EMI America's FIrst Release Set for April: "Bluer Than Blue" by Michael Johnson
April 1978

"I find it quite impressive that EMI America is going with my single for their first release." That's how Michael Johnson sums up his newly formed relationship with the label. After hearing Michael's new single "Bluer Than Blue" were pretty impressed, too.

Michael Johnson has been in music all of his life. Winning a national talent contest at the age of 19 officially began his professional career. THe contest, sponsored by Columbia Records and WGN radio in Chicago, gave Michael his first recording contract with Epic Records.

In the next few years Michael accumulated the diverse experiences that make up his music today. During this time he spent a year in Barcelona, Spain, studying guitar with Luis Bonfa and Andre Segovia, did a short stint with the Back Porch Majority (The New Christy Minstrels), a year of concerts with John Denver and the Mitchell Trio, and a year starring in "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Then, pursuing his recording ambition, he signed with Atlantic Records and his album, "There Is A Breeze" was release in 1973 and was produced by Peter Yarrow and Phil Ramone.

More recently, Michael has been winning audiences in "sell-out" concerts across the nation, including his recently highly acclaimed performance with Jane Oliver at the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C. His two other albums, "For All You Mad Musicians" and "Ain't Dis Da Life," have been phenomenal regional successes. He has also performed and recorded with fellow-guitarist Leo Kottke and co-written songs with John Denver.

Considered by many to be one of the top three acoustic guitarists in the country as well as a superb vocalist, Michael's new record, produced by Steve Gibson and Brent Maher, also producers of Gene Cotton, should finally establish him as a household name.

EMI America Buzzing as First Single Hits the Air
Billboard
April 15, 1978

EMI America's first single is out and two of its other first artists are in the studio cutting LPs.

The debut single is "Bluer Than Blue" by Michael Johnson, produced in Nashville by Brent Maher and Steve Gibson.

Actually, Johnson is the third artist signed to the new label. Kim Carnes, the first performer signed, is cautiously taking her time, notes Don Grierson, the label's a&r vice president, and is recording with songwriter/producer Danny Moore. She was previously on A&M.

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The Johnson disk cam to EMI America through a number of channels. It is a soft ballad which Grierson feels has "special mass appeal."

Johnson, a noted acoustic guitarist and singer, had previously worked with the Chad Mitchell Trio (which at the time included John Denver) and the Back Porch Majority. He also recorded for the Sanskrit label owned by his manager Keith Christensen operating out of the Minneapolis area.

Christensen decided to take Johnson to Nashville to cut three sides with Seve Gibson, whose a&r credits include working with Gene Cotton (on Ariola).

Once the sides were cut, Christensen got in touch with two friends, Jim Golden and Bill Trout in Los Angeles, who began pitching the songs to labels.

Grierson won the bidding for "Bluer Than Blue." Johnson will now head back to Nashville to cut an LP for release around the end of May, working with the same production team.

EMI America's own 14-member promotion staff under J.J. Jordon, director of promotion, is working the single. "The blitz is on," exclaims Grierson, with the initial emphasis on breaking the soft sound in secondary and tertiary markets and hoping to land major market Topp 40 airplay.

EMI America New Label 'Happening Quickly' President Mazza Happily Reports
By Jim McCullaugh
Billboard
May 6, 1978

"It's happening more quickly than we anticipated," states Jim Mazza, president of EMI America, Capitol's embryonic pop label.

Launched officially last fall, the Capitol Industries-EMI, Inc. offspring has a charted record with its debut single "Bluer Than Blue" by Michael Johnson and now has an artist roster numbering five.

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Explaining the Michael Johnson signing, Mazza adds, "That was a situation where we heard a few tracks on a Thursday and three weeks later we on the charts. That's how fast we are able to react and respond to something we are interested in. It's like the old days of the record business.

The Johnson tapes were brought to Grierson's attention by Jim Golden, who at one time ran the RCA-distributed Wooden Nickel label.

"The thing that's unique," continues Mazza, "about Michael Johnson is that we are not approaching it as a hit song or hit record. We are approaching it as a hit artist."

Both Mazza and Don Grierson, vice president of A&r, indicate they liked the Midwestern singer/guitarist's work because of his powerful demographics and they feel he has the potential to reach James Taylor or Billy Joel status.

The LP, which will be titled "The Michael Johnson Album" is being produced in Nashville by Brean Maher and Steve Gibson and is due June 15.

"We've already started radio commercials around the country," notes Mazza.

Sights at EMI/America Records are Higher than High
By Cynthia Kirk
Variety
August 4, 1978

Boxes of Wheaties adorn the penthouse conference room at EMI/America Records, for reasons prexy Jim Mazza feels are obvious.

"Wheaties is the breakfast of champions, and we play to win," says Mazza, former marketing veep at EMI's Capitol Records division, who launched the new label last April.

Diskery did indeed hit a winning stride early on, achieving its first $1,000,000 sales month in June. Prime contributor to the results is EMI/A's debut single release, "Bluer Than Blue," by Michael Johnson, which at this point has sold in the neighborhood of 800,000 units. Mazza's success with Johnson reflects his personal disk philosophy in a couple of areas. One of the main supporters of the lengthy but ultimately successful breakout campaigns for Bob Seger and Steve Miller while at Capitol, Mazza feels each talent acquisition "should be approached from day one as an artist development project.

"Johnson is another guy (like Seger and Miller) who's been around for 10 years. What we did was work away from association with a particular song, and stress the image."



EMI America Gives Top Boy Big Boost
Star Sound, Hong Kong
November 13, 1978

EMI America Records couldn't be blue — Bluer Than Blue that is — about the success of Michael Johnson's Bluer Than Blue, the very first single released by EMI America, now a bonafide hit.

With sales approaching the million mark, EMI America this week launched an all-out worldwide marketing and promotion campaign to break the artist and single internationally. BBC Radio is already playing Bluer Than Blue only two weeks after its release in England.

EMI will utilise the full strength of its global resources to make Johnson a major EMI entertainer throughout the world.

Bluer Than Blue is charted at top 10 in one or more music categories in all the major trade journals, and continues to sell at gold record pace led by Number 1 easy listening listings and solid pop market response.

The LP, The Michael Johnson Album (EMI America's second album) is a recently reported regional breakout in the Southeast and Midwest.

Johnson, who did a stint with the Chad Mitchell Trio (with John Denver) and Back Porch Majority before going solo and even-signing with EMI America, will soon be giving concerts with his band.

The release of Bluer Than Blue by Johnson - an extremely talented young singer-guitarist - marks a mile-stone for all concerned.

Johnson, who has earned quite a bit of respect and recognition throughout the Midwest during the last several years, is poised for a national breakthrough, and it's with a great deal of confidence and dedication that the new label chose his single as its very first release.

Johnson's music has the kind of diversity, depth and sophistication that take years of wide-ranging experience to develop, and it all started with his natural attraction to music during his early childhood.

Back in 1958, as a 13-year-old in his native Denver, Michael and his older brother Paul (then 20) began teaching each other the basic of playing guitar.

Their first professional gig was at the local VFW hall that year. "We played for five bucks a night and all the screwdrivers we could drink," Michael recalls.

But it didn't take either of them long to master the basics. Within a short time, Michael had developed good deal of proficiency with irregular chord changes and progressions, left-hand fingering and fretboard technique, and with working out imaginative arrangements of other writers' material.

Player

Paul had emerged as a player strongly influenced by jazz. The cross-influences between the two brothers covered much musical ground, and - they shared everything they learned with each other.

At 19, Michael was a sophomore at Colorado State College, majoring in music education, when he won first prize — a single-record recording deal with Epic - in a national talent contest sponsored by Columbia Records and Chicago radio station WGN.

The Epic single, an original tune titled Hills, was released shortly thereafter, and Michael embarked on extensive tours along the college and club circuits throughout the nation.

Michael spent 1966 in Spain, studying at the Conservatory of Liceo in Barcelona with eminent classical guitarist Graciano Tarrago (who died recently) and Tarrago's equally brilliant daughter Renata (who is an active and highly respected classical guitarist), not so much for classical influences, but to further develop his technique.

Michael returned to America the next year for a short stint with the Back Porch Majority (an offshoot of the New Christy Minstrels), and during 1967-68 he toured for a year as a member of The (Chad) Mitchell Trio, which then included another aspiring young songwriter and performer named John Denver. Michael and John wrote a tune titled Circus, which was recorded both by Denver and by Mary Travers.

Other influences Michael cites include the classical folk guitar work of Bud and Travis (Deshiel and Edmundson are their respective surnames). "No one seems to remember those two from their heyday on the early 60s college circuit," Michael observes.

"They made great inroads bringing classical sounds to folk and blues, making it possible for guys like me to do what we do."

Michael worked on developing another side of his talent when he played a supporting role (as "The Young Man") in the stage production of "Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris," initially for five weeks each in New York and Los Angeles and ultimately for a 40-week run in Chicago.

After relocating to a small lakefront house in Minnesota about 1970, Michael turned his attention back to performing and recording his music. He signed a recording deal with Atlantic Records in 1972, and spent several months in New York working on sessions for his debut album with producers Peter Yarrow and Phil Ramone and a team of well known New York players.

The resulting There Is A Breeze LP contained a great deal of instrumental expertise and showcased his strong baritone vocals, but Michael felt the album wasn't as true a reflection of his music as he would've liked.

Michael self-produced his second LP, using only his voice and his guitars, in ten days during March 1975 at a Minneapolis studio for the regional Sanskrit label (distributed in the Midwest by Pickwick International).

Titled For All You Mad Musicians, Michael's second LP was a much truer representation of his soft, melodic jazz-folk approach, his classical/Flamenco influences, and his dexterity with harmonics and light percussive effects.

The album has been very successful in the Midwest, and the exposure that followed the album's release greatly increased an already heavy demand for his live appearances throughout the area.

On his third LP, Ain't Dis Da Life, released on Sanskrit in 1971, Michael moved to forge the best aspects of his two previous albums together. He produced the sessions himself in Minnesota, and this time he added a rhythm section comprising well-known players in the Midwest.

It was his most fully realized project, yet some of the intimacy inherent in his material and in his delivery as a solo performer was sacrificed in favor of a fuller sound.

Nonetheless, Michael knew he was on the right track, and the album solidified his regional fame. He felt confident that the time was right to pursue national recognition.

Producers

During the latter part of 1977. Michael teamed with producers Steve Gibson and Brent Maher and travelled to Nashville's Creative Workshop Studios to cut a two-song master, which ultimately led to his EMI America Records recording contract.

Gibson, whose production credits include Gene Cotton's Save The Dancer LP, assembled a group of crack Nashville players (keyboardist Shane Keister, bassist Jack Williams, and drummer Kenny Malone) for the rhythm section. Brent Maher, producer of Dave Loggins' recent One-Way Ticket To Paradise LP, in addition to engineering and co-producing the Johnson sessions, suggested Michael record Randy Goodrum's Bluer Than Blue and Lerner-Loewe's Almost Like Being In Love.

Famed string arranger bergen White was called in to add his talents to the arrangements:

"I decided to work with Steve Gibson because he's an excellent guitarist as well," says Michael, and. I felt we could relate through our guitars. He and I rehearsed the basic arrangements before we went into the studio to record.

"We decided to record in Nashville because pop music is exciting to the Nashville players, Michael continues, "because they're cut so many country records they're now reaching out to different styles of music. Working with pop music really brings out the jazz in their playing, and they sound fresh and alive because they're really enjoying themselves.

Michael's manager, Keith Christianson, took the completed masters to Los Angeles, where EMI America's head of A&R Don Grierson heard them. All the pieces had fit into place for exposure on a national level.

Contracts for a longterm recording agreement were quickly drawn up and signed, and EMI America rush-released Michael's (and the label's) first single. "Bluer Than Blue" is a powerful ballad, and Michael's soulful reading of the lyric - which tries to reason away the pain of a once strong, now shattered relationship - is complemented by full yet tasteful orchestration.

Sessions for Michael Johnson's debut EMI America album are in progress in Nashville at the same studio with the same producer and player lineup used to cut his single masters.