Johnny Rebel (singer)

This article is about the American country singer Johnny Rebel. For the national personification of the Confederate States of America soldier, see Johnny Reb. For other uses of the term Johnny Rebel or Johnny Reb, see Johnny Reb (disambiguation).

Johnny Rebel
Birth name	Clifford Joseph Trahan
Also known as	Tommy Todd Jericho Jones Johnny "Pee Wee" Blaine Johnny "Pee Wee" Trayhan Johnny "Pee Wee" Trahan Filthy McNasty
Born	(1938-09-25)September 25, 1938 Moss Bluff, Louisiana, United States
Origin	Crowley, Louisiana, United States
Died	Rayne, Louisiana, United States
Genres	Country White power music Rockabilly swamp pop
Occupation(s)	Singer, Songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1958–2014
Labels	Reb Rebel, Zynn, Todd, Flyright, Viking, Ringo, WOW, X-Rated, Wildwood, Master-Trak, AggWood, Try It Man, Johnny Rebel
Associated acts	Pee Wee Whitewing & The Country Boys Johnny Blaine & Cross Country, Alex Bertrand, Al Foreman, Abe Manuel, Bobby McBride, Warren Storm, Alton Thibodeaux, Rufus Thibodeaux, Pee Wee Whitewing

Clifford Joseph Trahan (October 3, 1938 – September 3, 2016), best known as Johnny Rebel and also as Pee Wee Trahan, was a Cajun white power country musician. Trahan used the Johnny Rebel name most notably on recordings issued in the 1960s on J. D. "Jay" Miller's Reb Rebel label of Crowley, Louisiana.

After retiring in 2003, Trahan claimed that he "just did it for the money" and that he "didn't set out to spread hate or start trouble". He said, "At that time, there was a lot of resentment – whites toward blacks and blacks toward whites. So, everybody had their own feelings. Lots of people changed their feelings over the years. I basically changed my feelings over the years up to a point."

Career

His songs frequently use the word nigger and often voice sympathy for Jim Crow-era segregation, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Confederate States of America.

Trahan first recorded under the Johnny Rebel name in the mid-1960s. He employed J. D. "Jay" Miller's recording studio in Crowley, Louisiana. Miller, in fact, produced the sessions and issued the recordings on his own Reb Rebel label.

Trahan's first release—the fifth for the Reb Rebel label—was a 45 RPM single of "Lookin' for a Handout" and "Kajun Ku Klux Klan". He would record many more singles for the label, "Nigger, Nigger", "In Coon Town", "Who Likes a Nigger?", "Nigger Hatin' Me", "Still Looking for a Handout", "Some Niggers Never Die (They Just Smell That Way)", "Stay Away from Dixie", and "Move Them Niggers North." Only two of Trahan's songs are not strictly about race: "Keep a-Workin' Big Jim" is the efforts of Louisiana district attorney Jim Garrison to solve the Kennedy assassination, while "(Federal Aid Hell!) The Money Belongs to Us" is a song critical of U.S. federal aid programs.

In 1976, Trahan's song "Lâche pas la patate" (also known as "The Potato Song"), sung by Jimmy C. Newman earned gold record status in Canada.

Two of these songs were eventually issued in album format by Reb Rebel Records under the title "For Segregationists Only".

Johnny Rebel's songs have been covered by other singers such as Big Reb and the German band Landser. In 2005, his song "Some Niggers Never Die (They Just Smell That Way)" was used in the film What Is It? directed by Crispin Glover.

A CD compilation of his works simply shows a hooded Klansman together with a depiction of the Confederate Battle Flag. The cover of the album "It's the attitude stupid" shows a hooded Klansman, holding what appears to be either a Walkman or MP3 player, and wearing headphones.

Popular culture

The television series The Boondocks parodied Johnny Rebel's music in one of its episodes (entitled The Story of Jimmy Rebel). The episode portrays a recording artist who is ostensibly Johnny Rebel.

The song "The White Man Marches on" can be heard in American History X being sung enthusiastically by Ethan Suplee's character whilst driving to meet Edward Norton.

The song "Some Niggers Never Die (They Just Smell That Way)" was featured in the 2005 surrealist film What Is It?, in a scene where an African-American woman in an ape mask gives a handjob to a Caucasian man with cerebral palsy.

Personal life

Trahan rarely allowed himself to be photographed by anyone other than close friends and family, although he claimed there were indeed images of him on the Internet. He said he had no idea where those photos originated. In 2015, however, he appeared in the Canadian documentary Acadie black et blanc (released in English as Acadie Black and White), in which he defended his recordings and his controversial views on race. He died on September 3, 2016, at the age of 77 years old.

Trahan owned a driving school in Crowley, Louisiana which he handed over to his son in 2008.

Misattributions

Johnny Rebel is often misidentified as the pseudonym of David Allan Coe, an American outlaw country music singer who achieved popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. The confusion stems in part from the song "Nigger Fucker", which appears on Coe's Underground Album. Coe has been quoted as saying that "anyone that hears [Underground Album] and says I'm a racist is full of shit."

Some of Johnny Rebel songs have also been misattributed to Johnny Horton, an American country music and rockabilly singer who died in 1960. The confusion appears to stem from a song by Horton called "Johnny Reb".

Trahan's version of "Nigger Hatin' Me" has also appeared, wrongly attributed to Buddy Holly, on Holly releases such as "The Apartment Demos".

The pseudonym Johnny Rebel is also used by a Columbus, Ohio, rockabilly singer named Sean Groves (born October 18, 1968). As Johnny Rebel, he has fronted regional rockabilly band Th' Flyin' Saucers since 1989. Groves has no connection with Trahan.

Controversy and popular reception

When Je'Nelle Chargois, the current president of the Lafayette chapter of the NAACP, was growing up in Lafayette, she never heard Johnny Rebel's music. But she stated she knows where it came from. "[It] is an example of a type of racism that is embedded in this community, and it is something that has to be dealt with," Chargois said.

As Johnny Rebel, Trahan said, he was just singing what was on the minds of everyone he knew. "At that time, there was a lot of resentment — whites toward blacks and blacks toward whites. So, everybody had their own feelings. Lots of people changed their feelings over the years. I basically changed my feelings over the years up to a point."

In the years since the Johnny Rebel sessions, his message has proliferated to groups throughout the world. "Since the 1960s, when country singer Johnny Rebel recorded songs such as 'Nigger Hatin' Me,' more than 500 rock bands have formed worldwide," reports the Anti-Defamation League in its report Bigots Who Rock: An ADL List of Hate Music Groups. Most of these groups formed after the British band Skrewdriver turned to delivering hate-filled messages in 1982.

Among the sites now selling bootlegged Johnny Rebel music is whitepowerrecords.com, which lists a CD titled Klassic Klan Kompositions. The site is a branch of Condor Legion Ordnance (CLO), a corporation avowedly dedicated to the survival of the white race. Victor Gephard, a lawyer who runs the CLO site, says that he has the right to sell the records because no one is clear who owns the copyrights to the material. He also said he doubted whether or not Trahan was the real Johnny Rebel, stating that some songs sound different vocally from others. "If he is really Johnny Rebel, he got a raw deal," Gephard says, adding that if managed and properly represented by attorneys, the real Johnny Rebel should be worth millions.

Resistance Records is the largest distributor of white power music. Former National Alliance leader William Luther Pierce — the author of the underground white nationalist classic book The Turner Diaries — purchased the company in 1999 and has built up to an estimated annual sales of $1 million, says ADL. The Resistance Web site lists Johnny Rebel's Klassic Klan Kompositions as its no. 2 seller, right after the top-selling video game Ethnic Cleansing.

Discography

Studio albums

Year	Album details
1971	For Segregationists Only Release date: 1971 Label: Reb Rebel Records
2003	The Complete Johnny Rebel Collection Release date: 2003 Label: Johnny Rebel Records
	It's the Attitude, Stupid! Release date: 2003 Label: Try It Man Records

Singles

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Year	Single	Peak positions	Album
		US Country
1966	"Lookin' for a Handout / Kajun Ku Klux Klan"	—	For Segregationists Only
	"Nigger Hatin' Me / Who Likes a Nigger"	—
1967	"(Federal Aid Hell!) The Money Belongs to Us / Keep a Workin' Big Jim "	—
1968	"Nigger, Nigger / Move Them Niggers North"	—
1969	"Coon Town / Still Looking For A Handout"	—
1970	"Some Niggers Never Die / Stay Away From Dixie	"—" denotes releases that did not chart

References

• B & H Interview Johnny Rebel, "A True Son Of Louisiana, 2009" [1]
• John Broven, South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous (Gretna, La.: Pelican, 1983).
• Shane K. Bernard, The Cajuns: Americanization of a People (Jackson, Miss: University Press of Mississippi, 2003).
• Terry E. Gordon, Rockin' Country Style
• Landser: Deutsche Wut/Rock gegen Oben, 1997, CD (track 9 "Kreuzberg" is a German language cover of Trahan's "Coon Town")

External links

• Johnny Rebel Facebook Page