At 91, blues artist Jimmy Johnson keeps changing things up, and new album is the proof

Blues artist Jimmy Johnson isn’t stuck in his ways.

He has stayed relevant by shaking things up when needed.

And his new album “Every Day of Your Life,” his first since returning the recording studio for the first time in a decade, shows why time is of the essence.

“I’m not as young as I used to be,” said Johnson, 91. “I might not move exactly the same way I used to, but then I had a different idea. When I play music, I don’t like the music to sound the same. If I did an album that sounds like the last one, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

Even though Johnson is a blues artist by trade, his new album of five original songs and four covers has a reggae vibe.

His willingness to change with the times — pandemic or not — is something that he prides himself on.

“I’ve had reggae on my albums before; this isn’t the first time,” said Johnson.

Lola Reynaerts

Since the COVID-19 pandemic cleared his schedule that had included local gigs at Lagunitas Brewing Co. and Buddy Guy’s Legends, he’s found ways to adjust to the new reality with the album release and playing online gigs.

“It’s a pain in the neck; it’s boring,” said Johnson of his quarantine in Harvey. “And I’ve been playing music for 60 years. I never missed playing this long. My last gig was on March 12.”

And what keeps Johnson going as part of a demographic that is more susceptible to COVID-19 more than most?

“The main thing that keeps me going, and has kept me going, was just being kind to everybody,” said Johnson. “I was a really small kid going to school. I always had feelings for the next guy, so I roll with that.”

Like most Black folks in the new reality, he’s not only dealing with the pandemic, which decimated the community in large numbers, but his heart also is heavy in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

He says a former band member and friend, Frederick Gray, had a heart attack in 2003 in the aftermath of a police encounter.

“I feel the pain; I wasn’t him [Floyd] but I still feel the pain because I’ve been in his situation. … It’s hard to respect somebody that doesn’t respect you.

“But now they [police] don’t respect me. But they want me to respect them. So I give them respect in order to save myself from getting hurt. So they got the advantage because if it wasn’t for that recording [of Floyd’s death], nothing would’ve have been done about it.”

Johnson has been all about making decisions with the long game in mind.

His music career started when he was 29. Before he became a full-time musician, he was a welder — a career pivot he says has allowed him to live a long life.

“Now I made a lot of money,” said Johnson. “I could have started earlier, but I already did play piano because I did that when I was in high school. I would’ve done [welding] for 20 more years, I wouldn’t have lived to get this old; I wouldn’t have lived past 75.”

Despite his success and his later start than most artists, Johnson calls the difference in his fandom at home and abroad a “gift and a curse” — a common lament for Black blues artists.

“My biggest fans know what to expect; I’m bigger in Europe than I am in the United States,” said Johnson. “It’s bad to say but they don’t discriminate [Europeans] quite as much as they do here. It’s good to have popularity somewhere, but it’s bad that my own country won’t play my record. I really don’t know; they’ll play Caucasian blues before mine.

“I’m one of the originators. Caucasian people are kind of like the duplicators. They play the duplicator but they won’t play the originator of it. What does it sound like to you? Like discrimination to me, because I can understand. You’ve got a right to like what you like to play, but why would you play Eric Clapton’s record and not mine? It sounds backward to me. But guess what? It is what it is.”