Tommy Johnson (1896?-1956) learned the rudiments of guitar from his older brother, Ledell. Their father had been born a slave. The seventh of 13 children, Tommy ran away from home at 12 with an older woman that Ledell believes only took up with him because he could sing and play and she hoped she could make money off him. Tommy later married a 14-year-old girl named Maggie Campbell and together with Ledell and his wife, Mary. moved to the Tom Sander plantation to live as sharecroppers. Tommy played guitar with Willie Brown and Dick Bankston during this time.
Later, Tommy played with Charlie Patton. Tommy moved around a lot and got into a lot of woman trouble. He had women all over the place. Tommy also got into fights with both white and black men. He also had an extreme fondness for alcohol and didn’t care what source he had to get it from—canned heat (his favorite), cough syrup, furniture polish, hair tonic, mouthwash, etc. Once he was recording at a studio and came across some bonded whiskey (unblended whiskey continuously aged in a barrel for at least four years). Tommy drank so much of it that the recording session was a disaster. Johnson also was busted frequently for public drunkenness.
Once, during the Depression, he was thrown in jail and bail was set at $150. He called Speir and begged him to bail him out. Speir did and Tommy promptly skipped town. In the Depression, $150 went a long way and Speir could not afford to lose it so he was forced to pursue Tommy and bring him back to Jackson. When he caught up to Johnson, Speir had no trouble slipping the cuffs on him and getting him in the backseat of his car—Tommy was out cold.
When Tommy came to, he found himself en route to Jackson handcuffed in the back of Speir’s car and begged Speir to leave him be but Spier said, “I’m sorry, Tommy, but I’ll lose my $150 and I can’t afford it.” Still, Speir had a soft spot for Tommy because he had other problems that weren’t his fault—such as a stutter so severe that he often had to break into song to make himself understood—that made his life that much tougher and stood by him, paid off some of his debts and tried to keep him out of trouble but Tommy and trouble seemed to have a knack for finding each other.
Tommy Johnson died in 1956 from the effects of ill-health brought on by his hard-living and excessive consumption of rotgut. That he even made it to 60 amazed many who knew him. Still, he was a blues genius with a distinctive guitar style combined with an equally distinctive smooth voice that broke into falsetto effortlessly and without a trace of a stutter. His recordings, however, are fairly rare. The above photo, probably taken before 1923, is the only one known of Tommy Johnson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGuoOyeUj-w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o808EmOukDQ