FAIRMONT —
Marion County has a lot to remember. Over her long and eventful history, she has seen stores, shops and schools come and go.
She’s seen ordinary and extraordinary men alike mining beneath the mountains, working for a better world on the surface and building their way to the heavens. Her experiences come together in a symphony, telling a tale as naturally as ringing a bell.
Then again, maybe Marion County’s story is best told with the chords pounding out of a blues or boogie-woogie-style piano. That’s how Johnnie Johnson’s story — the story of the Father of Rock and Roll — goes.
“I’ll start the story there,” said Frances Johnson, his widow, “in Fairmont, West Virginia.”
When Johnson was growing up, she said, white kids and black kids just didn’t do things together, and that included school. Johnson attended Dunbar, an all-grade black school in Fairmont.
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Related Photos
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Johnnie Johnson is all smiles as he plays with one of the acts at the Johnnie Johnson Blues and Jazz Festival in this file photo. Johnson passed away in 2005 at the age of 80. PHOTO BY TAMMY SHRIVER
Mountain man
Fairmont’s Johnnie Johnson never left the mountains behind
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