From his earliest days lying on the floor under his mother’s piano as she rehearsed songs for Sunday morning, Joe Johnson has demonstrated a lifelong love and connection to music. To say he is a Country or Blues or Americana artist would greatly depend on the song you are listening to because Joe is purely a Songwriter; he just writes songs. And when it comes to writing songs, Joe possesses a unique talent for striking at the heart of the listener with deeply personal lyrics and storytelling while hitting the rest of the body with a mix of Texas shuffles, Country and Blues that is imbedded in his southern Mississippi roots, and the sounds of Pop, Rock, and Soul music he grew up influenced by. Few artists can captivate a fancy theater one night and backwoods roadhouse the next, but Joe Johnson has again and again for over two decades.
Originally from the small community of Morgantown, Joe began his career as a solo songwriter in 2001 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 2003 he relocated to Manitou Springs, Colorado and shortly thereafter helped form the band Creating a Newsense which would go on to have a highly successful seven-year run, opening for and backing up artists like Ollabelle, Split Lip Rayfield, Blue Mountain, Rusted Root, and many more. They regularly packed rooms throughout Colorado and played a number of festivals including 2008’s Wakarusa Festival.
Upon the band’s dissolution in 2010, Joe restarted his solo career with 2011’s “A Time to Dance”, released on The Haunted Windchimes’ Blank Tape Records label. He Followed that up with his breakthrough album “New West Sound”, also on Blank Tape, in 2013. That album would spawn two songs featured in the film “Making a Killing” starring Christopher Lloyd and Michael Jai White, with the sparse country waltz “Salvation”, about learning to cope with fear and uncertainty by observing the simple beauty of a river, and the soulful love song “Ain’t Nothing Wrong” shows Joe’s dynamic and powerful range.
The next few years saw a tremendous amount of growth as he stepped out on his own with several independently released singles and EPs as well as an increased touring schedule, appearing everywhere from bars to theaters and festivals across the country while at home opening for such acts as The White Buffalo, Radney Foster, Asleep at the Wheel, Junior Brown, Lukas Nelson and countless others. He shared the stage with Ray Wylie Hubbard for a Townes song and has even been joined by Todd Snider, who was so moved during a Joe Johnson & The Wildfire performance that he asked to join the band for a Jerry Jeff Walker song. Whether solo or fronting a band, Joe began carving out his own legacy in the Colorado musical landscape, that of the underdog and the unbending independent artist. The resulting stories and experiences went into the 2018 release “Morgantown”, featuring The Wildfire joined by guests like Mississippi Hill Country blues legend Kenny Brown, Grant Sabin, Bryant Jones and Joe’s friend and fellow songsmith Jason Miller, who contributes the only other vocal on the album during the playful yet poignant final song “Cletus and Me and Willie Nelson” (which were the names of Joe’s dogs). The album garnered praise from fans and critics alike with the song “Morgantown Creek” being featured on Americana radio as well as in commercials for Colorado Public Radio. The song “Saint Christopher”, a traveling anthem written at a truck stop in western Kansas which tells the story of a singer who pleads with the patron saint of travelers to help him get home to the ones he loves while assuring them he will make it there “when the morning bird sings”. That song has also been featured in commercials on tv and radio and received airtime on several radio shows. After two years of heavy touring and promotion behind the release, Joe decided in the Fall of 2019 to take a break from the road and focus on the ones he loved who had supported these efforts for so many years, his family.
In 2019 Joe began a long stint at home. He accepted a job teaching songwriting at the Colorado Springs Conservatory, to which he dedicated five years while helping his two kids through high school. Far from dormant, Joe began a half decade long writing session, exploring his love for rock and roll as well as diving deep into finger style guitar and heavy lyrical content. He spent his time during the pandemic writing and producing a collection of singles dubbed “The Pandemic Collection”, as well as recording his next full-length release “Dark Horse Pale Rider” which debuted in December of 2020 on Bandcamp, with a wider release for streaming and on vinyl in early 2021. A moody collection of songs with minimalist production, performed live and in isolation in his garage on free recording software, the album presents an unvarnished side to an artist who is a product of the 1990’s DIY punk ethos. With nothing but his voice, his guitar, and one cowboy boot tapping on a wood board, Joe produced what has quietly become his most widely appreciated effort to date both by American fans as well as those abroad. While the album is purposely devoid of marketability, it has found a home on internet radio and streaming services worldwide, becoming a go-to for lovers of songwriting in Ireland, UK, Germany, France, and Brazil where fans have made up the majority of online sales and distribution. The storytelling and guitar work shine through and give the listener their most firm evidence yet that Joe is a master of the songwriter trade. He recently followed that up with his first ever live release in 2023 with “One Man Show”, recorded at the Meadowgrass Music Festival in May of that year. Featuring mostly new and previously unreleased songs, it’s a perfect addition to a catalogue that spans almost a quarter of a century with nine full length albums of original material, one of covers (2012’s “A Cold Christmas Moon” which takes its title from a line in the Woody Guthrie song “1913 Massacre”), two EP’s, and several singles. He has kept busy with select local performances and has been featured several times with The Chamber Orchestra of the Springs as well as the Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra, including during their July 4th 2022 program at Pikes Peak Center which continues to air on Rocky Mountain PBS
2024 sees the return of the underdog, with a new sense of purpose and a hundred new songs to share out on the road. Joe has also recently joined forces with his old friends, Colorado Springs based Tejon Street Corner Thieves, for some shows and recording projects in what has been described by Thieves founder Connor O’Neil as “the all-time Springs collab”. It is sure to be an exciting new chapter in one of the most durable and long-lasting careers in the Colorado music community. In addition to his work with the Thieves, Joe is currently working with The Wildfire on new material for his next release, which aims to be a more Rock and Blues centered offering, as well as material for another Country record, and even his first piano driven project, dedicated to those times spent lying at his mother feet under the same piano he plays now. Joe Johnson is a true artist and a survivor and if you ask him, he will tell you he’s just getting started.
“Melodic and untamed, pure country style..." - Tim Wenger, Colorado Music Buzz