**PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT** – Blackhouse Records
Please welcome Johnny J & the Flat Foot Floogies to Blackhouse.
In 1938, Slim Gaillard, Slam Stewart and Bud Green wrote the jazz song “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy) and performed it under the name “Slim & Slam”. The lyrics are brief and are dominated by the repetition of the title words and the nonsense refrain, “floy-doy, floy-doy, and floy-doy”. The original lyric, recorded in January 1938, was “flat foot floozie with a floy”; Vocalion, however, objected to the word “floozie”, meaning a sexually promiscuous woman, or a prostitute. The second recording in February changed the word to “floogie”. In the second part of the title phrase, “floy” was slang for a venereal disease, but the term was not widely known and failed to catch the attention of censors. It was regarded as nonsense and came to have positive connotations as a consequence of the song. It was a genius sidestepping in the early censorship of music, and the story remains obscure jazz legend.
Live music is inseparable to swing dancing – in the days when this genre was popular, there was a great connection between dancers and the bands that were playing for them. Erik & Jojo Johnson started the Flat Foot Floogies because they love listening and dancing to jump blues from the late ’40s and early ’50s. The Johnsons have worked hard to assemble a group of like-minded people who are not only musicians but enthusiasts of the genre, style, and overall vibe of the era. The band brings together five musicians from a variety of backgrounds; this is the first time any of them have formed a group like this.
With current and ex members of various west coast punk rock, jazz and blues bands, carrying an astounding and extensive eclectic musical background Erik “Johnny” Johnson, “Jojo” Johnson, Ryan “Smiley” White, Tyler “Tiny” Renninger, and Josh “Gorgeous” Borges complete the well-rounded lineup that is Johnny J & The Flat Foot Floogies. The music they play is about having fun. It’s about not taking life and ourselves too seriously. Instead, why not write songs about dancing, motorcycles, fish fry’s, and chickens … to name a few, and get a big breath of fresh air for once?
Several of the songs that JJ & the FFFs play were written by Johnny in the early 1990s and are just now being debuted for the first time. We here at BHHQ couldn’t be happier to have the honor of releasing this material for the first time. Soon to be released on a limited edition vinyl version and digital, the tracks, recorded live with no overdubs, have been mastered from the original reel-to-reel master tapes, and stands as only the third analog master in the 15 years of Blackhouse, showing true rarity in a world where digital recording is the norm in 2016.
Stay tuned for vinyl pre-order and digital release date announcements, along with show dates and other news along the way!