Case, Johnny, 1947-

Johnny Case was born on August 24, 1947 in Fort Worth, Texas to J.C. and Floy Case. Both parents were songwriters and his father, J.C., played mandolin in a string band. His older brother Jerry played the guitar. He began performing as a child in the mid-1950s at the Red River Jamboree in Paris, Texas. Johnny became interested in modern jazz around the age of 12/13. In the 1960s, he played piano for a number of western bands and in 1966 played his first jazz gig with the Adrian Watts Trio at Texas Hotel, Escape Club in Fort Worth, Texas. He continued to perform with a variety of people around the Dallas-Fort Worth area throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974, he founded PRIORITY Label for self-producing jazz albums. In September of 1983, Johnny started playing jazz as the house pianist at Sardines Ristorante Italiano. He played at Sardines until its closing in 2011. Johnny Case has recorded a number of albums including Contrasts in Jazz (1974); Jazz Potpourri (1978); Creative Explosions (1981); Just A Case of Love (1991); Waiting for the Moment (2004); Love’s Bitter Rage (2005); and The Priority Recordings (2015). As of 2018, Johnny Case is still performing jazz in the DFW area. -- from the Johnny Case Papers, Fort Worth Public Library