Fairmont native and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Johnny Johnson, Chuck Berry’s mentor and later piano player, was the initial inspiration for 1958’s rock and roll hit, “Johnny B. Goode,” which Rolling Stone lists as #7 greatest song of all times even though the piece was about a country boy (originally colored boy, but the wording changed so that it would get radio play) on a guitar.

Johnson had a serious drinking problem. Berry had trouble keeping him in line. When Berry issued an ultimatum that there would be no drinking in the car as the band traveled to the next gig, Johnson stuck his head out the car window to drink. The song’s title reflected Johnson's usual behavior when he was drinking.

It was Johnson, the leader of the Sir John Trio, who gave Berry his start. Johnson’s saxophonist, Alvin Bennett, had a stroke. So Johnson had guitarist Berry sub. Johnson became Berry’s mentor. The pupil became the master and Berry became the face of the group. Over the next 20 years, the two collaborated in the arrangements of many of Berry's songs including "School Days", "Carol" and "Nadine."

Berry also said the song was partly autobiographical. He was born at 2520 Goode Avenue in St. Louis.

Lafayette Leake played piano on this song. The opening guitar riff is a note-for-note copy of the opening single-note solo on Louis Jordan's "Ain't That Just Like a Woman" (1946), played by guitarist Carl Hogan.

Berry wrote two more songs involving the character Johnny B. Goode, "Bye Bye Johnny" and "Go Go Go", and titled an instrumental album as “Concerto in B. Goode.”

When Chuck Berry was inducted into the first Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 23, 1986, he performed "Johnny B. Goode.”

In 1998, Johnson told Doug Donnelly of Monroenews.com that "Johnny B. Goode" was a tribute to him. "I played no part in nothing of Johnny B. Goode," Johnson said. "On other songs, Chuck and I worked together, but not that one. We were playing one night, I think it was Chicago, and he played it. Afterward, he told me it was a tribute to me. He did it on his own. I didn't know nothing about it. It was never discussed."

Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, the star of 1987’s “Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll” movie, said Berry took Johnson’s piano riffs as his own on the guitar. Johnson is the piano man in the film.

The son of a coal miner and a Fairmont Dunbar (all-black) High, Johnson began playing piano in 1928. He joined the United States Marine Corps during World War II where he was a member of Bobby Troup's all serviceman jazz orchestra, The Barracudas. After his return, he moved to Detroit, Illinois and then Chicago, where he sat in with many notable artists, including Muddy Waters and Little Walter.

Berry and Johnson played and toured together until 1973, and Johnson occasionally played with Berry until Johnson's death in 2005 in St. Louis.

Johnson is buried in the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis.

The Johnnie Johnson Blues & Jazz Festival is held annually in Fairmont, only a few blocks from where Johnson was born.

In 2016 it will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 9 in Palatine Park in East Fairmont.

Gaga’s grandma from West Virginia

At her Pittsburgh concert, Lady Gaga, while introducing her “Born This Way” song, gave a shout-out to her grandmother from Glendale, West Virginia, a Wheeling suburb.

• Lady Gaga said: “My grandma’s here tonight. My grandmother was there with me for one of the hardest times in my life, and she’s been there for every other hard time since that one.
• 
  
• We have been through a lot together because my grandmother’s from West Virgin-i-a.”

In 2013 Lady Gaga recovered from hip surgery at Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling by staying at grandma’s house.

Her grandparents, Paul and Veronica “Ronnie” Bissett, live on Zitko Terrace in Glen Dale. They are the parents to Lady Gaga’s mother, Cynthia Bissett Germanotta, a graduate of Wheeling’s John Marshall High School and West Virginia University.

“My granddaughter is considered nothing but ordinary when she comes for a visit,” Mrs. Bissett said. “She is famed for her outrageous costumes, but that’s about it. Other than that, she is a well-adjusted kid, and the best granddaughter a grandmother could ever ask for.”

Country music star Brad Paisley was born and reared in Glen Dale, where his mom is a schoolteacher and his dad works for the West Virginia Highway Department.

So was country singer Lionel Cartright and former West Virginia governor Arch Moore, Jr.

Other former Glen Dale residents include Moore’s daughter, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, baseball Hall of Famer George Brett and Jeff Kessler, a Democratic member of the West Virginia Senate, first in line to become governor if something happens to Governor Tomblin. And Swami Bhaktipada, founder of New Vrindaban, a Hare Krishna community on the outskirts of Glen Dale. And Charles Manson was reared by his aunt and uncle just outside Glen Dale.

Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born in the Bronx, New York City to a Catholic family on March 28, 1986^. She is the elder daughter of internet entrepreneur Joseph Anthony "Joe" Germanotta, Jr. and Cynthia Louise "Cindy" Bissett (born c. 1955). Gaga has Italian and French ancestry. Her sister Natali (born in 1992) is a fashion student.

Gaga learned to play the piano by the age of 4. At the age of 11, she was accepted to the Juilliard School in Manhattan, but instead attended a private Catholic school in the city. She had her first performance in a New York nightclub at the age of 14.