From the Brainerd Dispatch
STILL PAYIN' HIS DUES
BAXTER - Johnny Jay Huhta doesn't view his recent
induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Minnesota Rock &
Country Hall of Fame as invitations to sit back and
enjoy a career well done.
Rather, the honors inspired the 72-year-old musician
to get back in the studio and justify the attention.
"Those little things kind of add up and make you
think, 'Hey, do I deserve this?,'" Huhta said in a
recent interview at his rural Baxter home. "There's
a lot of people out there who probably deserve
something like that more than I do. I deduced that
maybe I owe 'em something. So I went back and did
another one."
"Back in the Game," recorded this summer in
Nasvhille, Tenn., is only the third album from the
Duluth-born musician. Singles were the name of the
game in his heyday - he broke out nationally with
"Sugar Doll" and "Tears" for Mercury Records in 1957
and had another big hit with "Buck $2.80" for Stop
Records in 1967.