Johnny "V" Vernazza
Johnny "V" Vernazza
Genres: blues, guitar, blues rock, slide guitar, guitar blues
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About Johnny "V" Vernazza
Johnny Vernazza - Guitar (acoustic), Guitar (electric), Vocals Mark Bentley - Keyboards, Vocals Jim Reeves - Bass guitar, Vocals Brian "Nucci" Cantrell - Drums, Vocals Johnny "V" Vernazza was born in San Francisco and raised in Daly City. As we all know, the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960's was a hotbed of music. Clubs were everywhere and to go out and jam at four or five clubs a night was the norm, not to mention the Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom and concerts in Golden Gate Park. Starting out playing guitar in 1963, Johnny Vernazza also played bass for a time with a rock band that worked the Fillmore and toured as the opening act for Quicksilver Messenger Service, War, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. About 1970, he joined the gospel band" Gideon and Power", which toured the United States, and appeared on the Sonny & Cher Summer Show on NBC TV. "I joined San Francisco’s Local 6 in 1963 with a note from my mom," says guitar god Johnny Vernazza. Born in San Francisco and raised in Daly City, California, his bands Fox and Day Blindness both included Bostonian and future guitarist Gary Pihl. In the 1970s, he toured with a gospel band and recorded with blues players like Commander Cody, Luther Tucker, Sunnyland Slim, Gregg Allman, Chuck Berry, Steve Miller, Charlie Daniels, and George Thorogood. Vernazza also spent years with blues-harp player Norton Buffalo and his band the Knockouts, with whom Vernazza still occasionally tours. As the blues scene gathered national and international momentum, Johnny "V" was playing with blues greats such as Luther Tucker and Sunnyland Slim . Around that same time he was holding court with a blues band in San Francisco's North Beach with former Elvin Bishop member Perry Welsh. Elvin would come in and jam towing along the likes of Paul Butterfield and other blues monsters . It wasn't long after that Elvin asked Johnny to join the new band he was putting together , the rest is history . This association led to six albums, endless touring and the #3 song in the nation by 1974 "Fooled Around and Fell in Love". That record turned Gold as well as a LP with "The Marshall Tucker Band" that featured Johnny and Elvin on slide guitar . Elvin and Johnny's dual lead and slide parts set a style that was part of the Southern Rock Sound and continues to live on today. He played with the Elvin Bishop band for six albums, being heard on tunes like the 1976 hit “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” (which rose to #3 on the charts) and “Struttin’ My Stuff.” At his 1970s-era peak, Vernazza played 290 dates a year while appearing on music television shows of the day. He can be seen in sideman mode in DVD reissues of NBC’s Midnight Special, where he performed a record ten times with the Elvin Bishop Band. As can be seen in the reissues, he was also once pressed into service on air by Van Morrison, who arrived for a taping without a band. Though he tours the U.S. with his own group, Johnny V, Vernazza has always preferred the role of sideman. It wasn’t until he relocated to the San Diego area in 2001 that he put together a group and began to promote himself as a solo artist. He had played San Diego several times, with Bishop and as a bandmate of harmonica player Norton Buffalo, but it wasn’t music that caused Vernazza to uproot. “The Bay Area was getting too crowded,” he said. “I was born and raised there, but it was getting to be a nightmare to get around. My wife and I came down here for a vacation and thought, this is a lot nicer than it is up north.” He earned a gold record (500,000 sold) for his signature guitar part on “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” and the song can be heard in numerous movies (Boogie Nights, Big Daddy) and TV shows (Entourage, Brotherhood), but it’s the tune’s noncommercial uses that make Vernazza happiest. “It’s strange where that song pops up,” he laughed. “You run into people who got married to the song. I’ve heard Muzak versions in elevators and the real thing while grocery shopping. I love those surreal moments.” Vernazza’s solo album Jungle Out There was recorded in 2009 at Studio West in Rancho Bernardo. In his down time, he can often be found playing sideman to local blues cat Len Rainey. In May 2011, Vernazza played the Zydeco-and-blues fest Gator by the Bay, which included reunion sets with former bandmates Elvin Bishop and Norton Buffalo. It was only the second such reunion with Bishop since Vernazza left the Elvin Bishop Band in 1978. In 2012, he picked up an endorsement deal with Dean Markley Strings. “I was with them back in the '70s,” he says, “when I was with Elvin and they were a young company.” Around the same time, he recorded a new full-length, Lions and Thieves, released on local Blindspot Records in summer 2013. “The title comes from a line in the opera Salome, where the jealous stepfather tells Salome that he saw one of her male interest 'resting in the shade with the lions and thieves.'” The album features originals, tunes written by friends, blues standards, and a cover of “Black Coffee” by Humble Pie. Contributors and players include Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite, Charlie Daniels, Albert Lee, and famed L.A. Wrecking Crew producer Don Peake. “I engaged the service of my good friend Don Peake as my producer,” says Vernazza. “Don started his career playing guitar with the Everly Brothers in 1961 and was later hired by Ray Charles in 1964, a gig that lasted well into the '90s. In the '60s...Don later composed the music for the Knight Rider TV series.” Also twisting knobs: Route 44 Studio owner Harry Gale (Lloyd Jones, George Thorogood & the Destroyers). “I've worked with Harry on many projects,” says Vernazza. “He's brilliant, innovative, [and] always brings great ideas to the mix. He has no fear of pushing the boundaries to achieve something new. Harry contributes so much to everything he's involved with.” In 2011 and then again in September 2013, Vernazza performed at the Iwakuni Summer Music festival held at the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni, Japan. He considers the blues to be popular in Japan, but only to a point. “They love all genres’ of music,” Vernazza says. “ In fact, these gigs remind me of the way festivals were in the late 1960s and 1970s when we would do shows with E.L.O. or Rod Stewart. They were just concerts and not blues or genre specific. It was just music lovers loving music.” His May 10, 2014 appearance at Gator By the Bay included guest players Barry Goldberg (Electric Flag), Nick Gravenites (Big Brother & the Holding Company), Mark Hummel (Blues Survivors), and Deanna Bogart (Root Boy Slim). “Johnny V is a very tasteful guitar player and all around great guy. He’s been out there “in the trenches” playing great blues a looooong time and making a lot of people happy!” – Charlie Musselwhite "Johnny Vernazza did such a great job backing Ian Siegal I thought he was a long time member of the band; the rhythem section he put together was unreal! ...Johnny "V" is someone any artist would want on their side!" - Otis Taylor "I have had the pleasure of knowing and sometimes playing with Johnny V for many years. Not only is he a true gentleman, he plays the guitar with a passion I have always admired. He always seems to reach out a little further for that uplifting passage to propel the music higher and higher. His latest CD (it's great!) keeps me company all the time on my iPod. I can hardly wait to hear what he comes up with next." - Pat Simmons / Doobie Brothers "An awe inspiring talent with an incredible stage presence, Johnny V has some of the most educated fingers in blues music, he literally makes his guitar sing." - Christine Erice at SD Music Matters
Taken from Last.fm
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