Michael Johnson Photo
MichaelJohnson

Steve Goodman


Guitar Player, April 1976 excerpt

Travel has put Goodman in touch with more guitarists than before and at home much of his time is spent going to see various artists perform. He feels all this exposure has raised his awareness of the underpinnings of other guitar players. He especially singles out Michael Johnson as having shown him the possibilities for gut-string guitar.

"Willie Nelson and Jerry Reed are where jazz and country music and the gut-string all seem to meet, and Michael Johnson is sort of like a classical offshoot of that," Goodman says. "Johnson's quite a bit like Chet Atkins, I guess. A whole lot of Latin he plays, too. He's where Jerry Reed meets Segovia meets Chet and so on. Michael studied with Segovia, played with the Chad Mitchell Trio after Chad left, and worked with the Modern Jazz Quartet in the Los Angeles production of Jacques Brel, and he also had a solo album on Atlantic called There Is A Breeze. Someone may be able to find a copy of it in some record bin somewhere."