Living Blues Magazine to honor Mosley & Johnson Band

An Evening with Mosely and Johnson presented by Living Blues magazine and the Union County Heritage Museum will feature a presentation by Living Blues in honor of Sam Mosley and the late Bob Johnson.

The Friday, Nov. 12 event will begin as people gather at 6 p.m. with the presentations at 6:30 and live music at 7.  Food, drink and music are part of the event celebrating the living legacy of Mosley & Johnson.

The duo, Sam Mosley and Bob Johnson, recently profiled in Living Blues magazine by Scott Barretta, began their musical journey together in the mid-1960s.  They both grew up in or near New Albany, Mississippi, and played music individually before teaming up to form Mosley and Johnson.  Their sound evolved, as did the names of their group, into a solid rhythm and blues that has carried them throughout the world performing and recording.

In the 1980s and 90-s the blues duo were integral to Malaco Records and the Muscle Shoals Sound.  They wrote songs for Bobby Blu Bland, Johnny Taylor, Little Milton, Latimore, Dorothy Moore,  and Tyrone Davis.   And the duo toured Europe with other musicians from the Malaco label.

They were playing at a venue near Verona, Mississippi,  in August 1998, when Bob Johnson collapsed and died onstage at age 52.  Since that time Mosley and Johnson has continued play without Bob, but with his two brothers Willie and Miles.

A Mississippi Blues Trail Marker honoring Mosley and Johnson is located at the museum in New Albany, which is also near at their juke joint that they now use for practice.

The public is invited to the Friday, Nov. 12 event.  The museum is located at 114 Cleveland Street in New Albany, Mississippi 38652.  For more information call 662-538-0014 or email uchm@ucheritagemusuem.com.

Editor’s note: “Living Blues” The magazine of the African American Blues Tradition is a bi-monthly magazine focused on blues music, and America’s oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O’Neal and Amy van Singel as editors, and five others as writers. Wikipedia

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Jill Smith, Director

Union County Heritage Museum

114 Cleveland Street

New Albany, MS 38652