Johnny Powers

Rockabilly artist Johnny Powers' story was one of the more intriguing the genre has to offer. Unlike most of his rockabilly peers, Powers hailed from the Midwest, and his best music had a tough Big City edge that set him apart, though he could deliver the requisite hiccuping vocals and rollicking guitar as well as any hepcat of the day, and he was a talented songwriter and producer as well. 1993's Long Blond Hair is an excellent overview of his sides from the 1950s and '60s, and 1994's New Spark (For an Old Flame) is the best of the albums he recorded after returning to the stage in the '70s. Born John Leon Joseph Pavlik in 1938 in East Detroit, Michigan, he was the oldest of five children. The family later moved to the small town of Utica, north of Detroit, where he was raised. Pavlik was exposed to music from an early age by members of his father's family, who included several amateur and semi-professional musicians who played weddings and local dances. It was country music, however, that first drew Pavlik into music on a personal level; he discovered Lonnie Baron, a veteran country singer with a show on local radio, and would listen and try to play along with a guitar that he'd bought for $2.50 from a neighbor. He later got some helpful instruction from Marvin Maynard, a professional musician who lived in Utica. In 1954, at age 16, Pavlik joined Jimmy Williams & the Drifters, a local country band that played at a venue called Bill's Barn and got a featured radio spot on a radio station out of Marine City, Michigan. He also played on one single cut by the band, but it wasn't long before rock & roll attracted him. It was Jack Scott's single "Baby She's Gone" that drew him into rock & roll. Courtesy of Jimmy Williams' brother Russ, Pavlik discovered Elvis Presley when he was still a Memphis-based phenomenon and his then-current single was "Milkcow Blues Boogie," which really interested Pavlik because it was a country song with a rock & roll beat. Soon he was adding that beat to his own country songs, and in 1957, Johnny Powers, as he was now known, got an audition with Fortune Records in Detroit. He paid $100 for his own session to record a pair of songs: "Honey, Let's Go to a Rock and Roll Show" b/w "Your Love" on the Hi-Q label. A Black deejay named Ernie Durham played his record on WJLB, and Powers was one of the few white artists who would play the record hops that Durham sponsored. He later put together a band, Johnny Powers & His Rockets, with his friend Marvin Maynard on bass, Clark Locker on the drums, and Stan Getz on guitar. Powers jumped to the Fox label in 1958, getting a pair of regional hits with "Rock Rock" and "Long Blond Hair." The group got steady work cutting demos, some of which later surfaced as on semi-legit releases, though Powers was soon left high and dry when Fox went out of business. Among his strongest work from this period were a pair of originals, "Mama Rock" and "Indeed I Do" where he sounds like the young, wild Elvis Presley that just arrived at RCA, and the group sings uncannily like the Jordanaires on the latter track. Things began to happen faster for Johnny Powers when his manager, Tommy Moers, got him a contract with Sun Records in 1959; he was one of the last artists signed to the label by founder Sam Phillips. They released "With Your Love, With Your Kiss" b/w "Be Mine" early that year, and a second single followed, but Powers was dropped by Sun in 1960. He later became the first white artist signed to Motown, but while he was part of the label's staff for years, he never released a record for the label. Instead, with the passage of the '60s into the '70s, Powers' career found him on the other side of the studio glass, producing a hit with Tim Tam & the Turn-Ons' "Wait a Minute" and writing material for R&B legend Amos Milburn's early-1960s comeback sides for Motown. Powers also ran his own production company, Power House, and his '60s and '70s work included the John F. Kennedy memorial disc "Dark Day in Dallas" by Tommy Durden, psychedelia from the Grass Company and the Black Narcosis, soulful vocal R&B from David Lasley and Innervision, and Jack Kittel's cult-favorite country sickie "Psycho," later covered by Elvis Costello. In the late 1970s, Powers' studio career was beginning to fade out, but his classic rockabilly material had been rediscovered by fans in the United Kingdom and Europe, and he began touring overseas to audiences who greeted him as a hero. Powers toured on and off for the rest of his life, playing his classic songs and demonstrating rock's ability to produce a true survivor who was also a true believer in the strength that lies within the music itself. He occasionally recorded new material, most notably the 1994 album New Spark (For An Old Flame) that included a guest appearance from a fellow former Motown employee, George Clinton, and a 1992 single for Norton Records, "Mama Spark" b/w "New Spark," with Powers backed by the A-Bones and sounding as powerful as a man half his age. Norton would also issue a definitive Johnny Powers collection, 1993's Long Blond Hair. Johnny Powers died on January 16, 2023 at his home in Northern Michigan. He was 84.
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