Peerie Willie Johnson
Encyclopedia
"Peerie" Willie Johnson (born Yell, Shetland 10 December 1920; died Lerwick
Lerwick
Lerwick is the capital and main port of the Shetland Islands, Scotland, located more than 100 miles off the north coast of mainland Scotland on the east coast of the Shetland Mainland...

, Shetland 22 May 2007) was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

ist and bassist
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

. He was respected as an influential and innovative musician in the Shetland folk - Since 2005 there has been a "Peerie" Willie Guitar Festival" on the islands.

"Peerie" is a Shetland dialect
Shetlandic
Shetlandic, usually referred to as Shetland by native speakers, is spoken in the Shetland Islands north of mainland Scotland and is, like Orcadian, a dialect of Insular Scots...

 word, roughly meaning "small" or "little".

Early life and career

He was associated with the stylistically opposite fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

 player Dr Tom Anderson
Tom Anderson (fiddler)
Dr. Tom Anderson MBE, was a renowned Shetland fiddler and teacher. He was affectionately known to his peers as "Muckle Tammie" .Dr...

, and was an influence on Aly Bain
Aly Bain
Aly Bain MBE is a Shetland fiddler who learned his instrument from the old-time master Tom Anderson. Bain is now considered one of the finest fiddlers in the Scottish tradition. In the early days of his career he formed part of the band The Humblebums with two other ‘unknowns’ Gerry Rafferty and...

 (fiddle) and Martin Taylor (guitar).

Johnson's childhood was plagued by ill health which interrupted his schooling; he left school without qualifications. However, he took up music after seeing a photograph of a ukelele-playing cowboy
Cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

. Starting on the instrument, he soon switched to the guitar, despite the fiddle's status as lead instrument in Shetland's folk music.

A meeting with Anderson in 1936 got him a job with the local Islesburgh Dance Band, then the biggest band on Shetland. Hearing Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang was an American jazz guitarist, regarded as the Father of Jazz Guitar. He played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.-Biography:...

 and Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

 on the radio, he adapted their guitar style to Shetland's music, creating a sound that sounded "like a bass and a guitar playing together" according to fellow musician and writer Archie Fisher
Archie Fisher
Archie Fisher MBE is a Scottish folk singer and song writer.-The early years:Archie Fisher was born in Glasgow on 23 October 1939 into a large singing family. His sister Cilla Fisher is also a professional singer, as was his late sister Ray. In 1960 he moved to Edinburgh and appeared regularly at...

. In his last years Fisher states that at one festival Johnson was surrounded by guitarists from around the world, listening to him play. "They were all sitting there like disciples," such was the respect that Johnson held in the folk music world.

Recordings

Johnson made recordings of his music (although never as a soloist), which can be found on anthologies such as Shetland Folk Fiddling, and on records and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

s by Aly Bain, who also featured him on his Aly Bain and Friends television programme.

External links

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