ALBUM:
Softly and Tenderly
TAYLOR USED:
914-C
SONG CLIPS:
The Lord's Prayer
28k | 56K
CONTACT INFO:
Mojave Sun Records
P.O. Box 40369
San Diego,
CA 92164
E-mail:
mojave sun @aol .com
Web:
www.DeborahLivJohnson.com
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On a limited budget and with little or no assistance, singer-songwriter Deborah Liv Johnson has fashioned an independent music career that a few years
ago enabled her to abandon the dreaded "day job" syndrome. With ingenuity, common sense, and hard work, this San Diego-based, one-woman operation
devised a system for maximizing the success of her music-related endeavors. Her local concerts, for which she occasionally teams with other area
notables (jazz guitarist Peter Sprague, singer-songwriters John Katchur and Peggy Watson, jazz vocalist Robin Adler) are "events", frequently
presented in an unusual way or in unique venues.
Johnson's business acumen is such that other artists solicit her professional counsel, so Taylor Guitars commisioned her to write a how-to for our
Spring '98 issue of Wood&Steel, titled, "Riding Solo on the Airwaves, or, How to Get Your Independently Produced CD Played on the Radio". The
article elicited bags of mail and got Johnson speaking gigs at music conventions from Reno to Albuquerque. For all her savvy, however, Johnson
shines brightest as a musician whose refined songwriting and performance skills, honeyed alto, and image-rich lyrics have earned her a large and
devoted following in Southern California.
In the last seven years, Johnson has released four CDs, and has defied the laws of "indie" economics by turning a profit on every one. Her
critically lauded Across the White Plains, released in 1995, was a nod to the first all-women's expedition to cross Antarctica to the South
Pole on foot, in January 1993. Her last effort, 1997's Softly and Tenderly, was a departure for Johnson - an album of specially selected,
sparsely produced "old hymns" dedicated to her parents, one-time Norwegian-Lutheran missionaries to Tanzania (East Africa), where Johnson was born.
It remains her fastest-selling release to date.
Lately, Johnson has been working on a Christmas album, which should be released later in the year. Like her other releases, it features lovely
graphics that underscore her belief in putting everything one has into a music project.
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