Johnny Bragg reached the music industry along an uncommon path. He assembled his initial ensemble and started composing material while serving time in a Tennessee penitentiary after a rape conviction. Wrongly charged with multiple offenses at sixteen and found guilty at seventeen, he had already begun six consecutive ninety-nine-year terms by the time he took up singing. During a performance with fellow inmates in the group he named the Prisonaires, and after ten years behind bars, a reform-oriented governor took notice, which in turn led Sam Phillips to capture Bragg’s voice for the Sun imprint. The Prisonaires frequently exited their cells under guard to appear at the governor’s residence, at the home of Al Gore Sr., and on television broadcasts.
Bragg’s opportunity with Phillips might never have materialized without the earlier miscarriage of justice that placed him inside those walls. In 2001 Renaissance Books issued Jay Warner’s volume Just Walkin’ in the Rain, which recounted the story of Bragg and his fellow inmate musicians; Relentless simultaneously released the companion disc The Johnny Bragg Story: Just Walkin’ in the Rain. Bragg directed the Prisonaires throughout the 1950s, later joined the Solotones and the Marigolds for Excello sessions, and cut solo sides for ElBeJay and Tree Music in 1959. His most enduring achievement remained the composition of the hit single “Just Walkin’ in the Rain,” first tracked by the Prisonaires in 1953. Three years afterward Johnnie Ray’s rendition climbed the charts and stopped just short of the top position, while Jim Reeves also recorded a version; in 1988 BMI honored Bragg once radio airings of the song exceeded one million.
Although incarceration represented a severe setback, the years both before and after proved scarcely less difficult. Born blind in Nashville in 1926, Bragg regained his sight around the age of six or seven. Minor brushes with the law marked his adolescence. Tennessee’s governor commuted the remainder of his sentence early in 1959, yet Bragg returned to prison several times before achieving permanent release in 1977.
