Lil' Choo-Choo Johnson, Bluesman — Bryan Krull

Earl "Lil' Choo-Choo" Johnson left home at the age of 10, with only his father's guitar, and stepped into the world of the Delta blues. A guitar prodigy, his music led him to play with blues legends like Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters. Lil' Choo-Choo's story is a history of the blues, from sharecroppers' shacks on Dockery's Plantation and whiskey-soaked juke joints in Depression-era Mississippi to the swinging clubs of post-war Memphis and Chicago. It encompasses the heyday of Delta blues, the birth of rock and roll, the British invasion, the blues revival of the 1960s, and beyond. Bryan Krull has been a history teacher for the past eight years at the high school and college level. He earned his Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as degrees from the University at Buffalo and the University at Albany (NY). He currently lives near Rochester, New York. Lil' Choo-Choo Johnson, Bluesman is his first novel.