Johnson's Crossroad
at Town Pump Tavern
Sat Dec 4th 8:30pm
Johnson's Crossroad has taken their love of old time mountain music, bluegrass, and the Texas singer/songwriters of the 1970s
and 1980s to create a sound that they have coined "bent acoustic country". The band's original material is steeped in the traditional country themes of lost love, lost fortune, lost time, and overcoming hardships. Vintage style mics are used for their live performances to create intimacy between both the band members and their audience.Johnson's Crossroad now resides in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina but all originate from different parts of the country.
And they’re all friends. And if you think that’s irrelevant, then you haven’t seen a live show. You haven’t gotten a whiff of the chemistry between these four formidable individuals when they are doing their thing onstage.
Maybe it’s the Blue Ridge Mountains down in Asheville, North Carolina where they all met and now reside. Maybe it’s timing. They’re not wasting a moment of it, though. If they’re not on tour as you read this then they will be in a few weeks, and that’s a bankable fact.
2010 proved to be a watershed year for the band. Minguez and Johnson added bass player Chris Weller to the fold, and – often joined by longtime friend and collaborator Corey Lee McQuade - played over 100 shows. Johnson’s Crossroad established itself as a fixture on the festival circuit, playing MerleFest, FloydFest, and the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, and the band also took its second tour through the Northeast, playing gigs in Boston, the Rodeo Bar in New York City, and even Nectar’s, the vaunted music hall in Burlington, Vermont.
“Those festivals and our tour up north were all great experiences,” says Minguez. “People knew we were coming and they were looking forward to hearing us play. They were waiting for us when we got there. That felt great.”
Just as the band did in 2010, Johnson’s Crossroad will welcome in 2011 with a new record, Mockingbird. Scheduled to release in March, Mockingbird has the band looking forward to what 2011 has in store.
“It sounds like we found something on this record,” says Minguez, “and we are really excited about it. There’s a total evolution going on, and, for the first time, I feel like we are musicians. That’s a pretty cool thing.”
http://johnsonscrossroad.com/fr_home.cfm