Johnny Drummer born 1 March 1938

Johnny Drummer (born March 1, 1938) is an American Chicago blues and soul blues singer, keyboardist, drummer, harmonica player, and songwriter. His stage name came after he saw the film Johnny Guitar, at a time when his chosen instrument was the drums. 

Johnny Drummer was born Thessex Johns and was named after an uncle Essex and a cousin Theotrice. Like a lot of bluesmen, Drummer is from the Mississippi Delta, specifically the tiny town of Alligator, just southwest of Clarksdale. His brothers played handmade box guitars, and the likes of Ike Turner and Little Milton passed through to play gigs. Many of Drummer’s family members played piano in church, and Drummer started singing there as a child, joining his first band at age seven. He loved artists such as Memphis Minnie and B.B. King, even though his religious relatives looked down on the blues. 

He joined the U.S. Army in 1956 and learned to play the drums during his three-year period of duty and used his occasional time off to sit in with whatever bands he could. By 1959, he had relocated to Chicago. In 1960, he joined a band containing Lovie Lee and Carey Bell. He later played drums for about a year for Eddie King., In 1962 Drummer recorded two tracks, "Lookin' for My Baby" and "I Can't Stop Twisting," for a local record label, Wonderful Records, but they were never released. By 1963 he had formed his own band, the Starliters. 

In 1965, he recorded vocal overdubs on two tracks for Billy "The Kid" Emerson, but these also were not issued. During the 1960s, the Starliters at various times included Sammy Lawhorn and Eddie Shaw. Drummer also played on several of Eddie King's singles, and in 1965 he once played with B.B. King at a concert when King's regular drummer did not arrive. Drummer was reluctantly pressed to sing in his own band, leaving regular drum playing to others. Drummer uses the Starliters name to this day, and he claims that quite a few blues stars have passed through the band’s ranks. It is pretty tough to corroborate every association, but he says the lineup at one time or another included King as well as the likes of Jimmy Johnson, Sammy Lawhorn, Eddie Shaw, Lefty Dizz, and Odell Campbell (who played with Magic Sam). 

In 1974, Drummer obtained full-time employment with the Chicago Police Department, where he worked for twenty years. However, he continued to play music in the evenings, having learned the rudiments of harmonica playing from Junior Wells. He gigged with the super-group The Aces several nights a week for a couple years, and he would appear as vocalist on the delightfully raw 1976 LP The Aces and Their Guests. It was recorded live on October 14, 1975, at Chicago club Ma Bea’s, and it also included Bobby King and Joe Carter. In the late 1970s, Drummer recorded "The Fire Is Gone" and "I'll Find a Way," which were released as a single by Arpco Records. 

                                   

By 1985 Drummer also added electronic keyboards to his arsenal. Eventually synthesizers developed sounds he liked, and he started playing them onstage in the mid-80s. Soon he graduated to a Roland keytar—a keyboard controller that can be worn with a strap and places several controls on a short guitarlike “neck”—and the instrument has become one of his trademarks, since it’s relatively rare in the blues. It also let him walk around in the audience again and even duet with himself by doubling on harmonica. Drummer and his band opened for many musicians, including Denise LaSalle, Z.Z. Hill, Koko Taylor, Tyrone Davis and Willie Mabon. 

Drummer's debut album, It's So Nice, was released by Earwig in 1999. The music critic Cub Koda noted, "his knack for a catchy phrases and lyrical hooks coupled with funky grooves and solid instrumental mixes makes this album a real sleeper". His subsequent albums are Unleaded Blues (2001), Rockin' in the Juke Joint (2007), Bad Attitude (2014), Angels Sing The Blues (2015) and It’s So Nice (2016). He won First Place In The International Songs Writers Competition (2016), for his song Ain’t No Secret In A Small Town, released on the album Bad Attitude. 

Johnny Drummer as an International performer has performed consistently in major festivals and shows throughout the world.  Travels included acclaimed performances at the Chicago Blues Festival, Pocono Blues Festival, University of Illinois Blues Festival, Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, Money Road Festival in Mississippi, and several others in the US, Canada including places such as The Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Poland, Quebec, France, and Beirut, Lebanon. 

After spending many years in Chicago Johnny is now living in Horn Lake Mississippi and is a regular at the world renowned Juke Joint “Reds” in Clarksdale.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Mississippi Delta Blues & an article by Steve Krakow for Chicago Reader)