Ken Johnson | |
|---|---|
 Johnson, late 1930s | |
| Born | Kenrick Reginald Hijmans Johnson 10 September 1914 |
| Died | 8 March 1941 (aged 26) Café de Paris, London, England |
| Other names | Snakehips |
| Occupation(s) | Swing band-leader; dancer |
Kenrick Reginald Hijmans Johnson (10 September 1914 – 8 March 1941), known as Ken "Snakehips" Johnson, was a swing band-leader and dancer. He was a leading figure in black British music of the 1930s and early 1940s before his death while performing at the Café de Paris, London, when it was hit by a German bomb in the Blitz during the Second World War.
Johnson was born in Georgetown, British Guiana (present-day Guyana). He showed some musical ability, but his early interest in a career in dancing displeased his father, who wished him to study medicine. He was educated in Britain, but instead of continuing on to university, he travelled to New York, perfecting dance moves and immersing himself in the vibrant jazz scene in Harlem. Tall and elegant, he modelled himself professionally on Cab Calloway. He returned to Britain and set up the Aristocrats (or Emperors) of Jazz, a mainly black swing band, with Leslie Thompson, a Jamaican musician. In 1937 he took control of the band through a renegotiated contract, resulting in the departure of Thompson and several musicians. Johnson filled the vacancies with musicians from the Caribbean; the band's popularity grew and its name changed to the West Indian Dance Orchestra.
From 1938 the band started broadcasting on BBC Radio, recorded their first discs and appeared in an early television broadcast. Increasingly popular, they were employed as the house band at the Café de Paris, an upmarket and fashionable nightclub located in a basement premises below a cinema. A German bombing raid on London in March 1941 hit the cinema, killing at least 34 and injuring dozens more. Johnson and one of the band's saxophonists were among those killed; several other band members were injured.
The West Indian Dance Orchestra were the leading swing band in Britain at the time, well-known and popular through their radio broadcasts, but their impact was more social than musical. As leader of a mainly black orchestra playing the most up-to-date music of the time, Johnson was seen as a pioneer for black musical leaders in the UK. When the band broke up after Johnson's death, the members had an impact on the nature and sound of British jazz. In 1940 Johnson had begun a relationship with Gerald Hamilton, a man twenty years his senior. After Johnson's death Hamilton never travelled without a framed photograph of him, always referring to him as "my husband".[1]
- ^ Cullen 2014, 2116.