Johnston, Randy
Johnston, Randy
Johnston, Randy, American guitarist; b. Detroit, Mich., 1956. He is a veteran sideman whose credentials include associations with Ira Sullivan, Delia Griffin, Lou Donaldson, Etta Jones, Houston Person, Sonny Fortune, Wayne Marsh, Lionel Hampton, and Jack McDuff. He-began playing guitar around 1970, studied jazz at the Univ. of Miami, and headed for N.Y. in 1981. There he played with a variety of musicians, even backing singers Irene Reid and Delia Griffin and others at various venues in uptown Harlem, where he dazzled with his blues- inflected playing. Etta Jones spotted him and recruited him for her Muse album, Sugar, a session in which Johnston impressed producer Houston Person to the extent that he hired Johnston to play on his albums Why Not! and The Party, which also featured organist Joey DeFrancesco. He appeared on a series of Muse albums including Jack McDuff ’s Another Real Good ’Un, and albums by Lionel Hampton, Delia Griffin, and Larry O’Neill, as well as his own albums. As a leader, he owes much to Grant Green, Kenny Burrell, and Wes Montgomery. He made a series of albums for Muse that are currently are out of print. A good, though not exceptional player, Johnston has taught at the Univ. of Hartford’s Hart School of Music since 1987. He also taught jazz and theory at the Brooklyn Cons, from 1982-87.
Discography
Walk On (1992); Jubilation (1992); In A- Chord (1994); Somewhere in the Night (1997).
—Paul MacArthur/Nancy Ann Lee