Johnny Edward Jenkins (March 5, 1939 – June 26, 2006) was an American left-handed

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

, who helped launch the career of

Otis Redding Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. ...

. His flamboyant style of guitar playing also influenced

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Inducted ...

Biography

In the 1960s, Jenkins was the leader of the Pinetoppers, who employed a young

as singer. As Jenkins did not have a driver's license, Redding also served as his personal driver. During a recording session in 1962 organized by the band's manager, Phil Walden, Jenkins left forty minutes of studio time unused. Redding used this time to record a ballad, " These Arms of Mine", on which Jenkins played guitar. Scott Freeman, in his biography of Redding, ''Otis!: The Otis Redding Story'', gives several accounts of that chaotic day at

Stax Records Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in September 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records. ...

. In 1964, Jenkins released an instrumental single, "Spunky" (Volt V-122). With Phil Walden concentrating on Redding's flourishing career, Jenkins was sidelined, and it was not until after Redding's death in 1967 that Walden again concentrated on Jenkins's career. In 1970, Jenkins released the album '' Ton-Ton Macoute!''. The opening track, a cover of Dr. John's "I Walk on Guilded Splinters", has been

sampled Sample or samples may refer to: * Sample (graphics), an intersection of a color channel and a pixel * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of something * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample ...

by numerous

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

s, including

Beck Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi mus ...

('' Loser''), and

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentGo Let It Out''). Several tracks on ''Ton-Ton Macoute!'' featured

Duane Allman Howard Duane Allman (November 20, 1946 – October 29, 1971) was an American rock and blues guitarist and the founder and original leader of the Allman Brothers Band, for which he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fam ...

on guitar and

dobro Dobro () is an American brand of resonator guitars owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally a gui ...

. With Walden again becoming involved in other projects, Jenkins became disillusioned with the

music industry The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by Songwriter, writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music and sheet music, presenting live music, concerts, ...

and did nothing of note until 1996. By then Walden had persuaded him to make a comeback, and he released the album ''Blessed Blues'', recorded with Chuck Leavell. Two further albums followed: ''Handle with Care'' and ''All in Good Time''. Jenkins died from a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

in June 2006 in the same town where he was born:

Macon, Georgia Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. Situated near the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is southeast of Atlanta and near the ...

. He was 67. Jenkins was inducted into the

Georgia Music Hall of Fame The Georgia Music Hall of Fame was a hall of fame to recognize music performers and music industry professionals from or connected to the state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It began with efforts of the state's lieutenant governor Zell Mill ...

in 2012.

Discography

Solo * '' Ton-Ton Macoute!'' (1970) * ''Blessed Blues'' (1996) * ''Handle With Care'' (2001) * ''All in Good Time'' (2005) With

* ''

Pain in My Heart Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with ...

'' (Atco Records, 1964) * '' The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads'' (Atco Records, 1965)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Johnny 1939 births 2006 deaths American blues guitarists American male guitarists Musicians from Macon, Georgia Capricorn Records artists 20th-century American guitarists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) 20th-century American male musicians