TJ ‘Holyboy’ Johnson is an experienced musician who has played to many international audiences. His biography reveals a wealth of Rock ‘n’ Pop connections made over several decades. He has entertained audiences at Ealing Club and Ealing Blues Festival curated events on many occasions. In Sept 2020, his band’s concert featured on primetime British TV, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s passing. As part of Occhi Magazine’s Ealing Club Eclectic series of interviews and streamed performances, we caught up with him to discuss his career.
What would you have been if you weren’t a musician?
If I wasn’t a performer, I would have just been drifting from job to job with no particular ambition for promotion or anything like that. I used to be a lathe machine operator and an Upholsterer which I really enjoyed. After those jobs, I just did any job I could get just to pay for my day-to-day living expenses. From the time I was bitten by the music bug, nothing else mattered so I just kept on practicing without any particular aim in mind, it was all just for fun, and partly because my next-door neighbor played guitar so that helped to motivate me to get as good as him and eventually overtake him.
How did you get into music?
I got into music very organically because my dad was an amateur musician, he played guitar and violin, so my brothers and I would just pick it up occasionally when we felt like it, so there was no pressure to learn, we all played to a certain level but I wanted to pursue it a little bit further than my siblings until one day a friend of mine who happened to be the drummer in a soul band heard me playing and so he asked me if I wanted to try out for his band, which I did, and got the gig and that was it that was my musical baptism which was very scary at first but here I am a hundred years later still doing it.
What are your memorable experiences?
There are so many it would take me months to recall them all, but here are a few for now. When I started playing in the Sixties money was the last thing on my mind, I just wanted to get on stage and play and have fun chasing girls and things like that. We played all over the UK for very little money because there wasn’t a lot of money around anyway but we all lived with our parents so not having to pay rent and bills there wasn’t any urgency to bring in loads of money, which was great.
In those days performing in Europe was tremendously exciting for young musicians, new audiences, new country, more money, more girls, so what’s not to like? Because we were underage we had to get our parents’ permission to travel otherwise you can’t go, all the other guys’ parents signed but oh no not mine, but that didn’t stop me so I found a way to get there any way I could perform in German clubs in those days there were no DJs to back you up, the bands played all night long with short breaks in between we used to play five forty-five minute or seven half-hour sets, which was absolutely exhausting, but the positive side to that was that you had a lot of time to get to know your instruments inside out and loads of time to try out new ideas and the tighten up the act.
One of the most memorable experiences I can remember is performing in Malta in the late seventies. The people were just so friendly and welcoming, plus the climate is fantastic, the food is great, and of course, the women are very beautiful. The best part of all was we were given a Christmas television special, all to ourselves, which was unbelievable. I think we stayed there for about three to four months, playing six nights a week in one club. We had a brilliant American singer who doubled on drums, and up to this day, he is the greatest male vocalist I have ever played with. He was phenomenal, unfortunately, he passed away about five years ago in California.
In those days before the EU, if you didn’t have a Carnet to show the border guards, you were sent right back to wherever you came from to get one you just couldn’t enter the country without one. The reason for the Carnet was to make sure you didn’t sell your gear while you were in the country, which was totally illegal. We got caught without one when we were trying to go over to Spain to open a brand-new nightclub owned by French nationals. We got stranded there for five days, all we had to eat was Pineapple chunks which was very welcomed indeed. We eventually got to Spain to open the club, but it was closed down the next night. We were told that it was because the Spanish Police didn’t like the fact that the club was owned by French nationals, and they hate the French, we spent another two weeks in Spain living on nothing but fried onions, which tasted awesome cause that’s all we could afford to buy.
From Spain, we went on to Portugal to perform in a night club but the agent turned out to be a gangster and he refused to pay us what he owed us, and on top of that, he confiscated our van so that we couldn’t leave the country, but we stole our own van in the middle of the night and hightailed it out of Portugal sharpish before he found out and call the police to stop us leaving the country, phew!! We drove straight to Bilbao, a Spanish port, to try to get home, but to do that we had to ring home to beg our parents to send us some money for our passage to come home. Another very memorable experience that I can’t forget what happened in Switzerland in the late seventies. Long story short again the agent refused to pay us so we ended up fighting with him because we weren’t having it. While we were fighting with this guy we heard a gunshot so we thought he’d shot one of us, but it turned out to be a starting pistol, thank god. Again we’re stranded and the only way we could get home was to sell our gear, so the drummer sold his kit to buy a train ticket to get home. Stupidly I didn’t sell my gear so left it in the hotel thinking that I’ll be e back in a couple of weeks to pick it up, stupid boy, I didn’t go back so I lost everything. These are just a few of many stranded stories I was involved in while working abroad, but I wouldn’t change it for the world, I just put it down to the experiences of life on the road, learn from it and move on.
What’s your biggest challenge as an artist?
The biggest challenge for me as an artist especially at this time of a major Pandemic is keeping my head above water like most if not all musicians have been out of work for just over a year now so as you can imagine it’s very tough indeed. It’s ok if you’re a major artist with royalties coming in regularly, but for the majority of us, that’s not the case so we have to find other ways of sustaining ourselves, like teaching for example. It’s tough enough in normal times, but this is another level obviously. One of the better-paying gigs are weddings where the money is at least four times more than a normal pub gig. The standard fee for a regular pub gig is £50 which hasn’t risen in forty years due partly to the fact that musicians are very disloyal individuals, so we undercut each other just to keep working, and that’s especially true for Semi-pro musicians who have day jobs so they don’t need to hustle as badly as pro musicians have to. Another major problem for musicians’ union is very weak so we don’t have a strong union leader representing us, someone like the late great Bob Crow who was the best union leader I’ve ever seen. If we had someone like that, we’d a been in much better shape right now he would have demanded that all self-employed musicians are taken care of, as long as you keep up your subscriptions, you’d be entitled to a weekly remittance but alas we’re not that lucky so many musicians have already abandoned their careers and are retraining for something with a better future, that’s how bleak things are.
Who would you like to collaborate with?
I would love to collaborate with Stevie Wonder simply because he’s a genius. George Benson because his guitar playing is out of this world. Buddy Guy because he’s a blues legend who’s played with all the greats and must have some great stories to tell. Marcus Miller for his great bass playing and also to hear some great anecdotes about Miles Davis, who to me apart from his great trumpet playing was one of the most amazing and complex human beings ever. Michael Mcdonald, for his great voice, one of the best in the business. Last but not least, the greatest producer the world has ever known, the mighty Quincy Jones. As they say, if your ambitions don’t scare you, they’re not big enough. I rest my case.
Any other projects in the pipeline?
Well, just like everyone else, the pandemic has scuppered all the plans I made, stretching right to the end of 2020. All of that went right out the window when the lockdowns invaded us all. Normally, I’d be touring the Caribbean at certain times of the year but all that had to be put on hold. So, all we can do as musicians is to play it by ear and take it one day at a time until Boris gives us the go-ahead because everything can change at any moment, then all your great plans are out the window, again.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
As far as marketing goes because of the long layoffs I’ve had to rebuild my whole website because there’s been no action on the live music scene. I think this is a good time to reevaluate my whole reasons for doing what I’m doing in the industry. So hopefully when things get back to some kind of normality. I’ll be ready to hit the ground running. But in the meantime, readiness is the keyword here because the competition is going to be a lot tougher. After all, there’ll be less of the pie to go around so only the strong will survive. In the meantime, the only place to find out what I’ll be doing is Facebook, but look out for my new website later on in the year.
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