"If a man doesn't keep pace with his companions, perhaps it's because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
— Thoreau
Every Monday night, musical history is made as the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour begins its regular radio and television broadcast at the Kentucky Theatre. Tour buses deliver visitors from faraway places; crowds scramble for good seats. Volunteers wearing black shirts finish their sound checks and move their cameras for the best shots. The house is packed as stage lights dim. Woodsongs' founder, Michael Johnathon, comes onstage and introduces himself as a folksinger, songwriter and tree hugger. What he doesn't say is he's also a playwright, producer and businessman.
Woodsongs — only one of the operations managed by Johnathon — had a modest beginning in 1999 in sound man Kevin Johnson's small studio on North Broadway. The studio held fewer than a dozen people and was carried by one radio station, WRVG at Georgetown College. Times have changed. It now airs on 484 radio stations including XM Satellite Broadcasting, is carried on KET and PBS stations nationwide and is broadcast in 32 countries.
The music business is a difficult one, but in spite of critics and nay-sayers, Johnathon has survived it all, building an impressive business that takes Bluegrass and folk music to the entire world. "Ask people what they think of when they hear of Kentucky. It's Bluegrass farms and Bluegrass music. It's our brand and, unfortunately, we're not doing enough to preserve it," Johnathon said. To say that Michael Johnathon loves Bluegrass and American folk music would be an understatement.
Raised in the Hudson Valley, just north of NYC, Johnathon was a rock and roller, listening to The Eagles, Steppenwolf, Eric Clapton and Cream. He had little interest in or appreciation for his neighbor, Pete Seeger. "I had no interest in folk music, although I did play guitar; I wanted to be a cartoonist," Johnathon said. "My hero was Charles Schultz and, by the time I was sixteen, I had a contract from a family of 17 newspapers and I was drawing a weekly cartoon strip and getting a check. I just thought that was the coolest thing!"
A friend, however, lured him to the border town of Laredo, Texas, with a late night call. He threw his clothes in his old Toyota and drove 44 hours straight without ever turning the engine off. "If I turned it off, I was dead in the water," he said. He made it to Laredo and worked as a DJ at a small radio station.
After a few months in Laredo, Johnathon was playing a record by Roger McGuinn and The Birds — "Turn, Turn, Turn." He noticed it was written by Pete Seeger. "It suddenly clicked that my old neighbor, Pete Seeger — that guy who roamed around the Hudson Valley, playing a banjo, claiming he was a musician — had written and sung 'Turn, Turn, Turn' and many of the songs I had grown up with. It was like a musical religious experience. I was born again, only with a six-string." He knew then what he wanted to do with his life: he wanted to write and sing about things that mattered.
Another friend — a filmmaker with Apalshop in Whitesburg — encouraged Johnathon to pursue his new dream in eastern Kentucky. Wasting no time, he packed up, moved to Mousie, Ky., and began traveling up and down the mountains, knocking on doors, asking folks to teach him their music. Asked how the Appalachians responded to a New York stranger knocking on their door, Johnathon said, "with incredible openness and kindness. I mean how dangerous can somebody be carrying a banjo?" They brought out their old scratched Bill Monroe records, Flatt & Scruggs, and more. In short order, Johnathon was immersed in old-timey Bluegrass. "After hundreds of front porch hootenannies," he said, "I wanted a way to share this music."
Johnathon didn't dream of being a star. He didn't want to open for The Eagles. He wanted to make a difference. Inspired by Seeger's path, he wanted to sing about the environment and make American folk music broadly available. With no place to play the music in Mousie, however, Johnathon took the music to the schools.
How was he to finance the Earth Concerts, as he called them? His creativity came into play. "As I drove around, I noticed all the soda pop bottles and trash thrown alongside the roads, and I thought, 'Bad advertising for Pepsi!'" And so he went to the Pepsi bottler in Pikeville and convinced them to sponsor 26 concerts in Pike County schools. That turned into more than 3,000 performances over four years, bringing the music to millions of students in 14 states. "I didn't have a manager, I didn't have an agent, but we helped clean up roadsides and raised consciousness about the environment." Pepsi stayed with him, recognizing that they didn't want their cans on the side of the road, and this was a way for them to be supportive of the environment.
Later on, Johnathon created Passing Concerts, songs that focused on teenage suicide and family violence, which were presented to hundreds of thousands of high school and college kids. He discovered that young people started hanging around after the concerts, wanting to talk. That's when mental health officials and others began to take notice and signed on to sponsor more concerts.
He always had a vision and wanted to do things his way, to own his music, but he saw the value of partnerships like those of the early days. In 1991, Pepsi agreed to underwrite a music video even though their bottle was not going to be in it. The video was carried on national television, Country Music Television, national networks and VH1. Billboard did a half-page article on this unknown, unsigned singer roaming around America with a highly rated music video and no record release. "When that happened," Johnathon laughed, "every record company on the planet called, and I ended up signing a major label deal and recorded an album called 'Dreams of Fire.'" He then spent the next 18 months politely and persistently trying to get out of the deal.
It was exciting, but it alarmed him that, as successful as he might become, he wasn't going to own anything he ever did again. "I was like, 'What kind of career do I really want?'"
His polite persistence worked. The record company let him out of the deal with ownership of the album, which became the first album of his new production company, PoetMan Records. Today, PoetMan Records gives artists full ownership of their work while providing worldwide exposure.
"A career is like a diamond," Johnathon mused. "with several facets. When I write songs, that's one facet. When I do concerts, that's another. Each facet is an income stream." PoetMan Records sells and markets Johnathon's music, but the song is owned by his other company, Rachel Aubrey Music, and then leased back to PoetMan Records to be marketed to the public.
"When you sign a record deal, the artist owns nothing; they have no equity. They receive an advance and out of that advance, they have to pay for the recording of the album, the music video, the promotion and, when they're done, they have nothing left. After the artist pays the company back, the label continues to be sole owner of the master that they paid for."
Johnathon's various operations provide first-class, professional opportunities for those who love the music business. All his concerts — The Troubador Concerts and Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour — are run by volunteers, and he is quick to acknowledge their contributions. "We couldn't do without them." He also advises, "never tell a volunteer what to do; ask them. Let them feel completely comfortable saying no but totally responsible if they say yes."
Johnathon not only understands his volunteers and his audience, but he knows what his sponsors need. "A sponsor could care less about banjos, mandolins and fiddles. What they care about is the fact that you're on 484 radio stations broadcasting to almost a million and a half listeners. That's what matters."
A visit to the Woodsongs Web site is like walking into the Folk Song Hall of Fame. Every show — all 436 of them — is available as a Webcast, with background material and links to the artists and performers. Teachers can download customized lesson plans for the production of Johnathon's new play, "Walden: The Ballad of Thoreau." Anyone can listen to the music, and community groups are encouraged to start their own local Woodsongs Coffee House, using local performers and the Woodsongs logo if they wish. Books and CDs that include Odetta, Homer Ledford, Jean Ritchie and other performers are available at modest prices. His passion to share and foster the music is obvious, and he offers most of it for free.
"The financial size of the business has expanded in proportion to the growth of everything we do," he said. "This business inhales every dime it takes in to maintain its growth." And that growth has been phenomenal, with Michael Johnathon and his volunteers being key players, introducing Kentucky and Bluegrass music to the world.
"An artist has to have a very high tolerance for repetition," he said, "and one of the things that you are repeatedly told is no. No, you cannot do this record. No, that song is not any good. No, you're not a good performer. No, you're not going to make it. No, you can't write a play. No, you can't do a live audience radio show. That happens a lot. Did Henry David Thoreau stop writing because nobody understood what he was writing about? He was a failed author when he died, and yet what he did has shaken and rattled the environmental world. He just kept going in spite of public opinion."
I'm reminded of a quote I read somewhere: "We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give." If that's true, Michael Johnathon should enjoy a very, very rich life.
Janet Holloway is president of J. H. Holloway & Associates and co-founder of Women Leading Kentucky, a foundation committed to creating opportunities for women to lead and learn. She can be reached at jhollow@womenleadingky.com.