‘Guitar Junior’ keeps enthusiastic crowd sweltering

Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson knows exactly what to do when the blues keep following him around. He takes to the guitar and gets it all out Chicago-style. It’s steamy, sticky, dripping music that puts a frenzy in your head and mojo in your feet.

An old smoothie at the blues, Johnson brought a sweltering concert to Ellsworth’s Grand Auditorium Friday, when he performed with his unstoppable band, the Magic Rockers.

“Do you love the blues?” he called out to a near full house that covered just about every age group.

In the form of whistles, cheers, wahoos, shimmying hips and above-the-head claps, the answer was a definite yes.

So Johnson played the blues for two hours. And all the old lines were there:

You made me love you baby.

I been lovin’ you for so long.

I’m a love mechanic.

The woman I love has got long black curly hair.

Big fat momma.

I’m a man.

Fever.

Most everybody in the audience grooved in their seats. Others gave in to the irrepressible danceability of the music and shook the blues out. Whether the song was “A Pretty Girl (A Cadillac and Some Money)” or “It’s Good to Me,” Johnson transformed the Grand into a smoky dance-hall scene.

He is feeling particularly light these days, he said, because he had just been to Chicago, where he divorced his wife of 28 years. “I lost 145 pounds,” he teased while he warmed up with one of two electric guitars he played that night.

Wearing white trousers, a black shirt, gold necklaces, black-and-white wingtips and a white hat, Johnson was looking good, too. Everything about his personal style said “cool,” and if any old-time blues man can get away with that, it’s Guitar Junior.

It’s no secret that Johnson capitalizes on his history of touring with blues great Muddy Waters. Waters’ name was brought up more than once by Johnson and front man-keyboardist Eric “Two Scoops” Moore. There’s no real need anymore to make so much of the association — except perhaps for a bit of sweet nostalgia.

But Johnson’s music stands on its own. Which is to say nothing of the down-home feel he brings to gigs. During an intermission, he and his musicians talked with folks outside while they cooled off from the humidity generated in the auditorium. During the concert, he smiled heartily at the crowd, and gave out autographs after the show.

And a final insider’s note: For those who might have read the preview article this newspaper (and this reporter) offered last week, suffice it to say that the flirtatious Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson did, indeed, put the “b” in bullarky. We exchanged a polite, professional greeting. I said, “Hi, I’m the reporter you spoke to last week.” He said, “Oh” and went back to signing CDs.