Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s Journey
1952
Plays piano on his first recording,
Chuck Higgins’ hit “Pachuko Hop”
1961
Scores an R&B Top 10
hit with “Cuttin’ In”
1984
Strike on Computers
falters, Watson spirals
into drug use
1994
A rehabilitated
Watson releases the
Grammy-nominated
Bow Wow
1935
John Watson
Jr. born in
Houston, Texas
on February 3,
1935
1954
Releases “Space
Guitar,” which
pioneers use
of reverb
1964
Forms a duo with
Larry Williams
1953
Records
first single,
“Highway 60”
1944
Receives his
first guitar
1957
Has moderate success
with “Gangster of Love”
1977
A Real Mother for Ya
goes gold
1955
Tours with the
Olympics, Don
and Dewey, and
Little Richard
1976
Ain’t That a
Bitch goes gold
1996
Dies from a heart
attack while performing in Japan
on May 17, 1996
undiscouraged. By his teens, he was gigging
with Texas bluesmen Albert Collins and
Johnny Copeland.
In 1950, John Sr. and Wilma separated.
Wilma took young John Jr. to Los Angeles,
where he soon won several talent shows
and was discovered by Amos Milburn and
Chuck Higgins. Watson’s first recording
experience came as a 17-year-old pianist
playing on Higgins’ hit “Pachuko Hop.”
On the single’s flip side, he made his vocal
debut with “Motorhead Baby.” He would
re-record the latter a year later, when he had
his own record deal.
On January 20, 1953, two weeks before
his 18th birthday, Young John Watson (as he
was then billed) recorded his first single for
Federal Records. He was backed by Amos
Milburn’s band on a tune called “Highway
60.” The next year he recorded the semi-
nal single “Space Guitar.” Often cited as
pioneering the use of feedback and reverb,
there is, in fact, no feedback on the record.
However, the engineer did randomly crank
the studio reverb settings on this Clarence
“Gatemouth” Brown-style jump blues
instrumental, giving it a unique, spaced-out
feel. In 1996, Watson told Goldmine maga-
zine: “Reverb had just come out. Everybody
really didn’t understand what it was all
about, man, and I was experimenting with
it.” Though the record has become a classic
and a collector’s item, the world was not
yet ready for it. “Space Guitar” was just one
more failed single for Federal, and the label
soon dropped Watson’s contract.
“Guitar” Man
In the ’50s, Modern Records was home
to B.B. King and Etta James. In 1954, its
legendary A&R director, Joe Bihari, went
to the movies with Watson to catch Johnny
Guitar, a Nicholas Ray Western starring
Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden. The
movie inspired the Los Angeles guitarist to
modify his own stage name. “It sounded
like sort of an outlaw or gangster name, but
he was a good guy, like Lone Ranger, you
dig?” he told interviewer Jas Obrecht.
Modern had started a blues subsidiary
in Los Angeles called RPM. Bihari and his
brother signed the newly dubbed Johnny
“Guitar” Watson to the label, and in 1955
he gave them a hit with his cover of Earl
King’s “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights.” The
E% tune opens with an unaccompanied B%
guitar arpeggio, played at the first fret with
a raw electric tone that must have been
either a revelation or heresy in the mid ’50s.
The solo consists almost entirely of one
note: screaming E% triplets hammered home
over the 12/8 ballad groove. It’s no wonder
a 16-year-old Frank Zappa had his mind
blown. “He worked that one note to death,”
Zappa told Obrecht in 1982. “If you were
playing the rhythm-and-blues circuit, you
had to learn to play that solo note-for-note.”
Watson took off on tour with Eddie
Jones, aka “Guitar Slim,” learning the art of
showmanship from the man who inspired
Jimi Hendrix. The two guitarists would ride
on each other’s shoulders out into the audi-
ence, trailing 30-foot cords. On the Chitlin’
Circuit, playing behind your back and with
your teeth was part of the two players’ perfor-
mances a dozen years before Hendrix intro-
duced these tricks to young white audiences.
138 PREMIER GUITAR JUNE 2012
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