Jhonny Guitar Watson

"Reinvention" could just as easily have been Johnny "Guitar" Watson's middle name. The multi-talented performer parlayed his stunning guitar skills into a vaunted reputation as one of the hottest blues axemen on the West Coast during the 1950s. But that admirable trait wasn't paying the bills as the 1970s rolled in. So he totally changed his image to that of a pimp-styled funkster, enjoying more popularity than ever before for his down-and-dirty R&B smashes "A Real Mother for Ya" and "Superman Lover."

This performance at Onkel Pö comes from those more successful later years, December 1976, and it is one of the most famous of all legends associated with “Hamburg’s Carnegie Hall” during its existence It was also already some sort of tradition, that the NDR broadcasting-truck occupied the tiny parking spot next to the venue, when the “Watsonian Institute“ (that is how the guitarist and singer called the band as a sort of pseudo-academic joke) was in town hence making these recordings available for the first time today.

PERSONNEL:

JOHNNY "GUITAR" WATSON, guitar & vocals
PETER MARTIN, trumpet
TOMMY ROBERTSON, trombone
PAUL DUNMALL, sax
GIL NOBLE, piano, synthesizer
BOBBY HOWARD, bass
EMRY THOMAS, drums

Recorded at Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall, December 5, 1976.

TRACKS:

01. Mr. Magic
02. I Don't Want to Be A Lone Ranger
03. Stormy Monday
04. Sperman Lover
05. Gangsters of Love
06. Ain't That A Bitch
07. Cuttin' In
08. I Need It
09. Signature Tune