Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Ain't That a Bitch
I am pretty tired from everything real and imagined that goes with moving, but I'm not gonna miss this milestone birthday for a long-gone legend of all times and forevers.
This guy started in the Fifties and rode the bull until his early passing 30+ years ago, where else but during a gig.
An inestimable influence on other, subsequent guitar slingers, he was a huge shadow on the playing on Frank Zappa, for instance.
He even guested on a few FZ compositions in the 1970s.
He began as basically a Blues artist, but reinvented himself as a Funkateer as music progressed through the '60s into the '70s.
His stage raps are thought to have helped set the template for hip-hop too.
One of the handful of artists to have died onstage, he had a heart attack one night in 1996 during the final verse of Gangster of Love -- his signature song -- and keeled over, to be pronounced dead soon after. How Gangster is that?
There aren't a helluva lotta ROIOs of him, and the most famous one got released officially some time ago.
Thankfully I spotted this wild set streaming on The Site Formerly Known As House Of Theft, and dressed it all up nice once I discovered it to be essentially lossless north of the FM signal it was likely taped for.
The band is only called out by JGW by first names in this, and I did what I could to further identify who is playing, but some of them remain mysterious, for which I apologize in advance.
So here's Johnny "Guitar" Watson -- born this day in 1935 -- live in NYC just before he departed this realm, setting the Funk on fire as usual.
Johnny "Guitar" Watson
Tramps
New York City, New York USA
2.17.1995
late show
01 introduction of JGW/Johnny G. Is Back
02 Superman Lover
03 I Want to Ta-Ta You Baby
04 Ain't That a Bitch
05 Doing Wrong Woman
06 Hook Me Up
07 Bow Wow
08 A Real Mother for Ya
09 Gangster of Love
Total time: 1:30:47
disc break goes after Track 05
Johnny "Guitar" Watson - guitar & vocals
"Sanford" - drums & percussion
Les Falconer - drums & percussion
"Jo Ellen" - keyboards
"Fabulous Fingers" Rob McDonald - bass & vocals
The Never Too Late Horns:
"Andre" - alto saxophone & vocals
Steve Baxter - trombone
unidentified - tenor saxophone & vocals
unidentified - trumpet & vocals
320/48k audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault
converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, tracked, denoised & slightly remastered by EN, February 2025
515 MB FLAC/direct link
This is a steamroller of a set, with JGW riding the chart success of his big comeback record at the time and thrilling a sweaty and packed house all the way down to their dancin' shoes.
Hard to conceive that he was gone a little over a year later, but that's why we're here at the Page Of Old Music No One Cares About, right? To ensure that people of the highest, most elevated musical caliber -- prime example: Johnny "Guitar" Watson -- never really die.--J.
2.3.1935 - 5.17.1996