Michael Johnson - Ugly Woman c. 1970 demo

https://youtu.be/38dF1vd8oZc

I can't make the last two words. Help?

On a reel to reel tape with a 1970 concert and 4 other demos
The last recording I have of him performing this in concert was in 1972.
aka "Gonna Go Out and Find An Ugly Woman to Love"
Written by James Ford, recorded by James Reed
Lyrics:
Ain't gonna drink no more tobacco
Aiin't gonna smoke no more moonshine
Ain’t gonna talk about pretty women
Ain't gonna bother now to waste my time
Ain't gonna drink no more black coffee
Thinkin' about her till the broad daylight
I'm gonna go out and find an ugly woman to love

I'm gonna go get on my walkin' shoes
And walk on down the avenue
I'm gonna keep on walkin' till I find an ugly woman to love
I don't care if she's short, don't care if she's fat
Good to me and that's where it's at
I'm gonna go and find an ugly woman to love

Dale Dickson has provided us with Oklahoma Stray tablature. It's been added to the lyrics & chords page.

Thanks, Dale!

https://www.mjblue.com/mjlyrics.html

Pat requested Some People's Lives. I've added a 1999 video. Sorry, it's very guitar heavy. (Is that the right phrase?) He includes a brief story about rooming with Steve Martin and Gary Muledeer. Don't miss the funny guitar stuff after the song.

https://youtu.be/0917LLuQVkM

Hello all,

I have started a Amazon wish list for supplies I need to maintain Michale's website and organize his music media. I only have one item on there as of now. I thought I'd start this in case you thought any monetary donations would go to cat toys or high priced wine.    Still unemployed so I'm thankful I cut out all wine a few months ago.

https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/I41LAPW5XME9

An old friend/former coworker messaged me the following a couple days ago:
Tonight on while in the car at about 5:55 pm radio station Love 105 was cueing up an MJ song and they mentioned the MJBlue website
This is a Twin Cities radio station and the song was "Almost Like Being in Love." Wonderful that his music is still being played and it made my day to hear about the website mention!

If I can find it (currently misplaced, hence my Amazon wishlist), I'm putting up a video later today which was a recent request. If anyone has specific video or song requests, please let me know.

Yesterday I uploaded a MJ/Mark Henley concert downloaded last year from the Paste Magazine site which no longer has all these concerts. And they only had the songs listed but I was able to dig deep and find the in between intros. Yay! "Are My Thoughts with You" has always been a favorite of mine.

Amazingrace, Evanston IL, with Mark Henley 5/26/1975
Songs are:
Motherlode (Richard Pinney)
Mona Ray (Leo Kottke & Michael Johnson)
Wilson Girl (Michael Johnson, Ted Sherman & Mark Henley)
O.B. Glad (Mark Henley & Michael Johnson)
Are My Thoughts With You (Mickey Newberry)
Medley: Bye Baby Bunting (traditional)/Fathers and Sons (Carl Franzen) /Mother Nature's Son (Lennon & McCartney), 
Rooty Toot Toot for the Moon (Greg Brown) - unfortunately is cut off

Set 2: 
Mona Ray (Leo Kottke & Michael Johnson)
Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton)
What's Time to a Hog (Dean Webb & Mitchell F. Jayne)
Cain's Blood (Michael Johnson)
The Sunset Years (Mark Henley)
O.B. Glad (Mark Henley & Michael Johnson)
The Time to Live (Buzzy Linhart)
Don't You Go Under (Mark Henley)
Love and Sex (Tom Rapp)

Michael singing "Bluer than Blue' is indeed in the Piercing, released today. I recorded the entire song portion with my phone, converted it and uploaded it here. Warning: this is a pretty graphic movie, same with this clip. Blood, sex, and look away when you see the rabbit. 

http://MJBLUE.COM/music/PIERCING.m4v

I don't know what Michael would have thought of this (the change in tempo), he was very protective of this song.

I just read this online today! I watched the trailers and the song wasn't included. It's out tomorrow including iTunes, which costs $15. I'm not sure if I should spring for it when I don't know if I can pay my mortgage. I might not be able to resist though. (see last paragraph for MJ mention)

Piercing is slick, stylish, kinky fun—until it isn’t
https://film.avclub.com/piercing-is-slic...1832154669
by Mike D'Angelo

DIRECTOR Nicolas Pesce
RUNTIME 81 minutes
RATING R
LANGUAGE English
CAST Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska, Laia Costa, Maria Dizzia, Marin Ireland, Wendell Pierce
AVAILABILITY
Select theaters and iTunes February 1
The last few months have been a bonanza for those with a sick sense of humor. First came Lars von Trier’s serial-killer saga The House That Jack Built, which at one point spends several hilarious minutes observing Matt Dillon’s psychopath as he struggles to talk his way into a potential victim’s home, ineptly impersonating a police officer and then, when that doesn’t work, an insurance agent. His intentions are horrific, but his actions are buffoonish, and there’s pitch-black comedy in the disjunction.

That’s likewise true—for a while, at least—of Piercing, whose nerdy protagonist, Reed (Christopher Abbott), has decided to murder a random sex worker in a hotel room, for reasons that aren’t as clear in the movie as they are in the Ryû Murakami novel from which it’s adapted. (Another of Murakami’s books inspired Takashi Miike’s Audition, to give you a sense of the twisted mind at work here.) We see Reed methodically rehearsing the crime, making dull small talk with an imaginary woman before suddenly throttling her nonexistent throat and pretending to drag her limp body into the bathroom. He even repeatedly knocks himself unconscious in order to determine the precise efficacy of chloroform. Abbott emphasizes this would-be killer’s earnest awkwardness, treating his preparations as if they were a wallflower’s efforts to spruce himself up for a big date. By the time Jackie (Mia Wasikowska) arrives, it’s already abundantly clear that things are unlikely to go as smoothly as he’d hoped.

This antic approach to nightmarish behavior represents a significant change of pace for writer-director Nicolas Pesce, whose debut feature, The Eyes Of My Mother, was anything but funny. Somber black-and-white master shots have been replaced with gaudy splashes of color, De Palma-style split screens, and peppy lounge music supplemented by cues taken from classic giallo films—most notably, Goblin’s unforgettable score for Deep Red. The playfulness works beautifully, even though it bears little resemblance to Murakami’s deep dive into two badly broken psyches. In the novel, Kawashima (the main character’s original name) is battling an inexplicable impulse to stab his newborn child with an ice pick, and hopes to sublimate that urge by murdering someone else; there’s brief voice-over narration to that effect in the film, but the character’s anguish and self-loathing barely register here. Likewise, Jackie, who’s been mostly deprived of the painful backstory that Murakami gave her forebear, comes across onscreen as a vaguely dangerous cipher, embodied by Wasikowska’s unnerving grin. Re-conceiving the tone was a smart move on Pesce’s part—a faithful, ultra-grim adaptation would likely have been unbearable.

Trouble is, he loses his nerve. Or maybe he just ran out of ideas. Following a humdinger of a plot twist, revealing Jackie to be every bit as fucked-up as Reed, Piercing turns into a sadistic, violent two-hander, more closely approximating the soberly sickening source material. This abrupt shift feels inorganic and dissatisfying, with Jackie’s actions in particular coming across as random grotesquerie. (Warning to needle-phobics: This film shows an unsimulated nipple piercing in close-up. For some people, that may be harder to endure than any amount of fake gore.) Pesce still delivers a handful of demented jolts in the movie’s back half, along with inspired use of Michael Johnson’s minor schmaltz-rock hit “Bluer Than Blue,” and watching Abbott and Wasikowska spar remains a constant pleasure. But the perverse promise of those early sequences, which suggested American Psycho with Roger Greenberg replacing Patrick Bateman, never quite gets realized. The movie turns ugly, but the ugliness hasn’t been earned.

Many photos taken by Mark Ahlstrom were recently shared with me by Carl Franzen (yes, "On The Road"!). He also took other solo photos of Michael which can be found on various pages on this website, including a new one on the home page.

THE DB&J photos can be found under the photos section, direct link is at https://www.mjblue.com/photosdbj.html. I didn't edit or crop any of Mark's photos of DB&J.

I went to Denison University in Ohio from 1966-1970 and Michael Johnson came to play there at least twice. It was long ago and it was the 60s after all, so my memory is far from perfect. I know he played  there as part of Denver Boise and Johnson and again as a solo act. The venue was a tiny coffeehouse named The Bandersnatch, at which the college group I was in, Phil Dirt and The Moundbuilders, played a few times, including "opening" for John Denver in one of his solo performaces there. After an MJ show, some of us students were able to persuade Michael to come to our frat house and play a little more. There may have been smokable inducements. At any rate, I became a fan and followed his career after that. I came to this board in a roundabout way. I still play guitar at about the level I did in 1968 and was not particularly accomplished then, but I like to noodle around and particularly like take existing songs and do humorous or political parodies. I loved MJ's version of "You Have Got To Be Carefully Taught" and am hoping someone can point me to a chord chart for that song. Whether or not I can find it, I will put There Is A Breeze on and listen to all the songs.

tom in ohio

The first time I actually met Michael was at a Riverfest performance in Chattanooga, around 1999.  I waited for hours in high temps and humidity, making sure I had a seat up front.  When Michael did show up, and set up a small table to put his cds on, I mustered up the courage to walk up to talk to him.  He immediately put me at ease.  So down to earth, just so friendly.  We talked for a few minutes, and it was like I had been friends with him for years.  He was that personable.

The summer heat and high humidity was bad that day, but I didn't mind it because Michael was right there, singing and masterfully playing his guitar.  He would hold his guitar, cradle-like.  I've never seen a performer, ever, who had such a clear connection to his instrument.  Not that other musicians don't; it's just that I had personally not witnessed it. 

Over the years, I saw Michael perform many, many times.  A few times at the BlueBird Cafe in Nashville, and Puckett's Grocery near Franklin, TN.  But on those occasions, he would share the stage with other singers, so he didn't get to sing that many songs.  I much preferred seeing just him perform solo.  I always wanted him to do "one more encore"!  Peter