James “Super Chikan” Johnson
James “Super Chikan” Johnson (born February 16, 1951, Darling, Mississippi) is an American blues musician, based in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Super Chikan is a genuine, one of a kind, Mississippi blues man – a real Mississippi blues treasure. Johnson’s album for Bluestown Records, Chikadelic, is well awarded and a real gem. Super Chikan is the nephew of the late blues great Big Jack Johnson.
“Super Chikan” is among the foremost present-day exponents of the raw, uncut Delta blues sound.” He is a great entertainer and plays his own original catchy songs on his colorful
homemade guitars. A Super Chikan show is one thing that you don’t want to miss.
Super Chikan released the Blues Music Awards-winning album Chikadelic on Bluestown Records in 2009. It was recorded in Notodden, Norway‘s Juke Joint Studio. Super Chikan is perfectly backed on the album by Norway’s premier blues band Spoonful of Blues
Super Chikan was drawn to music at an early age creating his first guitar, a diddley bow, from a piece of bailing wire stretched on a board and moving up to a two-string acoustic at thirteen. Chikan came into his own at nineteen when he began playing bass in the juke joints with Big Jack Johnson.
Playing the blues came naturally for Chikan. His grandfather was a fiddler and his uncle, Big Jack Johnson, is a W. C. Handy Award-winning artist from Lambert, Mississippi perhaps best known for his work with Sam Carr and Frank Frost in their band the Jelly Roll Kings.
Super Chikan has achieved much success in his own career. Nominated for a W. C. Handy Award in the category of Best New Artist in 1998, he is the recipient of five Living Blues Awards and an Excellence in Performance Governor’s Award from Mexico City. He received a Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2004. In 2010 his album Chikadelic was awarded Traditional Blues Album Of The Year at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis, Tennessee. He was also nominated in the categories B.B. King Entertainer of the Year and Song Of The Year for the song “Fred’s Dollar Store”.
Super Chikan enjoys several kinds of music that are reflected in his own songs, and he is inspired by artists like Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Lightin’ Hopkins and Slim Harpo, but his style and delivery are uniquely his own. As a child at home, he learned to imitate the chickens’ clucks and cackles, sounds he incorporates into his performances and mimics on his guitar. It’s easy to enjoy Super Chikan’s music when he seems to be having such a good time with it himself. He is authentic, down to earth and completely unpretentious.
In 1997 he released his debut album, Blues Come Home to Roost. He went on to release What You See (2000), Shoot That Thang (2001), Chikan Supe (2005), Sum Mo Chikan (2007) and Chikadelic (2009). In the Clarksdale area, he is best-known for performing regularly at Morgan Freeman‘s Ground Zero blues club and for being Freeman’s favorite blues performer. James “Super Chikan” Johnson tours the USA and Europe on a regular basis.
