Biography

Mentioned in 18391111FMS_LMW

FMS writes: "in the night Frank Johnson came with his band – music in the night never fails to make me melancholy "

Francis Johnson "...became the first African American to publish sheet music(well over two hundred published pieces), the first black musician and perhaps the first American musician to tour Europe with a band, and one of the first musicians to participate in integrated public concerts. He mentored a number of successful black musicians, and scholars credit him as the leader the Philadelphia School of composers--arguably the first such group in the United States. His compositions remained in print until late in the nineteenth century and enjoyed some reemergence in the late twentieth century."