Doin’ it Old School: Band knows roots

By John Benson

Here’s a shocker for hip-hop fans.

“Oh, yeah, man, there was funk before Snoop Dogg,” said Warren native Billy Johnson, 57, who has spent the past four decades playing music around Northeast Ohio with his childhood friend Billy Beck, a two-time Grammy Award-winner with The Ohio Players.

Though early on the two musicians played with Rufus Thomas, Little Johnny Taylor and Ann Peebles, the veterans now play under the moniker Billy Johnson and the Old School Band featuring Billy Beck. In fact, the outfit has a Saturday show booked at the Lemon Grove.

“We’ve been together performing over in Warren for the African-American Festival for the last 10 years,” said Johnson, a 1971 Western Reserve High School graduate who works for the Warren YMCA. “We play a lot of R&B from the ’70s and ’80s, and also some smooth jazz. We play music from acts such as Earth Wind & Fire, The Isley Brothers, George Benson, Marvin Gaye, The Ohio Players and Parliament. We even play the slow jazz number ‘Bumpin’ on Sunset’ by Wes Montgomery.”

He added, “We love to provide good music for people that want to have a night out just reminiscing from the past. So it’s just to hear some good music for that night.”

In case you can’t tell, Billy Johnson and the Old School Band is a throwback to a different era. More so, similar to the jazz and blues stylings of Stage & Company, which from time to time can be found on the Lemon Grove stage, Johnson’s live show possesses an edifying quality that should attract different generations.

Johnson said though his audiences are often baby boomers looking to hear great songs of the ’70s and ’80s, he hopes more kids raised on hip-hop come out to hear the roots of their music.

“It’s for the younger crowd if they want to know how music was played at one time when music was not computerized,” Johnson said. “It was just a natural thing being played with instruments. So they’ll learn the way they take music nowadays and sample it, the age we come from everything was original then. It wasn’t like just samples and parts being played like young people do it now. They take one beat and just try to play that over and over all night long.”

Furthermore, the music veteran also feels as though funk music has a greater purpose that serves society.

“People love to hear this music because in those days, when it was played live, there was less violence in the community than there is now and music was the thing of bringing people together,” Johnson said. “It was something that they’d be able to talk about the next day after seeing the show because it brought joy to everyone’s hearts. Really, it still brings love, and that’s the universal language.”