Zachary Scot Johnson was prepared if a career in entertainment didn't pan out - he needn't have worried
BY LEE B. ROBERTS | Posted: Thursday, December 20, 2007 12:00 am
Zachary Scot Johnson cannot remember a time when he didn't want to play music or perform on stage.
"I started taking violin lessons in first grade and never stopped," said Johnson, who attended Stephen Bull Fine Arts Elementary School. "I picked up the guitar and piano along the way, and I was 8 years old when I did my first show at the Racine Theatre Guild."
Today, Johnson is living out his childhood vision. The 25-year old is not only still playing music, he now gets paid to do so at a variety of venues throughout the state and around the country.
This fall, he played a lead role in the Racine Theatre Guild's production of "King O' the Moon," and Friday night, he will share the stage with Mark Paffrath and Jeff Ward in a concert of yuletide music featuring the talents of all three singer-songwriters.
While he appreciates being able to pursue his life's passions, Johnson does not seem surprised to have ended up in the professions he has.
"I never had a doubt about what I wanted to do," said the 2001 Park High School graduate.
Road to success
There was one point, while he was attending Lawrence University in Appleton, when Johnson wondered if he'd be able to make a living as a musician/actor. It was then that he added a third major, psychology, to his curriculum just in case his other two fields of study - music and theater - didn't work out.
"It was one of those paranoid phases that performers sometimes go through," he said. "It was after my third year in music and theater and I was wondering if I'd be good enough."
Not long after his graduation from Lawrence in 2006, Johnson found he needn't have worried.
Within a couple months he landed a role with a New York City theater company's touring production of a bilingual musical. He spent four months on the road with the company, before returning to Racine for another job offer.
"The Prairie School made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Johnson said about his current position teaching music at Prairie.
While he could have stayed on longer with the touring company, by coming back to Racine to teach, Johnson not only gained a steady job, but the opportunity to perform both theatrically and musically. In addition to his work with the Theatre Guild, he will be performing in the Over Our Head Players' upcoming Snowdance 10 Minute Comedy Festival at the Sixth Street Theatre. And, somewhere in between all of that, he can be found playing his original music at area venues such as the Dunn Brothers Coffee shop, the Yardarm Bar & Grill and McAuliffe's on the Square, as well as in Milwaukee and beyond.
This spring, following the January release of his second CD, "To Whom it May Concern," Johnson is planning a wider tour including the southern states of Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. The Bluebird Cafe, a legendary venue in Nashville, has invited him to play and that is another offer too good to pass up, he said.
"I'd also like to be able to do more touring in the summer," Johnson said. ""We'll see how the first round goes,"
Collaboration celebration
Johnson's performance tomorrow with Paffrath and Ward is an evening he is especially excited about. Their Acoustic Singer/Songwriter Yuletide concert is a follow-up to the trio's first collaborative performance, which took place at the Theatre Guild in April.
Johnson was the catalyst for that first show, which ended up being even more of a success than he had hoped for.
"When I originally pitched the idea to Mark and Jeff, I figured we'd keep it simple since they are both busy musicians with limited rehearsal time. I proposed it as a round-robin style show, where we'd each play our own stuff. What we found was that we all enjoyed playing each others stuff so much, that everyone ended up playing along on everything the entire night. It was fantastic."
The audience, too, seemed to enjoy the results of the collaboration.
"We got a lot of positive feedback," Johnson said. "That's why we are doing the concert this week."
Friday's show will include some favorites from the previous acoustic singer/songwriter performance, along with new material and some seasonal selections.
"I love being able to play with other musicians, especially musicians of this caliber," Johnson said. "There is really no way to describe how good it feels to play with musicians who are as good as they are." As for his influences beyond Racine, the list of musician's on Johnson's myspace page is longer than we have room for and includes everyone from Shawn Colvin to Tina Turner.
"People ask me about that all the time," he said. "They want to know if I'm really influenced by all of those people, and the answer is Yes! I really do owe a little bit of who I am to all of them."
For the complete list, along with the chance to listen to a few of Johnson's tunes, go to http://www.myspace.com/zacharyscotjohnson
IF YOU GO:
WHAT: An Acoustic Singer/Songwriter Yuletide, featuring Zachary Scot Johnson, Mark Paffrath and Jeff Ward
WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday (Dec. 21)
WHERE: Racine Theatre Guild, 2519 Northwestern Ave. The theater is wheelchair accessible and smoke free.
COST: Tickets are $12 adults and $10 for students and seniors. Bar service will be available before the show and during intermission.
INFO: Call (262) 633-4218 for ticket info. For more about the performers visit the following Web sites: http://www.zacharyscotjohnson.com; http://www.markpaffrath.com; http://www.jeff-ward.net
Jeff Ward has been sharing his love for traditional Celtic and contemporary folk music with southeastern Wisconsin since the early 1980s. Born out of his Irish heritage, Ward's devotion to this music led him to build a comprehensive repertoire of songs from Ireland, Scotland, England and America that ranges from beautiful ballads to hand-clapping, sing-alongs.
Before coming to Racine, Ward founded and operated the Carlisle Folk Club in the North West of England where many of the top Celtic and contemporary performers played. Since then, his own performances have taken place at venues ranging from major Irish music festivals to club and concert venues throughout the Midwest. He has also opened for some of today's premiere Irish performers including Lunasa, Sharon Shannon, Luka Bloom, Gaelic Storm and Peggy Seeger & Ewan McColl. His latest CD "Working Man" is a collection of ballads from Ireland, Scotland and England.
Mark Paffrath has been an integral part of southeastern Wisconsin's music scene for more than 25 years.
A singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Paffrath has performed as a solo artist, as well as in groups such as Paffrath & Dykhuis, Marvin & the Dogs, Moulin Rouge and Big Nick and the Cydecos, earning a number of awards along the way for his work.
Whether he is playing guitar, mandolin, violin or drums and percussion, his music reflects his passion for his work, as well as for humanity.
Paffrath's influence on Racine can also be seen in his past work as director of Racine County Project Emergency (now the Racine County Food Bank) and as a founding member of Thoughts for Food, an annual musical extravaganza which serves as a major fund-raiser for the Food Bank.
He also served as managing director of the Prairie Performing Arts Center Entertainment Series from 1990 to 2002, and currently operates his own music booking, management and publishing company, New Leaf Music Enterprise.