Jeremiah Johnson - Live In New England (2024)

Blending the regional blues style of his native St. Louis with strains of gritty Southern rock and country, Jeremiah Johnson cut his teeth on the Gulf Coast blues circuit before returning to Missouri and launching a successful career in the 2010s. He established himself with a series of independent albums and signed with German blues specialists Ruf Records, which released highlights like 2018's Straitjacket and 2020's chart-topping Heaven to Betsy. Johnson returned in 2022 with the crafty Hi-Fi Drive By.

Named by his father after the titular character in the 1972 Robert Redford western, Johnson began playing at a young age, studying jazz during his college years, then playing in a number of rock bands. He migrated to blues music while living in Texas' Gulf Coast region, and in the mid-2000s took home first place in the Houston Blues Society Regional Blues Challenge for three years in a row. By the end of the decade, he'd returned home to St. Louis and formed the Jeremiah Johnson Band. Combining his love of electric blues with the St. Louis sound, he folded in elements from his rock years along with jazz and country influences, releasing a pair of independent albums, 9th & Russell (2010) and Brand Spank'n Blue (2011), backed by regional horn section the Sliders. His career received a boost in 2014 when Australian filmmaker Gary Glenn made Johnson the subject of his documentary Ride the Blues, which featured a live concert and a series of interview segments about Johnson's career trajectory. It set the table for his first solo release, Grind, which arrived the following year and was produced by Devon Allman, son of guitar legend Gregg Allman. In addition to receiving heavy airplay, the album hit number eight on Billboard's Blues chart. Working again with his backing band, his 2016 release Blues Heart Attack fared even better, reaching number five on the same chart and featuring a wider array of his different musical styles. Johnson signed with Germany's Ruf Records in 2018 and worked with fellow St. Louis bluesman Mike Zito to record his next release, Straitjacket, before touring Europe the following year.

In early 2020, Johnson hit a new career peak when his album Heaven to Betsy topped the Billboard Blues chart. After his European support tour was cancelled due to the global pandemic, he quickly returned to the studio and recorded the lean back-to-basics set Unemployed Highly Annoyed which came out in October of that year. 2022's Hi-Fi Drive By continued Johnson's streak of quality releases and featured guests like pianist Victor Wainwright and harmonica player Brandon Santini. ~ Timothy Monger