Born in 1938 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, Johnny Dyer first picked up the harmonica at seven. During his teenage years he joined Smokey Wilson onstage at a neighborhood venue. In January 1958 he relocated to Los Angeles, assembled the Blue Notes, and began supporting touring artists that included J.B. Hutto, Jimmy Reed, and Jimmy Rogers. He later teamed with George Smith, who was then billing himself as Little Walter Jnr. A pair of singles appeared on Shakey Jake’s Good Time imprint, followed in 1983 by the album Johnny Dyer And The LA Dukes on Murray Brothers; Mina Records subsequently released several of its tracks in Japan. William Clarke featured Dyer on the 1991 anthology Hard Times, which surveyed the current Los Angeles blues scene. Shortly afterward Dyer launched the Houserockers alongside guitarist Rick Holmstrom, whose résumé already contained sessions with Clarke, Billy Boy Arnold, Rod Piazza, and Smokey Wilson. The album Listen Up fused Holmstrom’s Pee Wee Crayton-inflected guitar approach with Dyer’s earthier harmonica style and offered a telling reading of Little Walter’s “Blue Midnight.” Shake It! brought pianist Tom Mahon into the lineup for a collection of originals that distilled the blended west-coast–Chicago sound.
