www.jameyjohnson.com
CMT Artist Page
www.jameyjohnson.cmt.com
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rhapsody.com/jamey-johnson
Making music comes as naturally to Jamey Johnson as breathing. This 3 time Grammy nominee was raised outside Montgomery, Alabama in a family that was poor but highly musical. Like so many country musicians, Jamey first performed gospel music in churches with his father.
Jamey is a study in contrasts. He was raised in a devout household, yet he spent part of his youth drinking beer and playing country songs at night on the Montgomery tombstone of Hank Williams. He has a backwoods upbringing, but is a formally trained musician who knew music theory as early as junior high school. He is deadly serious about his music, yet has an outrageous sense of humor. With his piercing pale-blue eyes and biker beard, he looks like a hell-raiser, but he has the heart of a poet.
"Think about my life: I got right out of high school. Then it was eight years in the Marine Corps. I never got to go through that college experience where most kids get to go buck wild. Then I opened a construction company. Got married. Had a daughter. I've had responsibility galore on me for years, so when I got that record deal, that was my party. Me and my friends would go take over a bar. We were just as wild as hell and having the time of our lives. Everywhere we went, a crowd followed. I don't mean 20 or 30 people. I mean like a couple of hundred."
"We took that same element out on the road with us. Everywhere we went we packed those bars and did a good job. The bars made money. The crowd had a good time."
When "The High Cost of Living" was issued as his album's second single, Jamey was surprised to find himself nominated for five Academy of Country Music Awards. In April, he was stunned when he won the ACM's Song of the Year honor. This time, it wasn't for a song someone else sang. It was for "In Color."
Right after the ACM accolade came the news thatThat Lonesome Song had been certified as a Gold Record. As a kid, did he dream of someday getting a Gold Record?
"After all of this [recognition], today we're playing the kind of places that two or three years ago I couldn't even get booked into because we couldn't sell enough tickets. Now we're selling them out. The road is where it's at. I love it. That's where you take country music. You don't get the message out there by sitting at the house."
"We get people at the shows who have never heard this kind of country music, ever. We get up there and play and they go, 'I've never heard anything like that. That was incredible!' That's the good stuff. I like to share with somebody else the music that turned me on when I was young. And when they have the same reaction, it's like, 'Oh, cool. I was hoping you'd like that, because I did.'"
He has a place on his wall for that Gold Record. He is proud of his CMA and ACM statuettes. And he loves playing those sold out shows.
www.jameyjohnson.cmt.com
rhapsody.com/jamey-johnson
Making music comes as naturally to Jamey Johnson as breathing. This 3 time Grammy nominee was raised outside Montgomery, Alabama in a family that was poor but highly musical. Like so many country musicians, Jamey first performed gospel music in churches with his father.
Jamey is a study in contrasts. He was raised in a devout household, yet he spent part of his youth drinking beer and playing country songs at night on the Montgomery tombstone of Hank Williams. He has a backwoods upbringing, but is a formally trained musician who knew music theory as early as junior high school. He is deadly serious about his music, yet has an outrageous sense of humor. With his piercing pale-blue eyes and biker beard, he looks like a hell-raiser, but he has the heart of a poet.
"Think about my life: I got right out of high school. Then it was eight years in the Marine Corps. I never got to go through that college experience where most kids get to go buck wild. Then I opened a construction company. Got married. Had a daughter. I've had responsibility galore on me for years, so when I got that record deal, that was my party. Me and my friends would go take over a bar. We were just as wild as hell and having the time of our lives. Everywhere we went, a crowd followed. I don't mean 20 or 30 people. I mean like a couple of hundred."
"We took that same element out on the road with us. Everywhere we went we packed those bars and did a good job. The bars made money. The crowd had a good time."
When "The High Cost of Living" was issued as his album's second single, Jamey was surprised to find himself nominated for five Academy of Country Music Awards. In April, he was stunned when he won the ACM's Song of the Year honor. This time, it wasn't for a song someone else sang. It was for "In Color."
Right after the ACM accolade came the news that
"After all of this [recognition], today we're playing the kind of places that two or three years ago I couldn't even get booked into because we couldn't sell enough tickets. Now we're selling them out. The road is where it's at. I love it. That's where you take country music. You don't get the message out there by sitting at the house."
"We get people at the shows who have never heard this kind of country music, ever. We get up there and play and they go, 'I've never heard anything like that. That was incredible!' That's the good stuff. I like to share with somebody else the music that turned me on when I was young. And when they have the same reaction, it's like, 'Oh, cool. I was hoping you'd like that, because I did.'"
He has a place on his wall for that Gold Record. He is proud of his CMA and ACM statuettes. And he loves playing those sold out shows.