He had been schooled in sight reading and improvisation by the time he began playing professionally with the Superior Orchestra and the Eagle Band in 1910.

Johnson was regarded as one of the leading trumpeters in New Orleans in the years 1905–1915,[1] in between repeatedly leaving the city to tour with minstrel shows and circus bands.

After he failed to appear for a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade job in 1915, he learned that krewe members intended to do him bodily harm.

[4] While living in New Iberia, Johnson worked in rice mills and the public school system, and continued playing jazz, but with local groups such as the Black Eagle Band from Crowley and the Banner Orchestra.

[5] In 1931, he lost his trumpet and front teeth when a fight broke out at a dance in Rayne, Louisiana, putting an end to his playing.

In 1938 and 1939, the writers of an early jazz history book, Jazzmen, interviewed several prominent musicians of the time, including Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Clarence Williams, who spoke highly of Johnson in the old days in New Orleans.

[1] On his best days he played with great imagination, subtlety, and beauty, as well as suggesting why he had not gained prominence earlier, for he was unpredictable, temperamental, with a passive-aggressive streak and a fondness for drinking alcohol to the point of impairment.

[7] Jazz historians have debated Johnson's legacy, and the extent to which his colorful reminiscences of his early career were accurate, misremembered, exaggerated, or untrue.