Born in Darling, Mississippi on February 16, 1951, James "Super Chikan" Johnson didn't come into the world with much to call his own. He grew up in his grandmother's house with 21 cousins, uncles and aunts. The family lived out on a Delta farm, picked cotton and scratched for everything they got. Out of this tough environment, Chikan did have one good turn of fortune. "My mama had a two string guitar from the Army surplus store," explains Chikan. "I learnt my first notes from her. I learned to play like Jimmy Reed on those two strings. I also heard James Brown, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. I was listening to blues AND country & western. I never knew there was a difference. That why I call my new album 'Chikan Supe.' Regardless of what I'm playing it all comes out together. Music is music as far as I'm concerned. If it works, it works." Chikan's eclectic brand of blues also benefited from his early experiments with homemade instruments. "I was about 7 years old, and I made my first diddley bow [one-string guitar] upside my Grandma's barn. I was out there playing on that thing so much that one day a guy stopped to hear me play. He told me that he could take me and that thing to Washington, and we'd be rich in two week's time. I ran in and told my Grandmother, and she said, 'Boy you crazy. You can't carry that barn to Washington.'" Luckily, other opportunities came Chikan's way. "My Uncle Big Jack [Johnson] had a club in Clarksdale called the Black Fox, and I went in there and played with him when I was in my early 20s," recalls Chikan. "I was shaking in my shoes, but it went pretty good. I ended up playing bass for Big Jack and the Jelly Roll Kings for a while around town." Eventually, Chikan broke out on his own in the late 1970s, recording a handful of tracks with the Wesley Jefferson Band and three full albums for Rooster Blues and Fat Possum Records. As a result of these recordings, he toured the U.S. as well as Africa, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia and Switzerland. Still, if you ask him the name of his favorite place to play, and the answer is quick. "Ground Zero Blues Club, right here in my hometown," says Chikan. "The owners Bill Luckett, Morgan Freeman and Howard Stovall have been real good to me. When Bill and Morgan show up, we have a lot of fun because they both love to dance. They say, 'Go Super Chikan, go!'" According to Chikan, the club has motivated him in other ways, too. "One night after leaving the club, I had a dream about performing there in which I had a 'crossroads' experience, so I wrote a song about it called 'Ground Zero'," he says. It's fitting then that Luckett and Freeman helped to make the CD you are holding in your hands a reality. "Bill Luckett asked me when I was going to do another CD," remembers Chikan. "I said as soon as I can find a place and a way to do it." With that, Luckett called Jimbo Mathus' Delta Recording Studio in downtown Clarksdale, and the rest, as they say, is history.
-- Roger Stolle, www.cathead.biz
Check out the artist's website:
http://www.superchikan.com
Track List:
1. Poor Broke Boy
2. Reliable Sources
3. Wavy Thoughts
4. Just Ain't the Same No More
5. Old Field Song
6. Ground Zero
7. Clarksdale
8. Don't Play
9. Special Glow
10. Robert Johnson
11. A Tribute to the King
12. Groundhog Blues
13. All My Yesterdays
14. Heartache
Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
-- Roger Stolle, www.cathead.biz
Check out the artist's website:
http://www.superchikan.com
Track List:
1. Poor Broke Boy
2. Reliable Sources
3. Wavy Thoughts
4. Just Ain't the Same No More
5. Old Field Song
6. Ground Zero
7. Clarksdale
8. Don't Play
9. Special Glow
10. Robert Johnson
11. A Tribute to the King
12. Groundhog Blues
13. All My Yesterdays
14. Heartache
Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
- BLUES: Acoustic Blues
- BLUES: Delta Style
- FEATURING GUITAR