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Bob Johnson
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Bob Johnson
was a member of
Steeleye Span
during the band's most commercially successful era, from 1972 through 1977. Born in 1944, he took up the guitar as a boy and had a strong interest in folk music, which drew him into the early-'60s folk revival in England. During the mid-'60s,
Johnson
formed a folk duo with fiddle virtuoso
Peter Knight
. Between the two,
Knight
had the more obvious music credentials given his status as a classically trained player, while
Johnson
later directed his academic efforts elsewhere, earning a degree in psychology, which would serve him well several decades later. The two worked together through 1970, when
Knight
joined
Steeleye Span
, which had just undergone a major membership change in the wake of their very first album. Two years later, amid another membership shakeup in the band,
Knight
brought
Johnson
into the lineup as a guitarist and singer.
He and bassist
Rick Kemp
had a tough act to follow, replacing folk revival legend
Martin Carthy
and the band's co-founder,
Ashley Hutchings
, but they quickly carved out a place for themselves among the group's burgeoning fandom.
Steeleye Span
had been moving in a significantly heavier electric direction with their sound, and
Johnson
replacing
Carthy
in that lineup was a bit like
Joe Walsh
succeeding
Bernie Leadon
in
the Eagles
-- suddenly, instead of one foot in electric folk music and the other in traditional acoustic sounds,
Steeleye Span
could rock out on folk melodies like nobody's business. Starting with the album
Below the Salt
(1972),
Steeleye Span
's heaviest electric album to date, their sound began drawing in an ever widening audience, not just of folk enthusiasts but college students who enjoyed the hard rock stylings of acts like
Jethro Tull
.
In the two years that followed, with the addition of a permanent drummer and their embrace of a full-on rock sound,
Steeleye Span
became known internationally as one of England's top folk-rock bands, touring America and receiving heavy airplay on FM radio, and getting support on their albums from such big-name guests as
David Bowie
.
Johnson
's playing (along with that of
Kemp
and drummer
Nigel Pegrum
) was integral to that new sound; if he wasn't as visible as multi-instrumentalist
Knight
or co-founder (and fellow guitarist)
Tim Hart
, his presence was still felt, especially when they rocked arena settings as an opening act for groups like
Jethro Tull
. Their albums
Now We Are Six
,
Commoners Crown
, and
All Around My Hat
achieved low six-figure sales, and it looked as though
Steeleye Span
would have a long future.
Johnson
remained with the group across six albums and numerous tours, but in 1977, following the release of
Rocket Cottage
, an album that fell victim to the punk-inspired backlash (seemingly against all established acts) in England,
Knight
suddenly departed the lineup and
Johnson
followed him out soon after. The two wrote and produced the concept album
The King of Elfland's Daughter
, an all-star production that included
Mary Hopkin
,
Alexis Korner
, and
Chris Farlowe
. The record was a commercial and critical disaster, and by 1980 he was back in
Steeleye Span
, where, after the departure of
Tim Hart
that same year,
Johnson
was left as the group's only guitarist. He was a core member of the group for the next two decades, but in 2000 health problems forced him to leave the group. Although he has participated on some of their recordings since then,
Johnson
hasn't toured with the group since the 1990s. He continues to teach music, however, and also practices his formal profession, harking back to his degree in psychology, as a therapist.
–
Bruce Eder, Rovi
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King of Elfland's Daughter
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