Ken "Snakehips" Johnson

British jazz band leader and dancer

Kenrick Reginald Hijmans Johnson (10 September 1914 – 8 March 1941), known as Ken "Snakehips" Johnson, was a swing band leader and dancer. He was a leading figure in black British music of the 1930s and early 1940s before his death while performing at the Café de Paris, London, when it was hit by a German bomb in the Blitz during the Second World War. Johnson was born in Georgetown, British Guiana (present day Guyana). He showed some musical ability, but his early interest in a career in dancing displeased his father, who wished him to study medicine. He was educated in Britain, but instead of continuing on to university, he travelled to New York, perfecting dance moves and immersing himself in the vibrant jazz scene in Harlem. Tall and elegant, he modelled himself professionally on Cab Calloway. He returned to Britain and set up the Aristocrats (or Emperors) of Jazz, a mainly black swing band, with Leslie Thompson, a Jamaican musician. In 1937 he took control of the band through a legal loophole, resulting in the departure of Thompson and several musicians. Johnson filled the vacancies with musicians from the Caribbean; the band's popularity grew and its name changed to the West Indian Dance Orchestra. From 1938 the band started broadcasting on BBC Radio, recorded their first discs and appeared in an early television broadcast. Increasingly popular, they were employed as the house band at the Café de Paris, an upmarket and fashionable nightclub located in a basement premises below a cinema. A German bombing raid on London in March 1941 hit the cinema, killing at least 34 and injuring dozens more. Johnson and one of the band's saxophonists were among those killed; several other band members were injured. The West Indian Dance Orchestra were the leading swing band in Britain at the time, well known and popular through their radio broadcasts, but their impact was more social than musical. As leader of a mainly black orchestra playing the most up to date music of the time, Johnson was seen as a pioneer for black musical leaders in the UK. When the band broke up after Johnson's death, the members had an impact on the nature and sound of British jazz. In 1940 Johnson had begun a relationship with Gerald Hamilton, a man twenty years his senior. After Johnson's death Hamilton never travelled without a framed photograph of him, always referring to him as "my husband".

Kenrick Reginald Hijmans Johnson was born in Georgetown, British Guiana (present day Guyana), on 10 September 1914. His parents were Dr Reginald Fitzherbert Johnson, a doctor and medical officer of health from British Guiana, and Anna Delphina Louisa Hijmans, a nurse from Dutch Guiana (now Suriname). His uncle was the pianist Oscar Dummett. Johnson appeared in a comb and paper band at his Georgetown school, Queen's College, and played the violin. His early interest in dancing was opposed by his father, who considered a future in the medical profession more appropriate for his son. To give him a British education and to further the possibility of a medical career, Kenrick was sent to the UK at the age of 14—arriving at Plymouth on 31 August 1929—for schooling at Sir William Borlase's Grammar School near Marlow, Buckinghamshire. He played cricket and football at the school; as a tall boy—he was eventually 6 feet (2 m)—he was an excellent goalkeeper. He also played the violin in the school chapel, and danced for his friends. On leaving school in 1931, Johnson studied law at the University of London, but gave up to work as a dancer. He worked with travelling revue troupes and took professional lessons. His main influence was Buddy Bradley, a well known African American dancer and choreographer who ran a dance school in the West End of London. Through Bradley's influence, Johnson was recorded in 1934 for the film Oh, Daddy!, and in December 1934 he travelled to Trinidad. He toured the Caribbean, dancing on stage, before moving on to the US, where he visited Harlem, New York. He spent his time in the US honing his tap dancing skills, and studying the styles of the local African American dancers. According to Val Wilmer, the writer on jazz, it was here that he "learnt to wind his hips in the suggestive manner that his nickname implied". According to Andrew Simons, Head of Music at the British Library, it is likely that Johnson also saw the act of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who performed a "stair dance" that was well known on the New York vaudeville stage. Johnson met Fletcher Henderson, who encouraged him in a future band leading career and allowed him to conduct his orchestra. While in the US he featured in two short films. He appeared on stage in August 1935 for a one night performance in British Guiana; posters advertised him as "Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson, Direct in from Hollywood after contract with Warner Bros. Studios". He returned to Britain in 1936.

Johnson's experiences in Harlem motivated him to start his own swing band. According to Wilmer, British dance bands of the time "were technically proficient but generally lacked the ability then to 'swing' like African Americans". Johnson saw his music in "the context of black internationalism and Pan Africanism that shaped London in the 1930s". Wanting to model himself on the entertainer bandleader model, such as the American Cab Calloway—an elegant figure who led his swing orchestra in tails—Johnson began to build an all black band. In 1936 he teamed up with the Jamaican trumpeter Leslie Thompson to form an all black jazz band, the Aristocrats (or Emperors) of Jazz, sometimes the "Jamaican Emperors", who made their debut that April. Thompson was the musical leader of the band. Wanting to achieve the same sounds as the American big bands, he said "I made them rehearse to get that lift that Jimmie Lunceford and [Duke] Ellington were getting on their records"; he described Johnson as "a stick wagger—he was no musician". While Johnson left the musical practice for Thompson to direct, he rehearsed his showmanship and dance moves. On saxophone the band included three Jamaicans (Bertie King, Louis Stephenson and Joe Appleton) and Robert Mumford Taylor, who was of Sierra Leonean descent. Thompson was joined on trumpet by the Trinidadian Wally Bowen, the Jamaican Leslie "Jiver" Hutchinson and Arthur Dibbin, who was born in South Wales of West African descent. On double bass they employed either the South African Bruce Vanderpoye or Abe "Pops" Clare from the Caribbean. Yorke de Souza, a Jamaican, was the pianist; Joe Deniz, who was born in South Wales of a father from the Cape Verde Islands, was the guitarist. As Thompson could not find suitable black trombonists, he employed Reg Amore and Freddie Greenslade, both of whom were white but would wear blackface to ensure the band were seen as an all black ensemble. Although the group struggled financially when they first started, they soon built a reputation and following. First performing in cinemas in outer London from April 1936, the band toured Britain, appearing on the variety circuit. Towards the end of 1936 Johnson and the band were recruited for a residency as the house band at the Old Florida club in Old Bruton Mews, Mayfair for a six week trial—with an associated income of four or five times more than most night club bands. Johnson received £20 a week; the others a little less, but all did well at a time when the average wage was £5 a week. In February 1937 Johnson and his manager, Ralph Deene, renegotiated the band's contract with the club in their names, omitting Thompson from the contract, effectively taking ownership of the orchestra. Thompson left, taking several members loyal to him. To fill the gaps in the orchestra, Johnson recruited four musicians he knew from Trinidad: the saxophonists George Roberts and Dave "Baba" Williams; Dave Wilkins on trumpet and Carl Barriteau on clarinet, although several of those who left returned over time. With Thompson gone from the band, Hutchinson took over the role of musical leader. The band continued performing at the Old Florida Club and began taking day time stage work. They were soon scouted at the Shepherd's Bush Empire by Leslie Perowne of the BBC's Variety Department. This led to their first radio broadcast on 11 January 1938 for a 30 minute segment on the BBC Regional Programme. It was the first of 43 broadcasts they were to make. The following month they recorded their first discs, "Goodbye" and "Remember", although neither was issued. In July that year they recorded their first releases, "Washington Squabble" and "Please be Kind". Johnson and the West Indian Dance Orchestra, as the band were now known, appeared in an early television broadcast on the BBC in either 1938 or 1939. Towards the end of 1938 Johnson began making plans for an overseas tour, focused on Scandinavia and the Netherlands; he also planned to attend the 1939 New York World's Fair, appearing in the West Indian section. The outbreak of the Second World War curtailed these plans. In 1939 the band appeared as a backing orchestra for the film Traitor Spy. Johnson did not appear in the film, and his post as band leader was taken by "Jiver" Hutchinson. In April 1939 the band began a residence at a new club, Willerby's. As well as providing a show for the audience, they played music for dancing. The music magazine Melody Maker considered that the move to music for dancing was advantageous for the band as "their music has a dance inducing quality which cannot fail to please, while, as an entertaining unit, the band ranks high". Due to the threat of bombing, Willerby's closed in October 1939, but the band were in demand and began an engagement at the Café de Paris, an upmarket nightclub in Coventry Street, London. The band's popularity rose, as did their profile: the Café de Paris was equipped to broadcast on the BBC, and they regularly performed on radio across the UK. The demand for their employment was aided by British musicians being conscripted for war service, which the largely West Indian orchestra were not. In 1940 Johnson began a relationship with Gerald Hamilton, a man twenty years his senior; the couple lived for a while in Kinnerton Street, Belgravia. When the Blitz started, they took a cottage in Bray, Berkshire, on the banks of the River Thames, and Johnson would commute into London to perform, returning to Bray to arrive in the early hours of the morning. According to Tom Cullen, Hamilton's biographer, Johnson:

was amused by Gerald's Edwardian airs and malicious anecdotes and considered him to be 'a real cool cat'; while Gerald, for his part, undertook to educate Ken's palate in the mysteries of wine ('I can conceive no greater pleasure than that of instructing a willing pupil in the glories of a worthwhile cellar', as Gerald expresses it)."