Cafe Veritas: Michael Johnson

Red House Records continues to score coups in signing some of the best in the business. It includes a classically trained guitarist, an off‐Broadway actor and an ex‐member of the Chad Mitchell Trio. The artist credits encompass two #1 Country hits, a #1 Pop hit and a #1 R&B song. Actually, all of the above describes just one musician, Michael Johnson.

A series of strange occurrences led Johnson, a native of Denver, into music. At thirteen, he contracted a severe case of pneumonia. Concurrently, his twenty‐year‐old brother, Paul, was in an auto accident and suffered a badly broken leg. Faced with two invalids, the Johnson family moved hospital beds into the living room, placing the brothers side by side to recuperate. Desperate to keep them entertained, their father bought them a guitar. It proved to be a stroke of genius. The boys taught themselves together: exploring unique chord changes and progressions, experimenting with different fingerpicking and tunings, sharing everything they had learned and challenging the other to surpass the latest achievement. By the end of the year, the Johnson boys had their first gig at the local VFW hall. "They paid us $5 and all the screwdrivers we could drink," Johnson recalls. With that inauspicious beginning, Johnson had found his calling. Lessons learned early would not be forgotten: Keep trying new things and do not be bound by convention; Strive for excellence and let the music be your guide.