watson, packaged new material with remakes
of tunes from earlier Watson records, including “Gangster of Love.” The failure of Johnny
“Guitar” Watson to chart led the guitar-slinger to Crown Records, where he briefly
teamed up with blues legend Bobby “Blue”
Bland for the rare recording 2 in Blues.
By 1963, the popularity of blues within
the African American community was waning—and yet it still hadn’t fully caught on
with the rock ’n’ roll generation. Watson
attempted to revitalize his career in 1964
by teaming up with singer Larry Williams,
who’d garnered fame with his cuts of “Bony
Moronie” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” They
even formed a label—Jola Records (later
Jowat)—whose moniker combined letters
from their first names, but their first album
was released in England on Decca.
Williams introduced the relatively
unknown Watson to the British press and
public as “Elvis Presley’s guitarist.” Having
successfully sold that fairy tale, the duo
implied that their joint effort, The Larry
Williams Show featuring Johnny “Guitar”
Watson with the Stormsville Shakers, was a
live recording. It was, in fact, recorded in
the studio. Veracity aside, the pair’s R&B/
rock ’n’ roll sound went over well in England,
prompting the American label Okeh to sign
them. Commercial success was their goal, and
to that end they were determined to keep up
with the times. In 1967, they added vocals
to the Cannonball Adderly hit instrumental
“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” which was writ-
ten by Joe Zawinul and later became a hit
for American pop band the Buckinghams.
Williams and and Watson also recorded a cool
cover of the Yardbirds’ hit “For Your Love,”
and in 1968 joined with the Kaleidoscope
(a band that, at one point, featured a young
David Lindley) for a sitar-driven piece of soul/
psychedelia called “Nobody.”
The duo became a big hit on the British
Northern Soul circuit with tunes like “Two
for the Price of One” and “Too Late,” but
unfortunately for 6-string fans, this style of
music required putting Watson’s distinctive
guitar playing on the back burner.
Finding the Funk
The early ’70s found Watson picking up
his guitar again, first as a session player for
artists like keyboardist George Duke and his
famous early idolizer Frank Zappa. Watson
also knew the Adderlys—Cannonball and
his brother Nat—because of “Mercy, Mercy,
Mercy,” and when the brothers formed their
own production company they helped their
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