Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
All Music Guide:
Johnnie Allan's been a prominent Cajun performer since his teens, when joined accordionist Lawrence Walker's band as a steel guitarist. When the band split, Allan teamed with pianist/fiddler U.J. Meaux, producer Huey Meaux's cousin, in the Krazy Kats, a rock band. Allan continued singing rock and roll and R&B in the late '50s and early '60s. He alternated between music and education for a while, at one point even becoming principal of an elementary school. But his popularity soared when his Cajun-flavored cover of Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" became a hit. Allan's style mixes rock flamboyance with Cajun authenticity, and has been featured on many regional labels.
Wikipedia:
Johnnie Allan, real name John Allen Guillot, is a pioneer of the swamp pop musical genre.
Born March 10, 1938, in Rayne, Louisiana, 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, and in doing so helped to pioneer what became known as swamp pop music.
That same year he recorded "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights" for the Jin label of Ville Platte, Louisiana, and the song became a swamp pop classic.
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 well over a dozen 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.
