What Happened? Brothers Johnson

The Brothers Johnson

The Brothers Johnson is a band consisting of American musicians and brothers George aka 'Lightnin' Licks' and Louis E. Johnson aka 'Thunder Thumbs'.

Guitarist/vocalist George and bassist/vocalist Louis formed the band Johnson Three Plus One with older brother Tommy, and their cousin Alex Weir, while attending school in Los Angeles, California. When they became professionals, the band backed such touring R&B acts as Bobby Womack and the Supremes. George and Louis Johnson later joined Billy Preston's band, and wrote Music in My Life and The Kids and Me for him before leaving his group in 1973.

In 1976, The Brothers covered the Beatles' song, Hey Jude, for the ephemeral musical documentary All This and World War II.

Quincy Jones hired them to play on his LP Mellow Madness, and recorded four of their songs, including Is It Love That We're Missing? and Just a Taste of Me.

After touring with various artists like Bobby Womack and Billy Preston, they were hired by Quincy Jones for a tour in Japan and produced their debut album Look Out For #1, released in March 1976 (#9 U.S.) They album spawned several hits “Get the Funk Out Ma Face” was co-written with Quincy Jones. “I’ll Be good to You”. The album reached number one on the R&B soul chart.

Their sophomore album Right On Time album was released in May 1977 and reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 200 and number 2 on the R&B/Soul chart. They received a Grammy for their song “Q”. The song “Strawberry Letter 23” reached number 1 on the R&B/Soul chart and number 5 on the Pop chart.

Two of the duo's songs were featured on the soundtrack of the 1976 film Mother, Jugs & Speed. The instrumental track Thunder Thumbs and Lightnin' Licks refers to the brothers' nicknames.  

Blam!! came out in August 1978 and reached number 7 on the Billboard 200 and number 1 on the R&B/Soul chart. Although no single cracked the top ten.

Their popular album Light Up The Night was released in March 1980 and rose to number 5 on the Billboard 200. It became The Brothers Johnson third number 1 R&B/Soul chart topper. The Single “Stomp” landed at the top of both soul and dance charts. It was number 46 on the "Top 100 LPs of 1980" list in Rolling Stone Magazine.

The subsequent album, Winners, was self-produced by the brothers and released in July 1981, but was less successful, going only as high as number 48 on the Billboard 200.

The duo split up in 1982 resulting in brief solo careers for the brothers.

They started doing separate ventures; Louis Johnson played bass on Michael Jackson's Thriller and recorded a gospel music album in 1981 with his own group Passage, which included his then-wife Valerie Johnson and former Brothers Johnson percussionist/singer, Richard Heath.

George Johnson had ad-libbed vocals on the track "Think Back And Remember" from the Galaxian album by the Jeff Lorber Fusion, released in 1981 on Arista Records.

The brothers reunited briefly in 1984 to record an album. Produced by Leon Sylvers, the resulting LP, Out of Control did not equal their past success, but did garner them another R&B hit with "You Keep Me Coming Back."

Louis recorded a single in 1985 called "Kinky," released on Capitol Records. The track appears on his Evolution album, which was released that same year only in Europe. Louis then started to register his bass skills on video, and accomplished about 3 instructional lesson-tapes for the Starlicks video-distribution company, from which the first release was also in 1985.

George Johnson released one single in 1985, titled "Back Against The Wall," on Quincy Jones' own Qwest label. There seems to be a complete album (recorded but unreleased) from that recording session

George delivered guitar work for Steve Arrington's album Dancing In The Key Of Life (1985)

After an interim period, the duo regrouped again to record Kickin' in 1988. The album-title of the Kickin project was a collaboration with Irene Cara, who was then their neighbor. Although this album saw even more limited success, it did include the minor hit, "Kick it to the Curb."

In 1989, the band's song "Tomorrow" (originally an instrumental on the B-side of "Get The Funk Out Ma Face") was recorded with vocals sung by Tevin Campbell for Quincy Jones' Back on the Block release. This album also included Jones' hit remake of the Brothers Johnson's "I'll Be Good to You," featuring Ray Charles and Chaka Khan. Quincy Jones was working on his album Back On The Block, and decided to re-record this song with Chaka Khan. During the session, Jones' friend Ray Charles called Quincy and asked him to contribute vocals. The song was credited to "Quincy Jones featuring Ray Charles and Chaka Khan," and hit #21 in the UK and #18 in the US, where it also hit the top of the R&B charts for 2 weeks. It went on to win the 1990 Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal and the album Back On The Block won the 1990 Grammy for Album Of The Year.

Louis Johnson continued this initiative by starting his bass academy during the 1990s and giving workshop clinics to this day, via his own website.

Beside a brief appearance of the brothers in Japan around 1994, and George making a guest-appearance in the 1990s on a concert in Japan (including a released double-CD) of the Graham Central Station, the duo launched an expanded US tour in 2002 which got positive, wide exposure. It was visited by many fans and various artists in the entertainment business. Along with a website and discussion-forum, online visitors could share their experiences of the shows by reliving the hey-days of Funkadelala and wander through the Land of Ladies. A few years after that, a combi-release of live-CD + DVD came on the market under the name of Strawberry Letter 23: Live.

In 1995 Quincy Jones recorded another two Brothers Johnson tunes; “Is it love we’ve Missing” & “Stomp” for his critical acclaimed album Q’s Jook Joint.

Until recently, the brothers have been doing performances on their own. In 2006, Louis gave a duo-show with a drummer, on the Poetry In Motion 1 Festival, Maryland.

 In late 2007, George performed with his own band at a Detroit-Festival, including a persona called Sir Nose. George also performs these days with a special band, including Adina Howard, Cherrelle, Ray Parker Jr., and a few more artists, which is an initiative of Michael Henderson.