diff --git a/MySQLdb/_mysql.c b/MySQLdb/_mysql.c
index 53e57f85..84714170 100644
--- a/MySQLdb/_mysql.c
+++ b/MySQLdb/_mysql.c
@@ -1138,7 +1138,7 @@ _mysql_field_to_python(
                 v = PyUnicode_Decode(rowitem, length, encoding, NULL);
             }
         }
-        else if (converter == (PyObject*)&PyBytes_Type) {
+        else if (converter == (PyObject*)&PyBytes_Type || converter == Py_None) {
             //fprintf(stderr, "decoding with bytes\n", encoding);
             v = PyBytes_FromStringAndSize(rowitem, length);
         }
@@ -1146,7 +1146,7 @@ _mysql_field_to_python(
             //fprintf(stderr, "decoding with int\n", encoding);
             v = PyInt_FromString(rowitem, NULL, 10);
         }
-        else if (converter != Py_None) {
+        else {
             //fprintf(stderr, "decoding with callback\n");
             //PyObject_Print(converter, stderr, 0);
             //fprintf(stderr, "\n");
@@ -1158,17 +1158,7 @@ _mysql_field_to_python(
 #endif
                           rowitem,
                           (int)length);
-        } else {
-            //fprintf(stderr, "converter=None\n");
-#ifdef IS_PY3K
-            if (!binary) {
-                v = PyUnicode_FromStringAndSize(rowitem, (int)length);
-            } else
-#endif
-            v = PyBytes_FromStringAndSize(rowitem, (int)length);
         }
-        if (!v)
-            return NULL;
     } else {
         Py_INCREF(Py_None);
         v = Py_None;
@@ -1414,7 +1404,7 @@ _mysql_ConnectionObject_change_user(
 {
     char *user, *pwd=NULL, *db=NULL;
     int r;
-        static char *kwlist[] = { "user", "passwd", "db", NULL } ;
+    static char *kwlist[] = { "user", "passwd", "db", NULL } ;
 
     if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwargs, "s|ss:change_user",
                      kwlist, &user, &pwd, &db))
@@ -1424,8 +1414,7 @@ _mysql_ConnectionObject_change_user(
         r = mysql_change_user(&(self->connection), user, pwd, db);
     Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS
     if (r)     return _mysql_Exception(self);
-    Py_INCREF(Py_None);
-    return Py_None;
+    Py_RETURN_NONE;
 }
 
 static char _mysql_ConnectionObject_character_set_name__doc__[] =
diff --git a/MySQLdb/connections.py b/MySQLdb/connections.py
index e902912f..29cc4f32 100644
--- a/MySQLdb/connections.py
+++ b/MySQLdb/connections.py
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ def unicode_literal(u, dummy=None):
 
         if use_unicode:
             for t in (FIELD_TYPE.STRING, FIELD_TYPE.VAR_STRING, FIELD_TYPE.VARCHAR, FIELD_TYPE.TINY_BLOB,
-                      FIELD_TYPE.MEDIUM_BLOB, FIELD_TYPE.LONG_BLOB, FIELD_TYPE.BLOB):
+                      FIELD_TYPE.MEDIUM_BLOB, FIELD_TYPE.LONG_BLOB, FIELD_TYPE.BLOB, FIELD_TYPE.JSON):
                 self.converter[t] = _bytes_or_str
 
         self.encoders[unicode] = unicode_literal
diff --git a/MySQLdb/converters.py b/MySQLdb/converters.py
index f0d01786..9b9cb8be 100644
--- a/MySQLdb/converters.py
+++ b/MySQLdb/converters.py
@@ -129,4 +129,5 @@ def quote_tuple(t, d):
     FIELD_TYPE.STRING: bytes,
     FIELD_TYPE.VAR_STRING: bytes,
     FIELD_TYPE.VARCHAR: bytes,
+    FIELD_TYPE.JSON: bytes,
 }