Johnnie Allan

**Johnnie Allan** (born John Allen Guillot, March 10, 1938) is an American pioneer of the swamp pop musical genre.

Born in Rayne, Louisiana, United States, Allan, a Cajun, grew up in a musical family, and at age six obtained his first guitar. By age thirteen he was playing with Walter Mouton and the Scott Playboys, a traditional Cajun music band. About two years later he switched to Lawrence Walker and the Wandering Aces, another traditional Cajun band.

In 1956, he saw Elvis Presley perform live on the Louisiana Hayride music program, and shortly afterwards Allan began to play rock and roll music. In 1958, he left Walker to form the Krazy Kats. That same year he recorded "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights" for Jin Records of Ville Platte, Louisiana. He later recorded for Mercury Records and the Viking label of Crowley, Louisiana, among others.

He returned to the Jin label in the early 1970s and went on to record many notable swamp pop tunes, including his versions of Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" and Merle Haggard's "Somewhere on Skid Row".

A perennial favorite of swamp pop fans globally, Allan has performed in Europe many times. He is author of two music-related books, Memories: A Pictorial History of South Louisiana Music (1988) and Born to Be a Loser (1992, with Bernice Larson Webb), a biography of swamp pop musician Jimmy Donley.

A retired educator, he lives in Lafayette, Louisiana.

## Links to Kershaw

Kershaw often cites the best cover version he's heard is Johnnie Allan's cover of Chuck Berry's Promised Land. In the No Off Switch blogsite, published on January 2013, he explains why he loves the track:

> *"Johnnie Allan cut this swamp pop cover of Chuck Berry’s finest song in 1974, and damn near bettered it. (Alas, he misses out a whole verse and fluffs the words near the end. Quite an omission when it’s the song of a linear journey!) But what lifts this version into greatness is its drive, and the belching accordian break from cajun musician, Belton Richard.*
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> *Remarkably, it was recorded as an afterthought at the end of a routine session at Floyd Soileau’s studio, out the back of his electrical shop in Ville Platte, rural Louisiana. When I first visited Floyd, he brought the quarter inch master tape of this track out of his safe and let me touch it. Johnnie Allan was a local headmaster and part-time singer. I met him when a bunch of pals and I followed the route of the song for a holiday in 1987.*
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> *Chuck Berry wrote Promised Land in 1964. Although the greatest road song ever written – the story of “the poor boy” leaving his home (and poverty) in Norfolk, Virginia, on the east coast of the USA, and making his way across the then segregated south to California, the promised land – Berry never made the trip himself. He wrote it using a road atlas"* [1]
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## Shows Played

   1986
* 03 April 1986: Promised Land
* 12 April 1986 (Saturday Live): Promised Land (LP - Johnnie Allan Sings) Jin
* 02 October 1986 (& Brendan Croker & The 5 O'Clock Shadows): Promised Land (live in session)
* 05 November 1986 (John Peel): South To Louisiana (LP - South To Louisiana) Jin

1993
* 17 April 1993: Promised Land (v/a CD - Another Saturday Night (Classic Recordings From The Louisiana Bayous)) Ace

2021
* Andy Kershaw Podcast Episode 4: Promised Land (v/a CD - Another Saturday Night (Classic Recordings From The Louisiana Bayous)) Ace

## External Links

* Wikipedia
* Discogs