Bluer than Blue: Following heart surgery, underinsured Michael Johnson is gladder than glad that he's learned how to accept help from his friends.

By Jon Bream, Star Tribune, Minneapolis MN

MICHAEL & FRIENDS: A BENEFIT CONCERT
With: Pat Donohue, Ann Reed, Prudence Johnson, Michael Monroe, Mary Jane Alm, Daisy Dillman Band, Lonnie Knight & Carl Franzen, and many more.
When: 7 p.m. next Sun.
Where: Fine Line Music Cafe, 318 1st Av.N.,Mpls. 612-338-8100.
Tickets: $15-$50.
Web: www.mjblue.com

The way Michael Johnson tosses around such phrases as "it's an epiphany," "learned about receiving" and "looked at the moon," you'd think he suddenly found religion or joined a New Age cult.

No, the former Twin Cities troubadour merely had quadruple bypass surgery in August. Now he's on the mend, and another new expression has entered his vocabulary: underinsured. The surgery was covered but the rehab isn't. And he doesn't have disability insurance to make up for the lost income.

Three days a week, he works out on a treadmill, hooked up to various devices, with healthcare staff monitoring his training. He also takes voice lessons with a doctor at Vanderbilt University to recover and refine the instrument he has taken for granted in four decades of touring and recording. Insurance doesn't cover that, either.

"I have good days and I have bad days," Johnson, 63, said from Nashville, where he has lived since 1985 after two decades in Minnesota. For the surgery, he had a tube down his throat for two days and "it messed with me vocally. Singing is not as easy as playing guitar. I went through five months or so of not knowing whether or not I was ever going to do any singing."

He contemplated teaching or writing, and came to the conclusion that performing is what he does. But Johnson hasn't been able to work much because of the rehab, so some of his Minnesota friends are staging a benefit next Sunday at the Fine Line Music Cafe. He'll even perform two or three numbers.

"It's truly amazing," said Johnson, best known for "Bluer Than Blue" and "Give Me Wings." "All I do is sing and play and love what I do. People come out of the woodwork to help out. It's not as though I've been Mother Teresa. It's hard to know how to receive it."

Gigs will come in time. He has been able to pay his rent, thanks to support from MusiCares, the Grammy Awards fund that assists musicians in need. He's also helping to promote VoiceforUninsured.org, an organization that provides information for people without insurance.

A typical day for Johnson involves meditation, two hours of singing and playing guitar, maybe a little business. He also lifts weights, does yoga, and cries a little every day.

"I'm enjoying my health," said the singer-guitarist, who often shares his feelings in the "monologue" section of his website, mjblue.com. "I like that new normal. I'm struggling with work. I went back to work in October, November and December and it was way too soon. So I stopped and got back on the treadmill."

Still, this is the best Johnson has felt "in memory," he said. "And I was not figuring on that. The doctors didn't give me high hopes there. I feel great."

Johnson said he had three weeks' notice to prepare for the surgery. "I needed to make peace with my boys [ages 24 and 25]. I had to do my will. My last words to the anesthesiologist — and he's maybe the last person you're ever going to have words with – I said, You guys play music when you do this?' He said 'Yeah!' I said, No country music and no weather channel jazz. He said, 'OK.' I never found out what they actually did play."

Recovery was tougher than anticipated. He actually lived with his physician and her husband for a while. His son Stan got married about six weeks after the surgery. Johnson served both as best man and half of the wedding band, along with his younger son, Leo.

"I sang the second verse to 'Fly Me to the Moon' – Fill my heart with song and let me sing forever more – and by the time I got to that, I was just bawling. It worked for the wedding. But it was way too soon, and I worked too hard. I was exhausted and kind of broke down afterwards."

Now he's doing the occasional unadvertised performance at the Blue Bird Café, Nashville's singer-songwriter club. Serving as his own booking agent, he has arranged a handful of announced gigs, including the Minnesota State Fair. "That's five 45-minute sets in two days," said Johnson, who otherwise won't work two days in a row. "That'll be ambitious."

Prone to serious reflection these days, he tells a story about a man at the supermarket admiring the blue T-shirt with its huge breast pocket that Johnson was wearing. It was the shirt provided by the hospital so he could place a portable EKG device in the pocket.

"Somebody thought it was a really cool shirt and asked, How much did that cost?" the singer-guitarist said. "So far, it's about 120."

Meaning: $120,000.

Johnson laughed heartily.