Interview with Jim Thorn, WYAB-FM
Includes preview of new single "Invisible"

"That's What's Happening - Blues and Arts Hour" - WYAB-FM - 1.14.2022

Acoustic instrumental guitar version of my upcoming single “Invisible” - recorded on my iPhone 5.17.2022

Invisible - guitar instrumental

Part 1 of SAJ's interview with the "Cool Kids" (their name!) at Third Coast Radio. Great time!

Third Coast Radio - 4.15.2023 - Part 1 - Interview

Part 2 of SAJ's interview with the "Cool Kids" (their name!) at Third Coast Radio, which includes a solo performance of the upcoming single "Invisible."

Third Coast Radio - 4.15.2023 - Part 2 - Performance

Scott Albert Johnson - diatonic harmonica
Chalmers Davis - piano

live at Snug Harbor, New Orleans LA, October 19 2014 (2nd show)

Nuages - Snug Harbor 10.19.2014 2nd Show

The future is a mystery that awaits us, just around the corner. That's the idea behind "Invisible," the new single from singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist SCOTT ALBERT JOHNSON. “Invisible” is a tour de force from the St. Louis-born and Jackson, Mississippi-based artist, who played all the instruments except for drums (performed by longtime collaborator Kenny Graeber) and sang all the vocal parts except for a backing vocal from son Charlie Johnson. The new track is the follow-up to Johnson’s 2020 single "Float," which received airplay on more than 75 stations nationwide (and was named "Pick of the Week" by Ann Delisi @ WDET in Detroit).

"With ‘Invisible’, I wanted to create a song that captured the nervous sense of foreboding that seems to be enveloping all of us right now," says Johnson. "Between the rise of AI and similarly advanced technologies, climate change, and a seemingly intractable sense of 'us against them' in our own backyard, it's easy to feel hopeless. In spite of the heavy subject, however, the song is ultimately about optimism emerging from darkness.”

Musically, Johnson is known for his virtuosic harmonica playing, but he started his musical career as a bassist/vocalist and sometime guitarist. He brings his multi-instrument abilities and production skills to "Invisible," which is also Johnson's ode to his favorite progressive artists. "My music is influenced by musicians like Peter Gabriel, the Police, Daniel Lanois, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Miles Davis, Bruce Hornsby, Radiohead, and others," he says. "These artists have always understood the power of dynamics, texture, and lyrics to create drama. And thanks to them I have aspired to create music and words that impact the listener emotionally and intellectually." 

LYRICS:
I'm walking into something
I'm staring into the sea
Looking at the emptiness
That's right in front of me
And the voices right behind me
They keep calling out my name
They want to come along
They want to play the same old game

But I'm staring at the invisible
I'm going to find a way to see
I'm looking straight ahead
Into the eyes... Of who I'm going to be

The space and time around me
Can't hold me anymore
This is just the beginning
This is just an open door
I'm stepping through it blindly
I'm looking for the light
I'm searching what's inside of me
I'm finding my second sight

And I know it looks invisible
But I'm going to give it a try
Just take a look all around you
Can you see it now? Are you ready to testify?

Now the moment is upon me
The days have just begun
The years are waiting for me
This is step number one

And I'm walking into the invisible
I'm going to find a way to see
The voices of the past are gone
And I'm here to find... the future inside of
me

SONG CREDITS:
released April 26, 2024
Produced by Scott Albert Johnson.
Recorded and mixed at Monkaroo Studios.

Scott Albert Johnson: lead and backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass guitar, harmonica, programming
Kenny Graeber: drums
Charlie Johnson: backing vocals

VIDEO CREDITS:
Directed, produced, and edited by SAJ
Director of photography: Charlie Johnson
Production assistant: Austin Hood

SPECIAL THANKS and love to my three kids (Charlie, Benjamin, and Lily Margaret) and my wife, Susan Margaret Barrett.  I wouldn't want to do the future without you.

#singersongwriter #invisible #harmonica #guitar #indierock #jacksonmississippi

Invisible

Going Somewhere, the new album from Scott Albert Johnson

released June 9th, 2015

I Don't Remember

Going Somewhere, the new album from Scott Albert Johnson

to be released June 9th, 2015

[c][p]2015 by Scott Albert Johnson [Monkaroo Music/BMI]

This is a song about relationships, and also about songwriting, and how hard and similar they both can be. As the song suggests, it really did take ten years to write. 
---
LYRICS:
I don't understand this situation 
I don’t know the way that I should feel 
Can't seem to find the inspiration 
Can't find a single thing that's real 

I’m talking about a negotiation 
A meeting on a bridge that we can’t see 
But I can’t stop this cruel reverberation 
From filling up the space between you and me 

If I only knew the words 
If I only knew the song 
I would sing it from the mountains 
We'd be dancing all night long 
If my voice could speak these thoughts 
In a way that you could hear 
You would feel the way that I do 
And our love would reappear 

I want to reminisce about tomorrow 
Initiate a plan for yesterday 
Take a great leap forward to evaluate each sorrow 
So we could maybe choose a better way 

But you don't want to know the plans I'm making 
You know that things must be the way they’ll be 
And all these remedies that I'm mistaking 
For something that will bring you back to me 

If I only knew the words 
If I only knew the song 
I would scream it to the heavens 
With a voice that’s proud and strong 
If my soul could speak the truth 
And if only you could hear 
You would know my heart for certain 
And the way would be so clear 

And this song goes on forever 
And these dreams haunt me night and day 
And I see you looking at me, and I don’t know what to say 
Why does it have to be that way? 

Ten years and I've still got the same affliction 
I’ve started and I’ve stopped one thousand times 
The metaphors don’t rise above the fiction 
The melodies won’t match up with the rhymes 

And every breath serves to remind me 
Of all the times I've tried to write this song 
And now that you have come here to find me 
I pray this time that it won’t come out wrong 

If I only knew the words 
If I only knew the song 
I would sing it from the mountains 
We'd be dancing all night long 
If I only knew the words 
If I only knew the song 
We would sing it together 
And we’d be dancing...

CREDITS:
from Going Somewhere, releases 09 June 2015 
SAJ: lead and backing vocals, harmonica 
Chalmers Davis: synthesizers 
Cody Smith: guitar 
Raphael Semmes: bass guitar 
Steve Cook: drums 
Holley Peel: backing vocals 

Engineered by Tim Cotton and Ted Gainey at Windy Ridge Studios. 
Mixed and mastered by Randy Everett, with additional mixing and co-production by Cody Smith.

If I Only Knew The Words

live performance at Snug Harbor, New Orleans LA, October 19 2014
Scott Albert Johnson - harmonica and vocals
Chalmers Davis - piano
Raphael Semmes - bass
Steve Cook - drums

live at Snug Harbor, New Orleans LA - 10.19.2014 (1st Show)

Interview with Marshall Ramsey on "Now We're Talking" - Mississippi Public Broadcasting - June 13th, 2016
produced by Cherita Brent

6.13.2016 - MPB Interview With Marshall Ramsey

I wrote this song about a light in the sky. I recorded it with members of an acoustic group that I play with in Jackson called Animal Farm, along with some other amazing Jackson musicians, including Patrice Moncell, a renowned blues and gospel singer, on background vocals (she’s sung at Carnegie Hall, and was featured in the Robert Mugge documentary Last of the Mississippi Jukes). 

It’s a rollicking, fun song, but there’s a deeper idea in the lyrics: the innate desire, in all of us, to reach out for something greater than the world around us and “jump off this planet.”

Spaceship

This song is a very dear one to me and is one of two on the album that could be described as. at least to some extent, autobiographical. I wrote it about a year before I moved home to Mississippi from Washington DC. At the time, I had just made a decision to re-focus my life and career around music. I grew up in Mississippi, a place where music seems to live in the air all around you. I really missed that, and I also wanted to be closer to my family (I had left for college and lived in various faraway locales for a long time). 

All of these feelings poured out of me as I wrote the lyrics to this song in one afternoon (while pretending to work at a miserable “temp” job); t he music came a little later. Recorded over multiple sessions at Popaholic and Terminal Recording Studio. 



Magnolia Road

Recording of Silent Night 
Harmonica by Scott Albert Johnson 
Guitar by Bob Gates 
2010

Silent Night (mastered)

“Scott Albert Johnson manhandles his harmonica with a master’s flair. He is a triple-threat artist who can sing, write and blow his emotions clear on out of his harmonica like nobody’s business.”
Goldmine [USA]
 
“Scott Albert Johnson is a great songwriter. He writes about man's journey: who we are, where we stand and where our lives take us. His musings about life are cast in clever melodies, sung by a voice that seemingly knows no limitations. He is extremely versatile on the harmonica… sometimes you hear the influence of Toots Thielemans, then Howard Levy, and then Stevie Wonder. Johnson has made another excellent record.”
Rootstime [Belgium]
 
"Scott Albert Johnson’s new record Going Somewhere knocks me out. The songs are memorable, the singing intense, and the harmonica new and powerful... It’s the most daring rock harmonica record since Blues Traveler came along to shake everybody up with a completely different take on the instrument."
 Richard Hunter, author of Jazz Harp (the original instructional book on jazz harmonica), hunterharp.com

"Scott Albert Johnson is a virtuoso harmonica player and an excellent singer and songwriter as well. After a few spins, the lyrics remain all around in your head. Johnson has made an equally beautiful and special album. ”
Rudolf’s Music [Netherlands]
  
“Scott Albert Johnson is fiercely original. This isn't just an album to listen to. It's an album to explore. Great songs, vocals and harp and instrumentation.”
Jon Gindick, author of Rock N’ Blues Harmonica and one of the preeminent harmonica teachers in the world, gindick.com

 “There are harmonica players and then there is Scott Albert Johnson… One of the best harp players in the world.”
Cashbox Music Reviews

Born in St. Louis and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Scott Albert Johnson was bathed in the wide range of the American songbook, as well as the sounds of his 1970’s and 80’s childhood.  The soul and spirit of that diversity is at the core of his new album, Going Somewhere. Johnson incorporates elements of rock, jazz, blues, funk, country, and world music, mixed with thoughtful lyrics, strong vocals, and virtuosic harmonica playing, to create a unique, modern concoction of sound.

“I’m influenced by almost every kind of music that I’ve ever heard,” says Johnson.  “Growing up in the heart of the South, obviously blues has had a big impact on me.  It’s also the heart and soul of virtually every type of modern music.  But I also grew up a big fan of artists like Peter Gabriel, the Police, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Bruce Hornsby, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Daniel Lanois, John Scofield, and Rush, just to name a few.  So I draw on all of that, and I try to write lyrics and music that have an emotional as well as intellectual impact.  Then I throw in some harmonica for good measure.”

Johnson has become a true harmonica master, utilizing a unique and difficult technique known as “overblow,” which allows the diatonic harmonica to be played as a fully chromatic instrument.  He is one of a small group of players who can do this.  He also utilizes digital effects to expand the sonic palette of the instrument, and he counts such harmonica masters as Toots Thielemans, John Popper, Howard Levy, Stevie Wonder, and the late Chris Michalek as major influences.  Yet Johnson sees the harmonica as just one piece of what he does musically.

“I've always felt most influenced by artists who are kind of what I would call triple-threats,” says Johnson. “They sing well, they play at least one instrument very well, and they write great songs. I take each of these three parts of the equation as seriously as any other part. I also feel most in-tune with artists who kind of are ‘their own genre,’ borrowing from many different kinds of music. I hope my music reflects that.”

Popular tracks by Scott Albert Johnson