Musician Scott Albert Johnson Talks Art and Life

Writing is "like solving a puzzle that you made for yourself." Yes! So simple, precisely what I've experienced writing for my poetry blog and solving crosswords. I've scanned Google for another source of that quote without any hits. It seems to be original to the man who said it, singer-songwriter-harmonica virtuoso Scott Albert Johnson. I may have to get his idea tattooed on my chest.

Johnson recently talked art and life with Pulitzer-nominated journalist-cartoonist Marshall Ramsey for the podcast Mississippi Stories on Youtube.

Ramsey gives his listeners an overview on Johnson's music career before he digs into Johnson's life story, some of which I observed in person. He was my student in 8th grade at a small school where I saw him often during his high school years. He went off to Harvard, New York, and Washington. Years later, when he returned to Mississippi to pursue music, his first love, his gigs brought him near Atlanta, where I had settled, and I got to see him. See more detail in my blogposts about his albums Umbrella Man (10/2007) and Going Somewhere (11/2016).

Johnson cited another musician who expressed his own feeling about playing music for pay. He said that he's getting paid for hauling his equipment to the venue, setting up, and clearing it away after the show, but, "I play music for free."

Ramsey dug deeper into an anomaly in Johnson's c.v., his degree from the Columbia School of Journalism. A professor in an undergraduate English seminar had encouraged Johnson to consider writing for a career. Johnson had always been interested in current events, so Columbia seemed a good next step. Johnson doesn't regret that journalism turned out to be a detour; in that program, he honed his writing skills and developed a way of "interacting with the world." There should be a word, Johnson mused, for mistakes that turn out to be good for your life.

Discussing the pandemic's effect on Johnson's career, Ramsey says they've both lost friends in the pandemic, some to the disease, some, to disagreements about the disease. The two men trade ideas about the internet, which had for both of them once seemed to promise a smaller world, better informed, more connected. Now Ramsey says there's so much money to be made by "tickling the amygdalas" of users by arousing fear. Johnson responds that all we can do is to honor the dignity of others and do our own best work day by day. Maybe art can bridge gaps, he hopes.

Time to get my tattoo.