Johnny Powers

Rockabilly artist Johnny Powers' story is one of the more intriguing the genre has to offer. Born John Leon Joseph Pavlik in 1938 in East Detroit, MI, he was the oldest of five children. The family later moved to the small town of Utica, MI, north of Detroit, where he was raised. Pavlik was exposed to music from an early age by members of his father's family, which included several amateur and semi-professional musicians who played weddings and local dances. It was country music, however, that first drew Pavlik into music on a personal level; he discovered Lonnie Baron, a veteran country singer with a show on local radio and would listen and try to play along with a guitar that he'd bought for $2.50 from a neighbor. He later got some helpful instruction from Marvin Maynard, a professional musician who lived in Utica. In 1954, at age 16, Pavlik joined Jimmy Williams and the Drifters, a local country band that played at a local venue called Bill's Barn and got a featured radio spot on a radio station out of Marine City, MI. He also played on one single cut by the band, but it wasn't long before rock & roll attracted Pavlik. It was Jack Scott's single, "Baby She's Gone," that drew him into rock & roll. Courtesy of Jimmy Williams' brother Russ, Pavlik discovered Elvis Presley when he was still a Memphis-based phenomenon, and his current single was "Milk Cow Blues Boogie," which really interested him, as a country song with a rock & roll beat. Soon he was adding the beat to his own country songs, and in 1957, Johnny Powers, as he was now known, got an audition with Fortune Records in Detroit. He paid $100 for his own session to record a pair of songs, "Honey, Let's Go to a Rock and Roll Show" b/w "Your Love" on the Hi-Q label. A black deejay named Ernie Durham played his...