Daily Planet, Chicago
December 13, 1971
by Eliot Wald

Media Burn is making the superlative an endangered species. With the rise of rock journalism - maybe 300 "serious" essays a month on various facets of contemporary music - there isn't much left to say about a pertormer that hasn't been said before in praise of adolescent blues bands and the like, not to mention the music that really is superlative. And that jadedness is a real shame, because Michael Johnson, who this article is about, deserves a few superlatives all to himself.

Let's resurrect the word Talented. After Rolling Stone, that one sounds like faint praise — after all, aren't all musicians talented? Well, that's not true; talent implies something, a natural gift. Guitarists like Michael Johnson are not made. His skill at playing, at singing, at taking a tune and making it a Michael Johnson Song and then putting it across to the audience - there's no way to learn that.

Michael does about two hours of guitar work every 45 minute set. He plays full ON every second — no gaps or breathers. Even the simplest tune is given the full Mike Johnson treatment, rhythm, bass and lead. If you can tear yourself away from watching his hands, you'll also notice his excellent voice and stage presence. Maybe it's because of his blond hair and baby face, but Michael has that rare quality of making an audience love him immediately, and he's the only performer I've ever seen who could get an impressive ovation from a bleary-eyed audience of 15 people at three in the morning.

Despite his newness to the Chicago folk scene, Mike Johnson is no newcomer. Why, at 15. he had his own group, Billy Pfahnstiehl and the Tempests (Billy having, in Mike's opinion, a better name to front a group playing all the local VFW halls. After his Chuck Berry stage, he got into folk heavily and played the coffeehouses. eventually winding up in a band called the Back Porch Majority, which featured Randy Sparks, known in bygone days as "The Singing Dentist". After that one, Johnson went to Spain. where he studied with Luis Bonfa, the daddy of Bossa Nova guitar. On returning, he teamed with John Denver and David Boyce in the New Mitchell Trio (new in that it no longer had Chad Mitchell). That lasted about a year, and was followed by a major role in the Chicago and touring companies of "Jacques Brel is Alive..." More recently, he has been travelling the fo!k club and college circuit.

This brings me (and Michael) to the Earl of Old Town at North and Wells, Chicago's oldest folk music club. Often overlooked because they specialize in local performers, the Earl is becoming the club to watch. With people like Michael, John Prine (probably the best songwriter in captivity), Jim Post, Steve Goodman, Bonnie Koloc and Bob Gibson rotating appearances, and with the possibility of a guest set from any of these or a half dozen other fine musicians, the Earl is providing some of the best entertainment in town. Between the Earl and the Quiet Knight, there's generally something good going on musically in Chicago, and the consistency of the clubs is giving Chicago folk scene a long-awaited boost. As a result, Chicago is producing some of the best new folk talent in the country — as witness the release of FOUR first-albums by Prine, Post, Goodman, and Koloc. Someone out in Recordland is listening to folk music again.

Calling Mike Johnson a folksinger, though, is rather inaccurate, maybe even insulting, because he's so much more than that. He's a jazz-classical-folk guitarist who has joined virtuosity with listenability. He fascinates people who might fall asleep at a classical guitar recital. He particularly tends to knock other musicians out, many of whom say that he's the best they've seen, and others of whom can be later seen mumbling to themselves.

The musicians who have the most trouble with Michael are the ones who have to follow his act. This week at the Earl it was Lonnie Knight, another Minneapolis resident who's no mean picker himself, and a fine songwriter to boot. What he had to contend with was the unfortunate tendency for any guitarist following Johnson to sound like he's wearing gloves. This week Catherine Conn, ex-Friend and Lover (that's a band, not a sitation) will try. but even her ex-Friend and Lover and Husband Jim Post couldn't help but be slightly overshadowed, despite his prodigious talent.

As for Michael Johnson, well, he'll probably be recording an album soon himself, and he might even become a household word "james taylor", or "monosodium glutamate" but it won't be the same listening to him on a record where an amazing lick may be the product of seven hours of takes and electronic mixing. Only seeing him in person will convince you that he actually DOES all those things you're hearing.

Anyway, this is Michael's last week at the Earl (he closes December 19th, to be exact), so if you want to see one of the best guitarists now performing, hustle over to the Earl of Old Town and find out what I'm getting hysterical about.