Johnny Dyer is one of those guys who is so steady, and has been doing what he does for so well for so long, that he's sometimes overlooked. But don't take Johnny for granted - he's one of the truly great harp players of his generation, the generation that came out of heyday of the blues harp in the 1950s. Born in Mississippi in 1938, and having spent some of his formative years on Stovall's Plantation in Rolling Fork (also home of Muddy Waters), early on Johnny absorbed the subtlety of phrasing and easy swinging chops that are at the core of all the great blues harp players.

These elemental qualities were ingrained so early that they're completely automatic and natural in Johnny's playing, but often take later generations of harp players a lifetime of study to get a handle on - if they ever grasp them at all. Add to that a voice as rich as Mississippi mud, and you've got a bluesman who is about as heavy as they come these days.

Even with these deep roots and surplus of natural talent, Johnny has spent most of his life as a strictly local, part-time player in the L.A. area, where he relocated in the late 1950s. After testing the waters by leading his own band through the early '60s, he eventually took a day job to support himself until the 1990s. But over the last decade he's released a series of well-received CDs on labels such as Black Top and Blind Pig, and he earned a prestigious W.C. Handy Award nomination for "Blues Song Of The Year" for the title cut of his CD release on the Storyville label, "Hard Times Won".  Now a charter member of The Mannish Boys, Johnny is featured with the band live and on record on some of their deepest blues material, often paying tribute to his two early inspirations, Muddy Waters and Chicago blues harp icon Little Walter.