I’m excited.. coming up in March is the interview with Kelly and Donna aka Still on the Hill, Toucan Jam, and more.
The problem with introducing these marvelous folks is that we could write a book about them. If you are not familiar with their music, plan to have a sense of joy after their interview.
As a music duo, PJ (my ex, who I have referred to for years as “old number one”) and I took woodshed time. It was a block of time to be isolated from each other and the rest of the world. A time to make space for our creative residues to bubble to the surfaces. I think the expression came from taking a guitar
out to the woodshed and making lots of noise to learn music.
The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, AR, is set up with that same goal in mind, but it’s more luxurious than your everyday woodshed. If an author is flooded with ideas… there is nothing to interrupt the flow. The resident can put life on hold and follow the muse. http://www.writerscolony.org 
One of the times we did this, I camped my way between Gibraltar and southern England in a little NSU Prinz. PJ went to Morocco on a Velocette motorcycle he’d restored in Gibraltar.
Months later we met up and began working on our songs and performance, with an eye toward finding our niche in the amazing British scene.
What kind of songs did we write while we were on woodshed? Some of the songs carried an immense longing for something we couldn’t identify, something just beyond our reach. Others songs showed the frustration of living in a world we didn’t understand.
One of the most fluid and dreamy songs that PJ wrote was “Seagull”. I think he was in Casablanca Morocco where the European Herring Gulls, the yellow leg, and the Kelp Gulls soared along the Atlantic coast.
Arranging his song together, setting out harmonies, tempo, and bass lines felt like flying. I think it is one of his finest songs.
Seagull by Paul PJ Johnson
Seagull follow me, lend your eyes to sea
Way up in the air, help me find it there
Bankin’along on a cold winter’s breeze on the sea
Carry the dreams of a man here who won’t let me be
Seagull fly away…. You and me someday.
You up in the air, let me take you there
Past a thousand years of sorrow and of tears
Where time is a dream that is splinterefd on sunshire for free
Love is a lamp that allows everybody to see
Seagull fly away…. You and me someday.
PJ (Paul Johnson) and I lived in a real cowman’s cottage, 90 kilometers west of London in Vernham Dean, Andover, Hampshire. The postmaster asked us what we wanted to name the place. Of course, we picked “BagEnd” (because I was short and had fur on the top of my feet.) Well, not exactly.. but the place was similar to this one in the same sweet village.
It was in the late ’60s and early ’70s, that my ex and I were in England. We’d signed contracts for publishing, recording, and performing with a company in London (at #1 Harley Street.) Back then, one or two successful acts could support a whole stable of musicians. We were treated very well…( until we weren’t–But that’s another story.)
Before finding our music business “home”, we squatted for a few months in an abandoned one-room house on stilts. We wrote songs and got to know some musicians in the area. After a great gig at the Round House in London, we came back to our seashore place and all of our stuff had been stolen. There’s nothing like being down to one change of clothes and your instruments to make one get serious. I really liked our squat, but it wasn’t legal. It was so remote, no one could get to us when the tide was in. We were so far from the rest of the world we could rehearse with all our might at any hour of the day or night.
After signing with RingMaker, we were provided a rental cottage, a car, 
and a recording schedule, etc. 
The cottage we lived in (legally) no longer had its thatched roof. We cooked on and were heated by a giant pale blue porcelain coal-fired stove nicknamed “Mother Rayburn”. There was a room on the porch that served as a refrigerator. The greengrocer, bread baker, and canned goods guy.. all made house calls and took orders for the following week. The baker was also the filling station and delivered mail. Sometimes we drove into Andover for the farmers’ market. Freshly butchered rabbits hanging upside down in the open air nudged me into vegetarian eating. The landlords left a can of fresh milk on the fence for us. It was a home.
When the company split up and things didn’t go well for us, I knew we would be leaving. I wrote the song “BagEnd” for that cottage– and eventually recorded it on “As the Crow Flies” 
. James Wilson of Aerie Designs in North Carolina did the cover art. (Thank him many times.)
And just this year an ancient copy of the recordings we made in London…surfaced magically. I’ll get some help to put both versions of that song in this blog.
I’m curious to know if you prefer one to the other.
Bag End
Bag End my friend good morning
open eyes to a brand new day
living in the country, dirt road, down-home style
Yellow leaves blow ’round, mornings
Birds feed on your window sills
Jackdaws in the field, dirt road, down-home style
Houses build up and tear down
Home is somethin’ else
Soon home will be on the highway
Dreaming of somewhere else.
Pheasants walk by, mornings
They don’t seem to know to hide
Like rabbits in the hedges, dirt road, down-home style
Houses build up and tear down
Home is somethin’ else
Soon home will be on the highway
Dreaming of somewhere else.
Is this the stopping point? My creating sometimes becomes unending for the desire to perfect it. Are you ever befuddled by your own over-thinking?
I started a painting of dear Michael Johnson (8-4-1944 to 7-25-17) with big ideas.
My monkey mind said, “Ouu, let’s make the title of every song he ever recorded part of the painting. .. and make it bluer than blue… and…”
While trying to neatly print all the song titles behind his likeness, I heard each one of those amazing songs note by note in my memory. Which of course reminded me of when I met Michael. He was a younger brother to my first husband, Paul Johnson. When Michael returned from a year in Barcelona he came to Austin to visit us. And the adventure began… He later recorded, “The Gypsy in the Photograph,” “Ridin’ in the Sky,” “In Your Eyes,”… some songs I wrote.
Then I remembered the time he came to England and visited us at the cowman’s cottage we were living in 90 kilometers west of London. Paul and Michael’s voices were similar, when we listened to a studio recording we couldn’t tell which one was singing which part.
And in Nashville, after Michael and Sally had their first son. And… you get the idea. I have spent weeks being swarmed by a hurricane of memories. Mostly they are millions of wonderful snippets from my life.
Overwhelmed, I decided that I could never put all of that into one simple sketch or painting. Today, I looked at the incomplete picture and asked,
“What is the least information here that reminds me the most of Michael.”
It’s something he talked about for recording albums… take away what doesn’t really serve.
Someday I may again sketch MJ, he was such a charming, funny, and gifted person in so many of our lives.
This one goes to Cindy McArthur who has kept Michael’s website (mjblue.com) and his music available for years. Thank you.
There’s a question I don’t expect people to want to answer. What’re your highest and lowest moments in your life so far? In a couple of my monthly interviews with fabulous people, divorce has been the lowest moment while the thrill of creating art is among their highest moments.
Great. The Universal answer, I concluded. (Not so fast, oh monkey mind.)
Why do we punish ourselves for not knowing the things we need to learn? Rather than accepting my experience, I decided the failure of my first marriage was proof of my obvious inadequacy, lack of value, intelligence, womanhood skills, and a long list of other serious insults. I carried that brand around way too long.
(How do we know what love is until we truly love someone and are loved back? We’re all guessing and looking for examples beyond the fairytale.)
However, I reasoned that a) if I was not fit to love a person one to one, b) I would share my love with people by the hundreds, and c) that the best way to do that might be through music. Ignoring the pseudo-logic, the result did lift my life and begin the joy of solo touring and songwriting.
Not wanting to relive the bad moments, I also avoided remembering the obviously wonderful moments. It was 55 years ago, PJ Johnson and I married.. and hit the road, each with a consuming passion for music, songwriting/performing, and adventures.
This year, Cindy McArthur (the marvelous keeper of Michael Johnson’s website, https://www.mjblue.com/)– unearthed a scratchy, pirated recording of the studio tapes we did in London, England, in 1968 at Olympic Studios.
Did I want them? Yes. Did I want to listen to them? No.
Embedded with the hurtful memories, I assumed that those songs would reduce me to ashes and shame… or some other self-inflicted silly judgment. Those songs must have been terrible, right?
(Nope)
The state of the art in audio-recording was then 2+” wide tape.. and 12 channels! We did not overdub anything.. just played it live. Two voices and two guitars with 3 mics per sound source.
Listening to that ancient recording today,
I am swollen with affection for those moments.
We were married to the music life, but not really suited for each other. For a dozen years, we stayed together. At times it brought out the very best in each of us.
And, oh, the music…
Crow:Did you know what you wanted to do for a living, for fun? 
later gardening.
Crow: With Covid touring is out of the question. Change is inevitable anyway. So we find other ways to share our gifts and express the urge to create. What have you been doing?