Published in Indie Music Magazine (http://indiemusicmagazine.net) March 2008

By Sean David Hobbs

Local legend Fred Johnson was born in 1953 and raised in New Orleans' 7th Ward. As a youngster Johnson had the chance to see a friend mask on Mardi Gras with the Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indian tribe. Johnson says that his friend's suit,"...just bit me."From that point on he knew he wanted to mask as a Mardi Gras Indian. [...]

At that time, in 1967, there was a lot of generational masking and dancing being done by the Allison "Tootie" Montana's Yellow Pocahontas tribe. Fathers had been dancing with Tootie Montana for years and now their sons were following their father's footsteps.

Fred Johnson became part of the new generation as a "Spy Boy"(an important position in a Mardi Gras Indian Tribe) for Tootie's Yellow Pocahontas tribe. Victor Harris (the current chief of the Fi-Yi-Yi tribe) was also part of this new generation of the Yellow Pocahontas.

Tootie Montana and Fred Johnson developed a very close relationship based on Johnson organizing the Yellow Pocahontas music practices, "He and I created a real kinship based around the fact that if I told him I would do something I would do it."While Fred was active as a Mardi Gras Indian (1968-1985), the Yellow Pocahontas Tribe had many phenomenal practices.

By 1985 Fred Johnson saw the culture changing. Some of elderly men began dying off and the younger men had a different mentality,they didn't finish their suits and they traded with each other.Fred decided he wanted to focus his time and energy on his profession.

Believing that,"A man's work is his salvation."Johnson began to work at the Neighborhood Development Foundation of New Orleans in 1986. The Neighborhood Development Foundation shows renters how to become property owners. In describing his work Johnson quotes Malcolm X,"Land is the bases of all independence." and states that without land a person always has a landlord's foot on his neck."

Johnson's second foray into the Jazz street culture of New Orleans would not begin until 1994. In that year Danny Barker - legendary founder of The Fairview Baptist Church's Brass Band - died and was given a Jazz Funeral by many of his old students. Danny Barker's Jazz Funeral was a such a powerful gathering that Greg Stanford, Benny Jones (of the Treme Brass Band) and Fred Johnson decided over a bowl of red beans and rice to put on a yearly second line parade which would live up to the jazz parading traditions Danny Barker had fought so long to uphold. Johnson, Stanford, and Jones formed the Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club and had their first parade in 1994.

The Black Men of Labor have grown into a New Orleans tradition. The Black Men of Labor always parade on Labor Day Weekend and are always the first jazz parade of the new season. They also expect that dancers and musicians come to the parade dressed respectfully.

Fred Johnson believes that the artist's job is understanding what he calls,The Wheel"."We didn't invent the wheel. The wheel has already been in motion. All I am doing is cleaning up the wheel and maybe adding a spoke in it but that is all I am doing and I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. Someday, somebody else is going to come in behind me and maybe change all the spokes in the wheel, but they'll still be standing on my shoulders and the shoulders I'm standing on."

FINI