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Thursday. May 2. 1985 - THE CHARLOTTE POST - Page IB
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Soloist Jesse Johnson Prepares For The “Ifs” In Life
ny uoreua raanago
Entertainment Editor
The idea of the rock and funk
band Time splitting never really
Affected its lead guitarist, Jesse
Johnson. According to him, he
jhas always prepared for the
likely and not so likely.
“I always try to think a step or
two ahead Of myself. I consider,
‘What Would happen if...?’ and
try to prepare for those ifs.
During that period with the
Time, I imagined what I’d do if I
wasn’t in the band So I learned
about the recording process,
especially while working with
Prince. I even cut a couple of
tracks on my own for the fun of
it,” responded Johnson.
What Johnson was eventually
preparing himself for was for.
something that he could call his
own. ‘‘When L left the Time to
pursue a solo career, it was
simply-because i had ter do
something different, something I
would control. I really miss the
guys sometimes and I still talk to
everybody. But the most fun of
all is to do your own thing,”
reinforced Johnson.
Those days with the Time are
ones Johnson isn’t soon to for
get. “Life with the Time was a
lot of hard work and sacrifice,
but also tons of fun and every
body made tons of money,”
stressed Johnson.
His i^ole with the group was not
isolated to just that of a gui
tarist. Johnson was one. of the
original creative forces behind
the current sound and style.
“Prince and Morris Day came
to me and we basically started
out with an idea of how the band
was going to look and what they A
were going to sound like; what
they were going to do on stage.
Most of the attention was put on
Morris as he was the leftfsinger,
but each member of the band
was able to develop-h'is own style
of dress, walk and talk.”
■
(ESSE JOHNSON
> Km Imrkn cut new career
But those days are behind '
Johnson now. And now the focr&
is on the present and the Jesse
Johnson Revue. Time’s inks, in
the demise of the aggregation,
was A&M’s gain. Technically,
Johnson is not sighed to A&M
direttly, but records for the label
through his JWJ Productions
companyy-tvhich has a deal
allowing'''Johnson to produce
other.'-aWJ acts for the label.
WhHe he has written for others,
1Wbt now Johnson’s concentra
rVoo i*,Jr bud and its
recently debuted album
Jesse Johnson Revue.”
The band plays their
:ts on the album, but I wrote
srvthing and pretty much ar
the songs so that they are
” The
includes recruited members:
Mark Cardenas, keyboards;
Bobby Vandell, drums; Michael
Baker, guitar; Gerry Hubbard,
bass; and Brad Marshall, key
boards.
“I think it’ll be a fun album to
dance to, i>ut J’ll let the public
decide how good it is, because
they’re the only critics to me.” A
little more than a month after
“The Jesse Johnson Revue” had
been released, the public had
already stated their opinion.
The LP was Number One with
the music trade magazine, “Ra
dio it Records.” He had the top
Number Five album in “Bill
board Magazine.” And for the
final touch, his first solo album
has already sold over 400,000
albums and has been critically
acclaimed in such magazines as
“Rolling Stone,” “The Record,”
“Musicians,” and “Billboard.”
Where Johnson is today is a
stark contrast to his earlier
beginnings. “It was a little heavy
at times,” Johnson stated of his
childhood. Born in Illinois, he
moved to St. Louis at age nine, to
be raised by white foster pa- .
rents after his father and mother
split up. A good student but a ^ *
loner, he remembers being
teased by the other kids be
cause of his foster parents’
r race. When he was 16, his father
came and found him, taking him
back to Rock Island, II. Only
then did music begin to have an
impact on his life
“I got into rock ’n roll when I
moved back, just because it was
_ there. There wasn’t any black ..._
radio in town and there still isn’t.
It’s farm country and real rock
n roll territory,” recalled
Johnson.
Picking up the guitar, an in
strument his father used to play,
Johnson’s reputation was soon to
spread. While playing with vari
ous funk groups like Treacher-,
ous Funk and Dealer, Johnson
also remembered jamming with
guitar players from UFO,
AC-DC, Rush, and Molly Hat
chet.
Fellow musicians and others
kept telling Johnson to go to
Minneapolis. After hearing so
many people encouraging him
towards that direction, Johnson
stated: “I didn’t know a soul
there-I just took the money I’d
saved, packed a little suitcase,
grabbed my equipment and got
on a bus.”
That single move took Johnson
to the Time and later from the
formation of his own group and a
hot single, “! Wi mm
'