Tampa Red (1904-1981)
Known during the 1920s and '30s as "The Guitar Wizard," Tampa Red developed a unique slide-guitar style that was picked up and expanded upon by Robert Nighthawk, Chuck Berry, and Duane Allman, among other followers. Born in Smithville, Georgia as Hudson Whitaker, he earned the nickname "Tampa Red" for his bright red hair and upbringing in Florida. Moving to Chicago in the mid-1920s, Red teamed up with pianist "Georgia" Tom Dorsey as "The Hokum Boys," scoring a big hit with the song "It's Tight Like That," popularizing the bawdy blues style known as "hokum."
When Dorsey turned to Gospel music in 1930, Red continued as a solo artist, performed with Big Bill Broonzy, and helped recent Delta immigrants to Chicago with food, shelter and bookings. Like many pre-war blues artists, Tampa Red found his career eclipsed by younger performers in the 1950s. The Guitar Wizard (Columbia/Legacy) collects the best of Red's early hokum and blues sides, including "It's Tight Like That" and "Turpentine Blues."
Tommy Johnson (1896-1956)
Some say that it was the underrated Tommy Johnson that actually met with the devil at the crossroads one dark and stormy night, hoping to strike a deal. Regardless of the myth's origins, Robert Johnson must have been the better negotiator of the two (unrelated) musicians because Tommy Johnson has become a mere footnote in the blues genre, beloved by hardcore fans but remaining relatively unknown (even after a character based on Johnson appeared in the hit movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?).
With a primal voice that could rise from a guttural howl to an ethereal falsetto throughout the course of a song, this Johnson also possessed a complex and technically-advanced guitar-playing style that would influence a generation of Mississippi bluesmen, including Howlin' Wolf and Robert Nighthawk, among others. Tommy Johnson only recorded briefly, from 1928-1930, and Complete Recorded Works (Document Records) includes the artist's entire groundbreaking milieu. Johnson suffered from acute alcoholism his entire adult life and died in 1956 in obscurity.
