By Tim Lyke
The Green Laker
January 26, 2013


But Thrasher debut performer Michael Johnson is not 'Bluer Than Blue' about returning to Green Lake

Michael Johnson is tickled to have been asked back to the same Thrasher Opera House almost 15 years to the day he was the concert venue's debut performer.

And while he has been the premiere entertainer on other stages, "What makes my upcoming Thrasher appearance special is that I've been asked back," Johnson said.

He looks forward to coming home to the thrasher, and performing the song that in 1978 became his hrst top to hit: "Bluer Than Blue."

Yet he knows the return to Green Lake Friday, June 28 won't compare to a more personal reunion that occurred four years ago this August.

For the first time, the father of two grown sons met his daughter.

In 1969 at age 25, Johnson had a brief fling with a woman named Mary while visiting his brother in Texas.

While he knew Mary gave birth to a girl, Johnson had no say in the future of his child, who was given up for adoption when she was four days old.

For years Johnson tried to find her, and wondered how she was faring during different phases of her life.

Then, in August 2009, information from an adoption agency enabled the now grown, married woman, Truly Carmichael, to meet her birth mother.

During that reunion in Fort Worth, Texas, Carmichael wanted to know the identity of her dad.

"It was a risk and could have been disappointing for her," Johnson said. "I could have been some jerk."

Mary took Carmichael to the computer and explained her father was a musician.

"She immediately hummed a few of my songs," indicating that Carmichael was familiar with at least some of his more popular music, said Johnson, a singer/songwriter/guitarist who has enjoyed hits in the pop/folk/country genres.

Johnson received a text frọm Carmichael introducing herself, followed by lengthy emails and phone calls.

When the pair later talked on the phone, Johnson observed, "God, you sound so grown up."

Carmichael, his baby girl, was 40; her dad was 64.

After dad and daughter reunited, Johnson discovered that Carmichael had a beautiful voice.

But she wasn't a performer like her dad, who has charted four hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 and nine more on its Hot Country Song charts, including two No. 1 country hits.

Aside from writing and performing hit songs, Michael Johnson is a classically trained guitarist.

"I had to ask her three times to sing with me, because she had never done anything like this before," Johnson said. But the two rehearsed in each others' living rooms&mdashJohnson's in Nashville, Carmichael's in Seattle.

The two performed and in 2012 recorded "One Mile Apart," a song about a wealthy woman and an impoverished man who live a mile from each other and yet co-exist in separate worlds.

The song, which Johnson co-wrote, is metaphorically autobiographical as it laments a couple who should be close and yet have been distant due to circumstances beyond their control.

Within its lyrics is the line:
How can there be so much distance between us
When our houses are one mile apart.

The song is one of 11 in Johnson's latest and 19th album, "Moonlit Deja Vu."

It has drawn rave reviews on Amazon.com, including a comment by one listener that "My only regret is that I only have two ears to hear it..."

Johnson will be performing songs from his new CD at the Thrasher, as well as favorites including some of his hits such as "Bluer Than Blue," "Almost Like Being in Love," "This Night Won't Last Forever," "The Moon is Still Over Her Shoulder," "Give Me Wings," "Cryin' Shame" and "That's That."

Johnson talked to the Green Laker about his upcoming appearance and the long, strange road that will reunite him June 28 with the 103-year-old concert hall at 510 Mill St. in downtown Green Lake:

Are you obligated at every concert to perform the song that propelled you from being an itinerant balladeer to an international recording artist?

"I typically sing 'Bluer Than Blue' at my concerts. I tried not playing it a few times and was met with disappointment. I also tried switching up the arrangement a bit and found that folks would rather hear it sung closer to the version on the record.

"But yes, I'll be singing it in Green Lake."

You are known as a fine classical guitarist, having studied in Barcelona with Graciano Taragó. What prompted you take up the guitar?

"I started playing at age 13, when I was sick and my brother, Paul, was laid up after an auto accident. Johnson had contracted a severe case of pneumonia. With both boys laid up, the Johnson family moved two hospital beds into the living room, positioning them side by side. The boys' father gave them a guitar to tinker with while they were recuperating.

"I wanted to impress my girlfriend when I got better but she left me for someone else while I was sick.

"Years later she reconnected with me via Facebook. She asked if I was the guy she'd gone out with. I gave kind of a smart aleck response, saying, I knew one day you'd come crawling back to me."

"I never heard from her again."

Is it true that you were expelled from high school for impersonating an officer?

"I wanted to join the Navy at age 16 and so went to a recruiting station and stole some ID papers, which I sold to some friends.

"There was an immediate upsurge of 17-year-olds all over north Denver buying 3.2 beer. But only I was punished."

Johnson was kicked out of his high school, having to attend another to earn his diploma.

How did you happen to share a garage in Bel Air with comics Steve Martin and Gary Mule Deer?

"We were living in a garage at the home of Randy Sparks [founder of The New Christy Minstrels and The Back Porch Majority]. It was furnished but it was a garage.

Sparks would hire the garage mates to perform at a club he owned in Los Angeles, Ledbetters.

Johnson fondly recalls living with a wild and crazy guy.

"There were balloon animals everywhere," he said. "I remember Steve coming coming home from performances ahd saying 'They just don't get me.' But he wasn't going to change his act. He knew they'd come around."

Michael Johnson autographs CDs during his first visit to the Thrasher in 1998.

How did you link up with John Denver and sing baritone with him in the Chad Mitchell Trio?

"I met John, who was an Air Force brat, in Denver. [Both had performed at a club called the Tangerine Room.]

"I sang with The Chad Mitchell Trio for about a year. Turns out they owed a lot of money and my job was to help get them pay off their debt."

Johnson had four days to learn 26 songs, only a few of which he said he mastered before the show hit the road

"We played 191 concerts in a year," he recalled of the period around 1969. "I'll never do that again."

After such a distinguished career, do you have any regrets?

"I passed up the opportunity to record a few songs that became hits.

"I know I'll never love this way again," Johnson sings, recalling the tune that in 1980 earned Dionne Warwick a Grammy Award, was ranked No. 5 in the Billboard Hot 100 and went gold with more than a million copies sold.

Another song Johnson took a pass on was "Where Have You Been," which reached No. 10 on the country chart and in 1990 earned Kathy Mattea a Grammy Award.

One other that he turned down, "Why Not Me?" earned No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and No. 30 on the country chart.