Bob Johnston

Donald William 'Bob' Johnston (born 14 May 1932, Hillsboro, Texas) is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.

Early days

Johnston was born into a professional musical family. His grandmother Mamie Jo Adams was a songwriter, as was his mother Diane Johnston. Diane had written songs for Gene Autry in the '50s and scored a hit in 1976 when Asleep at the Wheel covered her 1950 demo "Miles and Miles of Texas". After a stint in the Navy, Bob returned to Fort Worth, then he and Diane Johnston collaborated on songwriting for rockabilly artist Mac Curtis, and others. From 1956 to 1961 Bob recorded a few of his own rockabilly singles under the name Don Johnston. By 1964 he had moved into production work at Kapp Records in New York, freelance arranging for Dot Records and signed as a songwriter to music publisher Hill and Range. He also married songwriter Joy Byers with whom he began to collaborate.

Elvis and Joy Byers

In recent years Bob Johnston has claimed that songs still credited to his wife Joy Byers were actually co-written, or solely written by himself. He has cited old "contractual reasons" for this situation. The songs in question include Timi Yuro's 1962 hit "What's A Matter Baby", plus at least 16 songs for Elvis Presley's films between 1964 and 1968, including "It Hurts Me", "Let Yourself Go" and "Stop, Look and Listen". Two songs credited to Byers, the aforementioned "Stop, Look and Listen" and "Yeah, She's Evil!" were recorded by Bill Haley & His Comets before being used by Elvis (the latter song was retitled "The Meanest Girl in Town" when Presley recorded it).

Columbia, Dylan, Cash, Cohen

Johnston worked briefly as a staff producer for Kapp Records, then for Columbia Records in New York, where he began producing a string of notable and highly influential albums (see list below). He was already producing Patti Page when in 1965 he was successful in gaining the assignment to produce Bob Dylan, followed by Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Cash and then Leonard Cohen. His style of production varied from a 'documentary' approach capturing a fleeting moment (exemplified by Dylan's albums & Cash's live albums) to providing subtle arrangements with strings, background vocals and seasoned session musicians (exemplified by Cohen's studio albums). After a couple of years in New York, Johnston became head of Columbia in Nashville, Tennessee, where he had known many of the session musicians, such as Charlie Daniels, for years. He produced three of Cohen's albums and also composed music to the Cohen lyric "Come Spend the Morning", recorded by both Lee Hazlewood and Engelbert Humperdinck.

Independent producer

Dissatisfied with his salary earnings as a Columbia staff producer, particularly after several hit albums which earned him no royalties, Johnston became an independent producer, most successfully with Lindisfarne on "Fog on the Tyne", which topped the British album chart in 1972.

During a period of financial difficulty, when he was under scrutiny from the IRS, Johnston moved to Austin, Texas and did no record production for some time. He eventually returned with work on Willie Nelson's 1992 album "" (Nelson had his own financial difficulties at the time).

Miscellaneous

At the beginning of "To Be Alone With You" on "Nashville Skyline" Bob Dylan famously asks "Is it rolling, Bob?", talking to the producer Bob Johnston.

elective discography as producer

*Patti Page: "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" US #8 (1965)
*Bob Dylan: "Highway 61 Revisited" (1965), "Blonde on Blonde" (1966), "John Wesley Harding" (1967), "Nashville Skyline" (1969), "Self Portrait" (1970), "New Morning" (1970)
*Simon and Garfunkel: "Sounds of Silence" (1966), "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" (1966), "Bookends" (1968)
*Johnny Cash: "At Folsom Prison" (1968); "The Holy Land" (1969); "At San Quentin" (1969); "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" (1970); "The Johnny Cash Show" (1970); "I Walk the Line" (1970); "Little Fauss and Big Halsy" (1971)
* Burl Ives: "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (1968)
*Leonard Cohen: "Songs from a Room" (1969), "Songs of Love and Hate" (1971), "Live Songs" (1973)
*Lindisfarne: "Fog on the Tyne" (1972), "Dingly Dell" (1972)
*Michael Murphey: "Geronimo's Cadillac" (1973), "Cosmic Cowboy Souvenir" (1973), "Michael Murphey" (1973), "Blue Sky - Night Thunder" (1975), "Swans Against the Sun" (1976
*Loudon Wainwright III: "Attempted Mustache" (1973)
*Willie Nelson: "" (1992)
*Carl Perkins: "Go Cat Go" (1996)

External links

* [http://mixonline.com/recording/interviews/audio_bob_johnston/index.html Mix Online 2003 interview with Bob Johnston]
* [http://www.b-dylan.com/pages/samples/bobjohnston.html On The Tracks interview with Bob Johnston]
* [http://www.rockabilly.nl/references/messages/bob_johnston.htm Johnston's early rockabilly]
* [http://rcs.law.emory.edu/rcs/artists/j/john8600.htm Page with samples on Don Johnston's rockabilly singles]