LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Johnnie Johnson: West Virginia
built 286 days ago
The son of a coal miner, Johnnie Johnson was born on July 8 1924 at Fairmont, West Virginia. His parents bought him a piano when he was four and, as he later recalled: "the moment the movers brought it into the house, I sat down and started playing."
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Taking to the instrument immediately Johnnie seemed to possess an innate mastery of the instrument even then. Unable to afford lessons Johnnie practiced and absorbed the sounds of big band jazz and swing, barrelhouse boogie, and country western that he heard on local radio. His heroes were piano players: Count Basie, Art Tatum, Earl Hines, Pete Johnson, and Meade Lux Lewis. Johnnie studied each man's repertoire, mixing and matching until he found his own unique style. Johnnie even made his radio debut on local radio station WMMN at the age of eight years old.
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Johnson was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 8 1924. When he was four years old, his mother bought a piano as a piece of furniture. Johnnie put it to good use, though, with his untutored—almost miraculous—attention to the keys.
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Of that day, Johnson recalled how the amiable banter of his groundcrew relieved the tension as they strapped him in at Westhampnett airfield, a satellite of Tangmere. He remembered, too, how "the usual cockpit smell, that strange mixture of dope [varnish], fine mineral oil, gun oil and high octane assailing the nostrils" was "vaguely comforting".
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