Saturday Nights means Music in the Folklore Store. 

Johnny Yancey was born and "home-grown" in Memphis in 1955.  His brother, the late Jesse Nelson Yancey, who played saxophone, was an early musical inspiration to Johnny.  While in high school, Johnny was introduced to jazz music by his band director, James Keyes, and was mentored by senior classmate, pianist Donald Brown. 

Johnny has been honing his musical skills for over 23 years with locally and nationally recognized musicians playing all types of music from jazz, gospel, classical, blues, and rhythm and blues to reggae (Alvin Baptiste, Billy Pierce, Donald Brown, Terry Lynn Carrington, James Williams, Herman Green, Floyd Newman, Zaid Nassar, and others).

Always a lover of big bands and jazz orchestras, Johnny was inspired to form his own orchestra (The Sancturary Jazz Orchestra) in 2002 when he performed his first tribute to the great Duke Ellington.   Today, his namesake Johnny Yancey Big Band successfully draws the best and the brightest of Memphis' local musicians and music educators of diverse ages, races, and cultures.