Sweet Hambone "Shorty" Johnson

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=80 BGCOLOR="#003366" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="id127.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Voodoo CDs"><U><B><IMG SRC="4b8c8500.jpg" border=0 width="200" height="80" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Voodoo DeVille Blues Band brings the"><U><B>home</B></U></A></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Arial" ><B>     </B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>|</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B> </B><B> </B><I><B> </B></I><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><I><B> </B></I></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Tahoma" >Voodoo DeVille </FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Stacks"><U><B>Stacks</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id112.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chicken Shack"><U><B>Chicken Shack</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Plowboy"><U><B>Plowboy</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><B>Sweet Hambone "Shorty" Johnson</B><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id81.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fat Bubba Puddin"><U><B>Fat Bubba Puddin'</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id79.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Keith Richard"><U><B>Keith Richard</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id100.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Voodettes"><U><B>The Voodettes</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id122.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jennifer Sweet Bottom Lopez"><U><B>Jennifer "Sweet Bottom" Lopez</B></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#003366" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> Sweet Hambone "Shorty" Johnson</div> <bR> <div> <I><B>VOCALS</B></I></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="12b78b40.jpg" border=0 width="120" height="180" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=400 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> No one knows where and when Sweet Hambone was born.  Rumor has it he was born into a sharecropping family in southern Mississippi, but it remains unconfirmed.  Sweet Hambone lived a hard life and had to fend for himself growing up.  As a teenager he was involved in some sort of street fight nearly every Saturday night.  In fact, he earned the nickname "Shorty" after an unfortunate injury suffered in a knife fight in Memphis.  As rough as Sweet Hambone lived, he could sing the blues sweeter than any man before or since.  He met Voodoo DeVille in West Helena, Arkansas.  Sweet Hambone had been thrown in jail for breaking a whiskey bottle over a policeman's head when the police attempted to break up a fight.  He ended up sharing a cell with Voodoo DeVille who had all been thrown in jail for vagrancy and indecent exposure earlier that night.</div> <bR> <div> Sweet Hambone and the boys talked through the night.  One thing led to another and they all agreed to meet at Miss Minnie's juke joint when they were released so that they could play a few songs together.  It didn't take long before Voodoo DeVille, with Sweet Hambone on lead vocals, was packing them in every night.  Miss Minnie gave them a place to stay in the shed out in the back in exchange for the increase in business.  Their success didn't last long however.  Sweet Hambone's fighting ways landed him in jail so often that it was impossible to play with any regularity.  Miss Minnie didn't take this for long and sent all of them packing.  Without any paying gigs, Sweet Hambone and Voodoo DeVille soon parted ways.  No one knows what ever happened to Sweet Hambone, although some claimed to have seen him in East St. Louis after the war.  Others say that he became so despondent over splitting up with Voodoo DeVille that he took up riding the rails as a hobo and died after drinking Sterno at a hobo camp in Nebraska and drowning in his own vomit.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>