Johnny Rawls

Johnny Rawls sings, writes songs, plays guitar, arranges material, and produces recordings while drawing his instrumental approach from the deep soul-blues lineage of the 1950s and 1960s, even as his vocal delivery and words belong squarely to the 1990s.

His first lessons came from grandfather John Paul Newson, a sightless guitarist active in the Hattiesburg region. Rawls took up clarinet and saxophone in third grade; once he reached his teens the school band director recruited him for performances. During those years he also accompanied vocalists including Joe Tex and Z.Z. Hill. He began learning guitar at age 12 by studying local blues musicians. At 17 he spent a year away from Mississippi, then came back intent on assembling his own soul-blues group. The ensemble secured steady work supporting visiting artists, and in the mid-1970s Rawls joined O.V. Wright’s band, remaining until Wright’s passing in 1980. The musicians kept performing Wright’s repertoire for the next thirteen years under the name O.V. Wright Band, sharing bills with B.B. King, Little Milton Campbell, and Bobby Bland. Throughout the mid-1980s they also toured alongside Little Johnny Taylor, Latimore, B.B. Coleman, Blues Boy Willie, Lynn White, and additional soul-blues acts.

In partnership with guitarist L.C. Luckett, Rawls issued 45 rpm singles on his own Touch Records imprint and continued regional touring with soul-blues performers. Their first full-length recording, the 1994 album Can't Sleep at Night, appeared on Rooster Blues. The following year Rawls ended the collaboration with Luckett, formed a new ensemble, and signed with London-based JSP Records. His debut for the label, Here We Go, was tracked in 1996; the follow-up, Louisiana Woman, arrived in 1997.

Rawls’s singing and guitar work extend the soul-blues idiom associated with O.V. Wright, Otis Redding, and Z.Z. Hill, yet his arrangements, production choices, and lyrical themes reflect 1990s methods and concerns. He stands as a genuine soul-blues renaissance man. ~ Richard Skelly