Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson reinvented himself as a flamboyant funkster and ultra-hip player extraordinaire in the 1970s, when his career reached new heights with hits such as A Real Mother For Ya, Superman Lover, and Lover Jones. Few of his new fans realized that he was already a veteran blues guitarist, a product of Houston’s Third Ward where he came up alongside guitar slingers such as Joe Hughes, Johnny Copeland, and Albert Collins in the shadow of Gatemouth Brown. Born in Houston on February 3, 1935, Watson cut his first records at the age of 17 under the name Young John Watson after moving to Los Angeles. Many of his early recordings demonstrated his hard-hitting guitar style; in the 1960s he recorded as a soul singer and pianist as well, before reemerging with his blues integrated into a contemporary groove of stylized funk that would help shape the rap and hip-hop that followed. One of his 70s hits, Gangster of Love, was a remake of a blues he had originally cut in 1957. Watson suffered a fatal heart attack while performing onstage in Yokohama, Japan, on May 17, 1996.
