Editor's Note: Last November the Minneapolis Tribune published an article about Minnetonka resident Michael Johnson, who was negotiating a recording contract with Columbia Records. He was trying to sell Columbia a song entitled "Bluer Than Blue." Columbia procrastinated, and meanwhile johnson was offered a contract by EMI-America. He accepted their offer, and they made him a star.

Associated Press
Los Angeles, Calif.
1978

Michael Johnson seemed a bit dazed as he sat in the conference room of his Beverly Hills publicist. As he said good-bye to one reporter, another was shuffled in.

All this fuss was a very curious thing to Michael Johnson. He was getting the star treatment, complete with an aide to fetch drinks, but he was clearly nonplused.

"Every now and then," he admitted, "I get a little confused."

Johnson's new station in life comes courtesy of a fast-rising pop hit called "Bluer Than Blue," a bittersweet love tune about romantic breakups. "I knew it was potentially a successful song," he said, "but I didn't think it would go this far. It seemed, well, too mature. The experience of being married or living with someone is hard to identify with, for younger people.

"I didn't think they would find that a dream, a real dream, for them. But I was wrong."

Johnson, 33, is a native of Colorado and moved to the Twin Cities area eight years ago. He is a quiet, contemplative man with a serene speaking voice that should be recording TV sermonettes. He is surprised by his success. not because he didn't believe in the song, but because he wasn't really looking for success.

Johnson had become a professional procrastinator, fooling a little with music, then writing, then acting, then music again. He spent some time in the hugely successful off-Broadway production, "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris," but felt restricted by live theater and quit.

"I wanted to just play my guitar as a solo musician, work some coffee houses," he said. "I played head games with myself. I would give myself until I was 25 to decide on a career, then until I was 28. Then I was 29 before I remembered that. Basically, I just did whatever came up next.

"I wasn't all that conscious of a career or of survival...I wanted to be a singer, a musician, an artist, but I never wanted to be a star."

Johnson recorded four albums before "Blue" hit, but, unless you're related to him it's not likely you've heard of them. "It was alternative, kind of noncompetitive music," Johnson said, "art songs. Not necessarily rhythm-oriented. Music that didn't necessarily have to have a set of drums or have to compete with songs that came before or after it on the radio."

The directionless wanderings of his soul finally took a bearing toward commercial pop music. "It was mainly because I was beginning to like the music that was more successful, that was more commercial," he said.

"I began to like some of the artists and it seemed like something I could do. It has proven to be in times the challenge I thought it would be."

With the success of "Blue," music has because more tangible as a career to me now," Johnson said. "My mother keeps calling me and saying, 'Is this finally it?'"