New Years Eve Bash with the Johnnie Marshall Blues Band

By Dave Claytor: owner of Dave’s CC club
It’s four o’clock in the morning …and my woman, she ain’t come home….” Now that’s the blues. Anyone who has experienced those feelings will tell you that. But it takes a musician like Johnnie Marshall to turn those lines into a soul redeeming song. A blues song.

Johnnie Marshall comes from the small Southwest Georgia town of Whigham, GA. He is a family man with a wife and three children. He supported his family for years working in a meat packing plant before the music bug hit

him just a few short years ago.He started playing drums and found a spot playing in a gospel band for a short while. But while playing in that gospel band he became fascinated by the guitar. Unable to learn what he wanted from the self-taught gospel players, Johnnie took lessons and before long formed his own band, The Blues Ignitors.

But some of his best lessons came from listening to other bands. He could often be found sitting in the back of Dave’s CC Club on a barstool soaking up the music of the bands that visited the Club. Lessons, listening, practice and patience paid off for Johnnie. He was “discovered” by Johnny Rawls one night at Dave’s. This led to a recording session resulting in Johnnie’s well-received first CD, “Live for Today” on the JSP label. The tour to support the CD took Johnnie from the backwoods to the national circuit of blues clubs. He even crossed the pond to play a few dates in Europe.”

Johnnie’s meteoric rise in the blues world has not gone to his head. He is still the down home, small town family man he was before his love of music and the blues took him on the road to stardom. He hasn’t forgotten his roots and thanked Dave’s CC Club on his first CD with the tune “Dave’s C.C. Groove” and went on to thank Dave himself on his next CD, “With All My Might” with a cover of the Bruce Feiner penned song “Brother Dave C.”

Johnnie’s style is a bit T-Bone Walker, a bit of the three Kings, Albert, Freddie and BB. There’s a good dose of his mentor JohnnyRawl’s style thrown into the mix too. But it is all Johnnie. His sets include some inspired covers and an ever increasing amount of originals. There’s a little soul, a bit of funk, a dash of rock, even a hint of jazz and swing at times……… and of course a whole bunch of blues.

“Johnnie Marshall is an exciting young bluesman. His guitar work is deep and his style his own. He is the real deal and nothin’ but the truth. Johnnie’s sound is 21st century blues rooted in the juke joints of yesterday. Johnnie Marshall and the Blues have a bright future together!”