Ernest "44" Johnson

Ernest '44 Flunkey' Johnson Blues pianist Born possibly Miss., c. 1903. Cousin of Dehlco Robert. According to Little Brother Montgomery: 'His home was at Durant, Mississippi. He wasn't a singer -sometimes I would sing with him. We called him 44 Flunkey because he could play 'The Forty-Four' so good and he was funking on the Y&MV Railroad. He was terrific'. Went to St Louis in the late 1930s, was in Chicago after World War II. Still living there in 1960. On some of his slower, non boogie. blues sounds like Brother, as do Lee Green, Big Boy Knox, and the unknown pianist who recorded with Arthur Pettis (Chicago, 1930) (from "Deep South Piano" by Karl Gert zur Heide)