True Stories of Amazing People and Places in Texas

John Thomas Griffith

Photo by Eric Ventress

Griffith was born in Lubbock Texas April 3, 1960. He is a guitarist and vocalist for the band Cowboy Mouth which he founded in 1990. He is known to most of his fans as JTG or Griff and was inducted into Buddy magazine's Texas Guitar Hall of Fame in 1999.

Griffith was born in Lubbock, Texas, and raised in Houston, but it was in Louisiana, while attending LSU in Baton Rouge, that he began his professional musical career. Finding a base in New Orleans, Griffith and friends started the early punk rock band Red Rockers. After a short but successful career highlighted by the "China" single and its album Good As Gold (1983), Red Rockers disbanded in early 1985.

Since 1990, JTG 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 JTG a 31st.

Known by most music fans as "JTG" or "Griff", John Thomas Griffith was inducted into Buddy magazine's Texas Guitar Hall of Fame in 1999, joining Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Eric Johnson,and others.

When not touring with Cowboy Mouth, he performs living room concerts throughout the USA, composes and licenses music for film and TV through his company, iSourceMusic, with his side project, Black Ant King.

Griffith currently lives in Northern California.