Johnny Vernazza is Making a Scene

December 22, 2025

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Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Johnny “V” Vernazza

Johnny “V” Vernazza was born in San Francisco and raised in Daly City, right in the middle of one of the most explosive music scenes in American history. In the 1960s, the Bay Area wasn’t just alive with music, it was overflowing. Clubs were everywhere, and it was normal to jam at four or five spots in a single night. Add legendary rooms like the Fillmore, the Avalon Ballroom, and massive concerts in Golden Gate Park, and you had a city where music wasn’t a hobby, it was a way of life.

Johnny picked up the guitar in 1963 and jumped straight into that world. Early on, he also spent time on bass with a rock band that worked the Fillmore circuit and toured as an opening act for Quicksilver Messenger Service, War, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. By 1970, his path took an unexpected turn when he joined the gospel group Gideon and Power. That band toured across the United States and even landed a national TV appearance on the Sonny & Cher Summer Show.

As the blues scene began to explode on a national and international level, Johnny “V” found himself right in the middle of it again. He played alongside blues legends like Luther Tucker and Sunnyland Slim, while also holding down a regular blues gig in San Francisco’s North Beach with Perry Welsh, a former member of Elvin Bishop’s band. Those nights often turned legendary, with Elvin Bishop dropping in to jam, sometimes bringing friends like Paul Butterfield and other heavy hitters from the blues world.

It didn’t take long before Elvin Bishop asked Johnny to join the new band he was forming. That decision changed everything. Johnny’s time with Elvin Bishop led to six albums, nonstop touring, and a massive hit with the song Fooled Around and Fell in Love, which climbed to number three on the national charts in 1974 and went Gold. Around the same period, Johnny also appeared on a Gold-selling album with The Marshall Tucker Band, where he and Elvin both contributed slide guitar.

Together, Elvin Bishop and Johnny Vernazza developed a powerful dual-lead and slide guitar approach that helped define the Southern rock sound of the era. That feel, that groove, and that attitude still echo through blues and rock music today, a lasting reminder of a guitarist who came up in the right place, at the right time, and played with the right kind of fire.

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