Obituary: Johnnie Johnson

Johnnie Johnson, jazz pianist, 80

Johnnie Johnson, the nimble pianist on Chuck Berry's 1950s and '60s classics and a Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame honoree in his own right, has died of unknown causes.

Johnson began playing piano as a child and was influenced by such jazzmen as Art Tatum, Earl "Fatha" Hines and Count Basie.

He served in the Marines during World War II and was a member of the Special Services Band. After the war, he played the Chicago clubs in the blues bands of Muddy Waters and Albert King.

In St Louis in 1952, Johnson began a musical partnership with Berry that ran for two decades.

He can be heard on Maybellene, which became Berry's first national hit for Chess Records in 1957.

Johnson's rolling, playful piano-playing, redolent of Basie's influence, ornamented such later teen-savvy Berry hits as Sweet Little Sixteen, School Days, Roll Over Beethoven, No Particular Place to Go and Johnny B. Goode, which was dedicated to Johnson.

Berry and Johnson split in 1973, but they reunited in 1986 for Berry's 60th birthday concert in St Louis, captured in Taylor Hackford's acerbic documentary Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll.

In the early 1990s, the pianist recorded a pair of well-received albums for Elektra's American Explorer series.

Johnson was inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001. In November of that year, he sued Berry for a share of his former bandmate's writing royalties. The suit was ultimately dismissed.