NEDRA JOHNSON — Live for Our Dreams
by Sue Barrett
 Let’s trust our hearts and live for our dreams/
I believe my praying brought you to me/
So I will not refuse this blessing I’ve been given/
Though some may disapprove, I’m in love with you
(Nedra Johnson — ‘Forever with Me’)
Nedra Johnson is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (bass, sax, tuba, guitar) from New York City. Although she was into punk rock during high school, she now plays R&B/acoustic/funk. Nedra’s first real gig was playing with Toshi Reagon at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and her CD, Nedra, includes Maxine/Max Feldman’s song, ‘Amazon’. Both of Nedra’s parents are musicians — her mother (Shaen Johnson) is a singer-songwriter and her father (Howard Johnson) is a multi-instrumentalist jazz musician most recognized for his baritone sax and tuba work. Nedra is one of the featured performers in Lee Fleming’s book, Hot Licks: Lesbian Musicians of Note. In 2006, Nedra won the Outmusic Award for Outstanding New Recording — Female, as well as being nominated for Outmusician of the Year and Outsong of the Year (‘Any Way You Need Her’).
When, and how, did you become a performer?
I've always had a sense that I would play music. My father and mother both are musicians. My mother all but stopped performing to raise my brother and me, but she was always writing and playing at least in the house. So between the both of them, I had music as a real option...
I starting asking my father for a tuba as early as three or four. I was too little to play the tuba so he bought me a pocket trumpet. It’s a fully playable instrument just wound in such a way that it was small enough for me to hold. Unfortunately it wasn’t what I wanted to play. I started playing alto sax in elementary school, then baritone sax in jr high, adding acoustic bass in 9th grade. In high school I dropped the saxes and picked up tuba. So I played tuba and bass through high school.
After high school I stuck with electric bass and started playing professionally about the age of 23.
When did you become aware of performers singing songs about lesbian lives?
When I was 18 through 20 years old I was living up in Woodstock, NY. The women’s community there was very strong and included Alix Dobkin and River Lightwomoon. Alix is pretty well known as an early women’s music performer. River is a percussionist and she played some with Alix. So there was that and then just the women in my community turning me on to different stuff...Sweet Honey, Casselberry-DuPreé, Lillian Allen...
How you go about writing your songs?
It’s varied. Sometimes a topic or a groove starts to trouble me and I sort of know a song is coming. Sometimes I start singing something and it all falls into place. Some of the songs on Nedra I started with the groove. Like ‘Scooter Phat’. I had the bass line and my friend had just coined the phrase so it was on my mind and really once I got the chorus it just all came to me. I was just tickled by the term and I had met some folks at NOLOSE that were scooter riders and kinda sexy so I just put all that together...
Why do you write about lesbian lives?
I write about my life…my experience. I know that there is a choice of sorts. For me it doesn’t really feel that way. And I think about the people whose work I so needed and appreciate like Audre Lorde and Pat Parker...how can I call them an influence and then be dishonest or even ambiguous?
Making music is not a very bankable career move. You have to have talent, but you have to have a lot of other stuff as well including luck and stars aligned for you...These days anyone “making it” in the mainstream has to have a “total package” thing happening...from looks to fashion...and a drive to be famous...I can’t say I’ve had that kind of drive. My drive is to make music...I think of fame as a potential by-product of doing good work, but it’s not guaranteed with good work. In fact, good work is not a guarantee with fame either. After watching that MTV show Driven I really began to understand that. People who are famous have an investment in fame that I don’t have...So all that to say, when you are not invested in becoming famous in the mainstream, it’s not difficult to make a decision to make music that is an honest reflection of your life. That’s why I say in ‘Ahha’ “If I don’t keep it real then there’s nothing to sing. And it was womyn’s music that made a place for me.”
Womyn’s music was already a good 20 plus years in the works when I put my first CD out. It hardly feels brave to come along after so many women had already put in their work. I’m just taking the baton they pass and running with it.
Can you tell us a bit about some of your songs that tell of lesbian lives?
That’s pretty much all of my songs...
I guess, I can say that I have songs that are love songs, like ‘Forever With Me’. In the lyrics I claim Divine presence in my relationship and ask my love to spend forever with me. It’s sort of a commitment song.
Then ‘The World Could Stop Turning’ is more of a sexual song...Sometimes when you are with someone, being with them is like a sanctuary. And I mean in all kind of ways. So I just started with a bassline and then lyrics came to me — “The world could stop turning and I would never know...cause I leave the world outside your door.” And I bring in some fairly literal experiences when I say, “I put the world down baby when you pulled me close and said...” The things I have spoken then are slightly cleaner versions then I have been blessed to hear from my partner... “you better get yourself inside me” and “you know where you belong, now show me”. That song is the reason I put the TMI warning on the CD.
That song continues on with a piece written by Sossity Chiricuzio. And what she brought to that piece is just hot. I knew it needed something and I held on to the song for a few years asking people to give a listen and see if they could write for it. She gave a voice to something I know, but could not have found the words to speak. As they say in church, “if I had a thousand tongues, I could not thank her enough.”
What seems to make people more receptive or less receptive to songs about lesbians?
I think people in general experience music in terms of their own sexuality. So just like I can process a song by a man about a woman for myself, so can straight folks process songs and relate to them. It’s all love or sex or whatever, but it’s human commonality. Now I know that homophobia makes it more difficult for gay men. Straight men are too uptight most of the time to admit that they can relate to an openly gay man’s experience. But I perform the same songs wherever I play and people deal and show love no matter if they are straight or gay.
As far as radio...well these days DJs don’t play what they like. They have play lists to work from. The only play I know I’ve gotten is from women’s shows, queer shows and an appearance with my dad’s band on A Prairie Home Companion which has turned out to be the schmanciest thing I have ever done. I’d never heard the show before, but lesbians all over the country sent me emails and left messages about that gig...
In the 1980s and 1990s, to what extent were there risks associated with being an openly lesbian performer? Are there still risks today?
I think it was scarier back then. A lot of performers were fairly ambiguous. I guess to some extent, many are still ambiguous lyrically even if they are out. There’s some attempt to be more relatable, but I can’t be bothered with that unless that’s really how it comes out. And I have gotten feedback about my last record that was surprising...like I was so out...I’ve never thought about it as compared to others...
Anyway, I guess being out and not ambiguous lyrically was pretty much the kiss of death industry wise. Meshell Ndegeocello’s first record is about the most heterosexual or one-sided bisexual CD I ever owned. I mean every song was he him boy man etc. But she got airplay. It seemed to me that ‘Boyfriend’ was on MTV and BET and the radio in pretty heavy rotation until the Rolling Stone article with her coming out as bisexual came out. Then all of a sudden, very little to no airplay.
As a performer, what has been your experience of homophobia?
The most that I know I have experienced was all internalized. I was scared at first. But the more I just did my thing the more comfortable I got with it. I opened for Bo Diddley and I wasn’t sure who his audience would be. And as it turned out it was mostly young white guys...like frat boy looking white guys. That’s no one I would think would be in my audience and I was nervous, but they were fine...they seemed to like the music so it was really all me trippin’ for no reason.
How important is it for performers to sing about lesbian lives?
It’s important for me. I have a real hard time knowing someone is a lesbian and hearing them sing about men. I get why they might make that choice career wise, but I want to believe that what I listen to is honest expression and I just know it’s not when it is closeted.
What advice do you have for emerging performers?
Just be honest...so much of the way has been paved for young folks. It’s totally possible to be out from the beginning of your careers now. It’s not really been done yet in the mainstream, but there are people working that end. It will be happening soon. You have people like Miss Money, Skim, FELONi, God-des and many more that are having serious underground careers...the mainstream will pick up on them and others soon enough...once they understand that there is money to be made their “moral” issues will fade away...
What are some of the other issues faced by performers, particularly performers who don’t hear their voices represented in mainstream culture?
It can be an issue just finding a community to receive what you do...If you are a lesbian, go to lesbian events...women’s music festivals...anyone LGBT should join Outmusic. Depending on where you live, there may be open mics...Outmusic has open mics...myspace is great for putting yourself out there...the internet opens up options.
Your father, Howard Johnson, is a well known musician. What impact has he had on you as a performer?
I’ve traveled all over Europe and a little in Brazil with my dad’s band Gravity. I’ve really loved playing with them. It’s made me want to improve my skills as a player on all levels. I think it’s also improved the way I lead and work with my own bands. I also have gotten to see how much my voice can touch people which is almost weird to experience. Like, I think my lyrics might mean something and so touch people, but I’ve been in places where I know 80% of the audience didn’t speak any English so their very positive response was to just the sound...
Your mother, Shaen Johnson, is a singer-songwriter. Can you tell us a bit about her and the impact that she had on you as a performer?
My mom is a really good singer-songwriter. She has been performing regularly for the last two years in her small town of Kingman, AZ since she retired about seven years ago. She used to play what I would say was folk, but somewhere along lines she went into a more country type of thing and that works for her. Country music has a strong songwriting tradition.
So her influence on me, I guess I would say a big part is that she always had a few guitars. And I used to play just the bottom four strings...just the bass strings, but that’s how I learned to play bass...by playing her guitar until I actually started playing bass at the end of jr high. And I also learned a few of her songs...and saw her learning other people’s songs so that made for a sense that I could do that too...
What have you been doing over the past year? And what’s coming up in the next year?
This past year, I’ve just been playing as much as possible...I’m still trying to put Nedra out there though it’s getting to the point where it’s time to start thinking about the next CD. My thoughts have been that I should put out an acoustic and possibly live CD of some of the songs I’ve done on my CDs. Since my CDs have been band sounds, I think it’s a challenge for people to know what I might do in my solo acoustic performances and I need to make myself more available on the folk circuit. I wouldn’t say what I do is folk, but I think when I do it solo acoustic, it can work in that genre. The other thing I want to do is a straight ahead blues album. We’ll see.
Select Discography
- Testify (1998)
- Nedra (2005)
More Info
www.nedrajohnson.com
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=8174309
NEDRA JOHNSON was interviewed as part of the article, ‘Out There, Every Day: Singing of the Lives of Lesbians, Dykes, Queers, Gay Women…’. Read the article and other interviews (Madeline Davis, Skim, Gretchen Phillips (Girls in the Nose; Two Nice Girls), Ripley Caine, Bernie Bankrupt (Lesbians on Ecstasy), Ferron, God-des (God-des and She) and June Millington).
SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. She witnessed “the incident” at a Cris Williamson/Tret Fure/Judy Small concert that prompted Judy to write a coda for the song, ‘Lesbian Chic’.
c. 2008
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