Johnny Nicholas has spent more than five decades living the blues. A consummate songwriter, singer and multi instrumentalist, he came of age seeking out the musicians who created the music, learning firsthand from blues masters including Big Walter Horton, Johnny Shines, Robert Lockwood Jr. and Boogie Woogie Red.
In 1969, Nicholas joined Duke Robillard, Steve Nardella, Fran Christina and Larry Peduzzi in the Black Cat Blues Band, a fixture of the burgeoning New England blues scene. He later moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he became part of that city’s extraordinary blues community, playing alongside legendary artists in local clubs and at the historic Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festivals.
His journey took him through Chicago and across the South, touring and recording with many of the musicians who had first inspired him. Nicholas later toured and recorded with Johnny Shines and Snooky Pryor, producing and playing guitar on their W.C. Handy Award winning album Back to the Country.
Eventually Texas became home. A stint with Asleep at the Wheel brought western swing and Texas dance hall music into an already deep blues vocabulary, while years spent immersed in South Louisiana added Cajun music, swamp pop and Louisiana rhythm and blues. Those influences broadened his music without ever replacing its foundation.
Marcia Ball calls Nicholas “an extremely engaging innovative traditionalist,” and the description fits. Whether behind a guitar, National steel, piano or harmonica, Nicholas plays traditional music as something alive. His blues swings, shuffles and boogies, drawing naturally from the many corners of American roots music he has inhabited throughout his life.
That breadth runs through recordings including Future Blues and Mistaken Identity, but the blues remains at the center of it all.
Onstage, Nicholas can hold a listening room with a song and a guitar or bring a festival crowd to its feet behind a piano with a hard swinging band. More than fifty years into his career, he remains what he has been from the beginning: a bluesman, songwriter and restless student of American music, carrying the tradition forward by continuing to make it his own.
“My friend Johnny Nicholas writes and sings from way down inside, and plays every instrument with grit and grace. His talent is deep and wide, like his soul and his heart. And he has some songs that slay me. Just slay me.”
~ Walt Wilkins, 2016
“Johnny…is constantly expanding the legacy of rhythm and blues with his music.”
– Marcia Ball –
Johnny and Katie began playing music at an unlikely time. In May of 2020, both were faced with the challenge of finding ways to play music during the pandemic when touring wasn’t possible. Both having strong ties to Asleep at the Wheel, and both living in the Hill Country of central Texas, it was a very exciting prospect. Johnny’s iconic Texas road house and live music venue, Hill Top Cafe, became the perfect outlet for them to collaborate. The duo quickly cultivated a vast array of American Roots music, from original tunes, blues to swamp pop and swing to gospel. The show that this duet brings to the stage is always a memorable experience.
The Dreamers are a big slice of pure old school Texas/Louisiana honky tonk heaven. The band grew out of the critically acclaimed Moon Mullican tribute album project and has morphed into a monthly staple at the Sagebrush, an old, re-vitalized south Austin dance hall that has become one of that city’s top spots for dancing and honky tonkin’ in general.
This side project is the perfect vehicle to showcase Johnny’s love and expertise in playing hard core, rockin’ tunes from western swing to waltzes and two steps to groovy jump blues and South Louisiana rock and roll: classic dance hall music at it’s very best.
The Honky Tonk Dreamers features Asleep at the Wheel alumni Johnny, Floyd Domino, Katie Shore and Danny Levin along with Austin stalwarts Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Chris Maresh and Karen Biller.
If you dig classic electric Blues, old-school R&B, South Louisiana Soul and rockin’ jump blues delivered with a fresh, high energy stage presence, then look no further than the Hidden Charms.
Original compositions and interpretations delivered by a master of these genres and his smokin’ band from Austin, Texas featuring Scrappy Jud Newcomb (Guitar), Chris Maresh (Bass) and Damien Llanes (Drums).
As Johnny’s earliest influences and inspirations simmer seductively and boil over into raucous outbursts of joyful toe-tappin’ boogie woogie, you may rest assured: the dance floor will be full.