Jan Carel Fourie (1937–2007) was a South African Jazz guitarist born in Postmas in the Northern Cape province.

His first passion for music came whilst watching cowboy movies and Johnny wanted to imitate the sound of the musicians.

After hearing the George Shearing quintet in 1949, he was entranced and instantly fell in love with Jazz music and started playing jazz day and night.Fourie auditioned for the Ray Ellington Quartet of The Goon Show fame. He told his students at the Technikon University in Pretoria in 2002 about this experience. He said This was the biggest test of my life. It was a make or break period. I could not read the notes and initially I was turned down, but when they heard me play they told me that they would like me to perform. I was very exhilarated, but had no ability to read music. I had two weeks to memorize four years of work. It was the moment of truth and I passed!