Johnny Dollar

Photo by Marc PoKempner Youngblood & Johnny Dollar © Marc PoKempner

By Benjamin Newell a.k.a. Pistol Pete

Trigger warning: Profanity. Viewer discretion is advised.

I met Johnny Dollar back in the early 1980s around ’82 or ‘83 while I was playing at Redmond’s Show Lounge. I was playing there all the time, playing guitar for Sammy Fender’s Blues Band, and I'm underage, I’d been playing with different blues bands by then.

Now keep in mind I'm on stage playing, a big black man walks in the place, tall - just like I am. Looks buff, has his hat on, goes up and got his drink. At that time, I think it was Hennessy he was drinking, or some Martel at the time. So we on stage playing, I'll never forget, I'm playing this beautiful Washburn that Sammy had just got, loving the guitar.

Not even twenty minutes in the set Johnny Dollar; “Huh, Boy! Give me that damn guitar!” Didn't say nothing, can I play it? nothing just, “Boy, give me that damn guitar. I'm Johnny Dollar” I’m like “Go ahead Mr. Dollar, go ahead.” I’m a young teenager, I hand him the guitar, right? Sammy’s looking at me I see his face “Let him take it” and I sat on down, went in the corner, and at that time we were smoking weed in this bar, dude, it was crazy. Nobody, no police was coming up in there, this is like early 80s, we in there cheating it up!

So Johnny up there playing, turning women on! Played the guitar crazy and started singing to women, women going crazy pulling off their clothes going like “Johnny, Johnny, Love Me!” Singing his heart out doing his Johnny Dollar thing. I think he did like 2-3 songs and then he broke a string and said “Boy! Come and get your guitar, sorry ‘bout the string.” and walked off the stage.

So I'm looking at Sammy “What am I gonna do? I have no string” Sammy took off his guitar, gave it to me to play, it was a Jazz Master, Fender Jazz Master, beat up green. It's almost like what Lefty played. Lefty played a beat-up Strat, dark green.

Then all of a sudden, man, I'm hearing this commotion at the bar because I ain't playing no more. “Dave! Dave! He called me a bitch!” Dave Redmond’s wife is screaming. “He called me a bitch! He called me a bitch! Dave! Dave!” Dave’s like “I gotta go up there, see what’s going on.” 

Sure enough Dave walks up there, trying to talk some shit to Johnny, Johnny looked at that motherf***er and said “I’ll buy this motherf***ing place! You know who I am? I’ve been all over the world. I’m Johnny Dollar! Don’t f*** with me! F*** her, f*** you, I’ll buy this motherf***er!” 

Everybody looking crazy. F***ing Dave was trying to, “Well well you, you know you ain't gotta say all that, you don’t have to say all that in my place!” and his wife was going “You gonna take that? What that motherf***er said? You gonna take that?” Then Johnny says “F*** you, f*** him, f*** this motherf***er” and he walked out the door. 

Me and my brothers looked at each other like what just happened? He just came in grabbed the guitar from me, broke the string, gave it back to me, then went over and just started arguing with the owner’s wife, calling her bitch and saying he's going to buy this place. I said “That's a bad man.” 

Oh, and don't forget, he was turning women on while he was up there playing. That was the freakiest thing I ever saw as a young man. I mean this was the hardcore blues scene. I’m not up North, that was the sophisticated Blues scene. I'm on the West Side. Dirty. Nasty. You get what you get motherf***er. 

Playing with Johnny Dollar

After all that I ended up being in Johnny Dollar’s life and he was in my life and everything just went crazy. Everything went crazy, we’re playing at blues bars you know. Keep in mind now, sometimes Johnny would have to pick me up for a gig cause I ain’t have no car or I get on the CTA bus and meet him at the club with my amplifier and my guitar in my hand and he said “Boy you need to learn how to drive and get your ass a car.” 

The gigs that we played at wasn’t in big clubs, nah it was just like round on the West Side maybe on California and Madison or St Louis and Kedzie, at these clubs, I mean dive bars dude, but packed full of people loving the Blues, black people and loving Johnny Dollar because Johnny is singing Tyrone Davis, his own stuff. He is playing Johnny Taylor, B.B. King – the man had a golden voice. 

Keep in mind, Johnny had a lot of different other guys playing guitar for him but for some reason he just took a fancy to me, you know? And he always kept throwing in my face “You remember when I broke your string boy?” I remember that shit, I remember that shit very well.  

And he was like a father to me too. You know, he started giving me a shot of that Dimitri, because that's what he used to drink, that Dimitri so we’re drinking that Dimitri going out playing. When I got around him and started playing with him, I learned a lot and found out how much he was a great entertainer at the same time a great guitar player. Believe it or not, that man could play the shit out of a guitar. 

He would tell people, I remember one time, we were practicing and everybody says “Johnny, why don't you play guitar?” he said “I got that young boy there to play all that wild stuff.” he said “I'm too busy, I'm too busy crooning these women. I ain’t got no time to play, that’s why I got Pistol Pete to play.”

I never recorded with Johnny; I always played live with him. He was a big influence in getting me better gigs.