Ain't Bad for a Pink
by Sandra Gibson
When Pete Johnson appeared on WRFG in Georgia, Curly Weaver’s daughter, Cora Mae Bryant, rang the radio station to say it was “the best goddam blues” she had heard.Ain’t Bad For A Pink records a life dedicated to music. As a young teenager in the Sixties, Pete ‘Snakey Jake’ Johnson met legendary blues players Sleepy John Estes, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Roosevelt ‘The Honeydripper’ Sykes, Jimmy Witherspoon, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Son House who taught him slide. Subsequently, Pete Johnson’s interpretation of the country blues has been as close as possible to the original spirit of Southern music. Meet Boomtown the Rat, the girls whose clothes just wouldn’t stay put, and the top-hatted man who had three wakes. Imagine being kissed by each and every one of the Three Degrees, being mistaken for a beggar in Montmartre or having to threaten with a meat cleaver to get your gig money....