Jellybean Johnson, pillar of Minneapolis music, dies at 69

He stood out in every Twin Cities barroom he entered, whether he was the 6-foot-4 man with a top hat at the back of the room or onstage shredding on guitar.

Sporting a showy coat, flashy shirt and stylish hat, Jellybean Johnson could be found in Minneapolis and St. Paul music clubs most any night. He was a friend to all musicians, famous or aspiring.

Best known as the drummer in the hit R&B band the Time, Johnson was a guitarist at heart, playing in Jay Bee and the Routine, St. Paul Peterson and the Minneapolis Funk All Stars and other Twin Cities bands. He collaborated with Prince, Janet Jackson and New Edition as well as local heroes Alexander O’Neal and Mint Condition.

A pillar of the Minneapolis music scene, Johnson collapsed Friday at his Brooklyn Park home and died at North Memorial Health Hospital. He had turned 69 on Wednesday.

“He was an absolute icon,” said Paul Peterson, who played in bands with Johnson since 1983. “He not only was an architect of the Minneapolis Sound, but he mentored young players. He went out every night to see the next generation. He didn’t want to sit on the couch. Dude played every night because he loved it. It was his lifeblood.”

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame producer/songwriter Jimmy Jam called Johnson “the ambassador of Minneapolis music because he was immersed in it in every way.”

Marty Bragg, Johnson’s partner, took him to see the “Purple Rain” musical for his birthday after dinner at the Capital Grille in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Music maven Nancy Andersen, a friend, said she talked or texted Johnson — Bean to his friends — just about every day, including Friday.

“He was that guy,” she said. “Everybody loved him. He had that infectious smile. When he laughed, it was genuine, his shoulders would move up and down.

“He was always gracious and kind to everyone. He was always giving with his time, especially with young musicians.”

Johnson was a regular guest instructor at Purple Playground’s Academy of Prince teen program every summer in the Twin Cities, imparting advice as well as sharing war stories.

“He connected with the kids like a big brother,” said Heidi Vader, founder of the Academy of Prince. “He had no judgment or expectations of their musical abilities. He was the one from the Purple World who bridged the gap with the next generation. The kids just loved him.”

Tributes have been pouring in on social media.

Representatives from Minneapolis’ oldest record store, the Electric Fetus, posted a photo of one of Johnson’s many random drop-ins to browse their bins: “To know that this amazing personality will no longer randomly show up here to light up the store and talk music and life with us is heartbreaking.”

Born Garry Johnson on Nov. 19, 1956, Johnson moved to Minneapolis from Chicago as a preteen. He took a few drum lessons at age 13 then taught himself guitar two years later after a cousin left one behind.

As a teenager growing up on the R&B of KUXL radio and the rock of KQRS, he played drums in the band Flyte Tyme and basketball at Marshall-University High School.

It was a Flyte Tyme gig at the old Flame Bar on Nicollet Avenue, in front of an audience of no one, that gave Johnson his nickname. Afterward, the trumpeter told his mates: “We sounded really bad tonight. We sounded like a bunch of jellybeans.”

“And the next night he comes back to the Flame, and he hands me a T-shirt made with ‘Jellybean Johnson’ on it,” Johnson said in 2021.

Johnson attended the University of Minnesota, but Prince recruited the members of Flyte Tyme to be a new full-time band backing drummer-turned-singer Morris Day: the Time.

The R&B ensemble scored such hits as “777-9311” and “Cool,” opened for Prince on tour, appeared in the 1984 movie “Purple Rain” and then broke up.

Johnson ended up in a Prince-produced Time spinoff, the Family, with other Purple associates. The Family released a debut album (featuring the original version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”), played one show at First Avenue and dissolved while Prince was in Europe filming “Under the Cherry Moon.”

Johnson moved on to become a staffer at Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ hit factory, Flyte Tyme Productions. He wrote and produced hits for New Edition and Mint Condition and collaborated with Janet Jackson on her guitar-propelled rocker “Black Cat.”

He had a confidence-boosting encounter at Paisley Park with jazz giant Miles Davis, who praised the guitar solo on “Innocent.”

“When somebody the caliber of Miles Davis tells you something, that just changed my whole guitar world,” Johnson reminisced. “Prince told me later: ‘Bean, if he tells you that, you can take that to your grave.’”

But unlike Day, Jam, Lewis and others from Prince’s court, Johnson said he never landed a big payday. He mostly received a salary.

The only time he played drums was on gigs with Morris Day and the Time, who last performed Nov. 7 in New Jersey. He and Day were the last original members.

From 2003 to 2012, Johnson hit the road as a guitarist with Chicago bluesman Ronnie Baker Brooks, including an annual blues cruise in the Caribbean. He also played guitar in fDeluxe, the new moniker for the Family, which reunited in 2011 and has released one live and two studio albums.

A pet project of late for Johnson and Bragg was a fledgling Minneapolis Sound Museum proposed for north Minneapolis to spotlight musicians beyond Prince who shaped the 1970s and ’80s music scene.

“This isn’t just a project,” Johnson wrote in his birthday post. “This isn’t just a museum. This is our truth. Our roots. Our legacy.

“Too much of our history has lived in our memories instead of in a place where young people can see it, feel it, and be inspired by it. It’s time to change that.”

Johnson had his own deep history emblazoned in the Twin Cities music scene.

“There’s a humility to Bean,” fDeluxe guitarist Oliver Leiber observed in 2021. “He’ll go out five, six nights a week and sit in these clubs still, even though he also flies out to headline shows with the Time. He never lost that working musician’s mentality.”

Johnson is survived by Bragg and several children. Memorial arrangements are pending.

Minnesota Star Tribune writer Chris Riemenschneider contributed to this story.