Johnny La Rosa’s story begins in the late 1970s’ when with his rock – band the “No Quarter” he held a series of concerts at many typical rock events and gatherings of the period: at that time Johnny was 17 years old. The audience was immediately impressed by his stage-keeping and his effortless interpretation of songs by Otis Redding, Rolling Stones and period classics.
In the mid-1980s’ Johnny shifted his artistic expression toward those authors who attracted him most such as Willy De Ville, Springsteen and Van Morrison and thus founded the “B-Movie,” a band with which he was able to broaden his range by playing in clubs around Italy.
In the early 1990s,after leaving the “B-Movie” due to musical differences, he decided to perform solo, guitar and vocals, touring clubs as a folk-singer performing songs ranging from Dylan to Springsteen to blues masters such as John Lee Hooker.This is the period in which Johnny finally matured his musical identity.
After an interlude with the cover band “The Mambo Killers,” in the mid-1990s he was called to sing in a band composed of Mel Previte, “Rigo” Righetti, Robby Pellati (who are the current band of Luciano Ligabue), Max Marmiroli (founder of Rocking Chairs), and Johnny’s musical character was definitely consolidated with the meeting of these musicians, with whom he recorded for Sony the compilation A tribute for you dedicated to B. Springsteen and later another compilation also for Sony This is my story tribute to the blues edited by Ernesto De Pascale.
At the end of the 1990s came the final turning point: the meeting with musicians Oscar Abelli, Martin Jotti, Paolo Campioli and Max Marmiroli led him to decide to write an album of his own, original songs, where all his expressive and compositional skills were fully developed.Also crucial was the meeting with the Kayman Records label (supported by the production of Americans David Butterfield and Marc Wool), which convinced Johnny to put his first work on the market.
In the album, entitled Call me Johnny, stands out above all the musical culture of Johnny and his musicians, who through the elaboration of sounds and arrangements have managed to create a musical discourse that is rooted in American music but at the same time takes an absolutely innovative form characteristic of the musical expressiveness of Johnny La Rosa, thus a record imbued with the soul necessary to bring the listener to an emotional involvement.