John Williams

Johnny Williams is an American Chicago-based blues guitar player and singer, who was one of the first of the new generation of electric blues players to record after World War II

Williams was born in Alexandria, Louisiana, United States, to parents who were both musicians. He was raised in Houston, Texas, and moved to Belzoni, Mississippi to live with his uncle Anthony Williams after his mother died around 1917. There he met local musicians such as the Chatmon brothers and Charley Patton (with whom his uncle played), and learned to play the guitar After traveling North during the 1920s, he returned to Belzoni around 1930, where he occasionally played locally.Moving to Chicago in 1938, he worked at first in the defense industry and later for Oscar Meyer.By 1943 he was playing in clubs in the evenings while working as a meat packer in the daytime, working with Theodore "Hound Dog" Taylor around 1944.In 1944 he lost the end of a finger in a meat grinder and gave up playing the guitar for a year, until he saw Blind Arvella Gray, who was missing two fingers from his left hand, playing on Maxwell Street, and learned to play the guitar without the missing finger In the late 1940s Williams was once more playing on Maxwell Street and in clubs, often working with his cousin the mandolin player Johnny Young or with harmonica player Snooky Pryor and guitarists Floyd Jones and Moody Jones, and with Little Walter, and had joined the Musicians' Union.Around this time, he acquired the nickname "Uncle Johnny", by which he was known among his blues associates for the rest of his life.