He and his younger brother, Budd Johnson, began their musical careers singing and playing first with their father and later with Portia Pittman, daughter of Booker T. Washington.
[citation needed] In 1933, Keg Johnson went to New York, playing and recording with Benny Carter (1933–4),[1] Fletcher Henderson (February–November 1934)[1] and, in 1935, began his long-running collaboration with Cab Calloway[1] at the Cotton Club.
Johnson remained with Cab Calloway for some 15 years, coinciding with fellow trombonists Claude Jones and DePriest Wheeler and later Tyree Glenn and Quentin Jackson, as well as other musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie,[2] before moving to Los Angeles where he briefly changed careers renovating houses.
His son, Frederic Homer "Keg" Johnson, Jr. (October 24, 1939 — May 16, 2015), was a record producer whose first production was the R&B hit, "Going In Circles", performed by The Friends of Distinction.
He also produced the Sylvers, Lakeside, Shalamar, LeVert, The Brothers Johnson, Gene Harris, Bobby Womack, the Blind Boys of Alabama, among others.