Michael Johnson (August 8, 1944 – July 25, 2017) was an American pop, country, and folk singer-songwriter and guitarist. Stylistically, he has been all over the map, ranging from folk to pop and soft rock to country. But no matter what kind of music he recorded, he maintained a mellow, pleasant tone that served as his hallmark. Between 1973 and 2012, he released 19 albums.
Michael Jay Johnson was born in the small town of Alamosa, Colorado and grew up in Denver. He started playing the guitar at 13. In 1963, he began attending Colorado State College (now the University of Northern Colorado) in Greeley to study music but his college career was truncated when he won an international talent contest two years later. First prize included a deal with Epic Records. The company released his first self-penned single, “Hills,” and Johnson began performing to receptive crowds in clubs and at colleges.
Wishing to hone his instrumental skills, in 1966 he set off for Barcelona, Spain, to the Liceu Conservatory, studying with the eminent classical guitarists, Graciano Tarragó and Renata Tarragó. Upon his return to the States, he joined Randy Sparks in a group called the New Society and did a tour of the Orient.
When the band dissolved in 1967, he signed on with the Chad Mitchell Trio for a year, spending some of that time co-writing with another member, John Denver. The group was renamed Denver, Boise & Johnson. When the trio came to an end, Johnson made a radical departure from everything he had done previously by taking on a major supporting role in the off-Broadway production of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.
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In 1971, Johnson signed with Atco Records to record his first album, There Is A Breeze, which was released in 1973 and produced by Johnson, Chris Dedrick, Peter Yarrow and Phil Ramone in New York and Toronto, Canada. Feeling this first effort was not a true reflection of his music (despite being a best seller in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area), Johnson self-produced his next LP in 1975, For All You Mad Musicians, relying more on his voice and guitar for a folk feel. He followed this up with Ain't Dis Da Life, where he added a rhythm section. With each new recording and his continued touring, his popularity was increasing.
Teaming up with Brent Maher and Steve Gibson in Nashville, Tennessee, Johnson created a two-song demo consisting of "Bluer Than Blue" and "Almost Like Being in Love" (the latter song from the Broadway musical Brigadoon). EMI America took one listen and wasted no time in signing him, quickly getting The Michael Johnson Album out in 1978. "Bluer Than Blue" was written by Randy Goodrum. The first single, "Bluer Than Blue", became Johnson's first Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1978; the song became a chart-topping single on the Adult Contemporary chart. "Almost Like Being in Love" went to No. 91 on the R&B chart while hitting the Top 5 on the AC chart and the Top 40 on the pop chart.
He underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery in 2007 and spent the best part of a year recovering. It wasn’t too long though before he was back out there playing gigs, though not as extensively as in the past. In concert, Johnson sometimes talked about suffering from emphysema and because of COPD, he had been using oxygen .
Bassist and close friend Gordy Johnson said “In January 2012 Six months ago, he went on oxygen 24/7 yet he'd still perform.”I asked: 'How do you do it?' He said, 'I leave it in the dressing room and I go out and fight like hell. " Johnson died at his Minneapolis home following a lengthy illness on July 25, 2017, two weeks before what would have been his 73rd birthday.
(Edited from Wikipedia, Legacy & Star Tribune)