John Thomas Griffith (born April 3, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter best known as a guitarist and vocalist for the band Cowboy Mouth. Griffith first established himself on the American music scene in the early 1980s as lead singer and guitarist for the new wave band Red Rockers, co-writing their 1983 MTV hit "China".[1]
Griffith was born in Lubbock, Texas, and raised in Houston, Southern California, New Jersey, and eventually New Orleans. In Louisiana, while attending LSUinBaton Rouge, he began his professional musical career.[2] Finding a base in New Orleans, Griffith and local friends, James Singletary and Darren Hill, founded the early punk rock band, Red Rockers. After a short but successful career highlighted by the 1983–84 MTV hits, "China" and, "Good as Gold", singles from its album Good As Gold (Columbia/415,1983), multi arena tours with U2, Joan Jett, Men at Work and B-52s, Red Rockers disbanded in early 1987....
The departure led Griffith to release his first solo album, Son of an Engineer, in 1988 on Laughing Gravy Music. After a brief stab at solo-dom, opening twice for Bob Dylan, Griffith was approached by fellow New Orleanians, Fred LeBlanc and Paul Sanchez, in fall 1990. Griffith and Sanchez were already performing as The Lonesome Travelers, in 1989.
Since 1990, Griffith has been a founding member, resident guitar slinger, vocalist, and principal songwriter for the New Orleans-based rock group, Cowboy Mouth. In 2019, Cowboy Mouth will make a 29th consecutive New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest performance, and Griffith a 31st.
Known by most of his fans as "JTG" or "Griff", John Thomas Griffith was inducted into Buddy magazine's Texas Guitar Hall of Fame[3] in 1999, joining Billy GibbonsofZZ Top, Eric Johnson, and others.
When not touring with Cowboy Mouth, he performs living room concerts throughout the US, composes and licenses music for film and TV through his company, iSourceMusic, with his side project, Black Ant King.
