Macon Magazine

DECEMBER/JANUARY 2013 MACON MAGAZINE I 27 Macon has produced more than its share of legendary musicians. But guitarist Johnny Jenkins stands out not only for his dazzling instrumental technique, unique voice and onstage theatrics, but also for the outsized influence he exerted on American music while never straying far from his Macon home. From Otis Redding to Jimi Hendrix, Jenkins' presence helped shape the careers of legendary music stars. His recent induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame was well deserved and undeniably overdue. "If anybody deserves to be in the hall of fame in Georgia, it's Johnny," award-winning musician and producer Paul Hornsby said, sitting behind the control board at his Muscadine Studio on Vineville Avenue. "He's one of the pioneers." "e first time I saw Johnny playing with (his band) e Pinetoppers, it was through a window when they were playing outside of a fraternity house in Alabama," Hornsby said, "and Johnny was doing some crazy stuff, playing Chuck Berry lines on the guitar behind his head. is was in 1963. en in 1967, I was in California and the talk of the Monterey Pop Festival – which had just happened – was about this guy – Jimi Hendrix, it turned out – who turned the guitar around and played Johnny B. Goode behind his head, and I said 'wait a minute, what are the odds of this happening?' " As Hornsby found out in 1969 when he moved to Macon to work at Capricorn Records and finally had the opportunity to meet Jenkins in person, the odds were better than he could have imagined. As a boy, James Hendrix – later Jimi – had visited family in Macon during his summer vacations, and had met Jenkins and heard the older boy play the guitar, as Hornsby recalled. "One day, I was recording with Johnny and I said 'Johnny, I want to get it right from the horse's mouth: did Jimi Hendrix ever watch you play? Did you ever teach him anything?" Hornsby said. "And he said, 'Oh yeah, blessed' – Johnny called everybody blessed – 'His auntie lived here in Macon, and he would come to visit. He was just a boy. He used to see me play out near Sawyer Lake. And the next thing I know, he was doing all of my stuff.' " Aside from Jenkins' theatrics, it's easy to imagine a young Hendrix transfixed by Jenkins' singular guitar style, and the future rock star wasn't the only one. In Candice Dyer's book "Street Singers, Soul Shakers, Rebels with a Cause: Music from Macon" Macon bluesman and former Otis Redding guitarist Eddie Kirkland said: "Other people need electronics, but Johnny didn't need no wah-wah pedal to make that special 'woo-woo' sound come out a guitar. He played beautiful guitar." "He had his own sound," Hornsby said. "It was a clean, organic, guitar-through-an-amp style." by matt miller Photography courtesy Georgia Music Hall of Fame Archives

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