Jump to content

Jack Johnson (musician)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Coojah (talk | contribs) at 00:59, 7 June 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For other people named Jack Johnson (musician), see Jack Johnson (musician) (disambiguation).
Jack Johnson

Jack Hody Johnson (born May 18, 1975)[1] is a Hawaii-born singer-songwriter, musician, filmmaker,[2] and surfer who achieved commercial success and a dedicated following, after the release of his debut album, Brushfire Fairytales in 2001. He has since released four more albums and a number of EPs. His music is best described as acoustic/soft rock.

Biography

Being the son of a famous surfer in the islands, Jeff Johnson, Jack Johnson naturally had an interest in surfing with his best friend Merik Richardson. He began with surfing at the age of 5, and by the time he was 17 he made the finals at the Pipe trial and became the youngest invitee ever to do so. Johnson suffered a surfing accident when he was 17. While recovering from the accident, he acquired an interest in music. Johnson began writing songs during his college years at the University of California, Santa Barbara, having played the guitar since 14. He was brought up with influences such as Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Ben Harper, the Beatles, Jimmy Buffett, Bob Marley, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Sublime, and A Tribe Called Quest. One day G. Love was introduced to Jack for a day of surfing and ended up recording Jack’s song “Rodeo Clowns” for his last album Philadelphonic. It became the first single from the album and Jack sang and played on the track. His four-track demo caught the ears of Ben Harper's producer and right-hand man, J. P. Plunier, who worked with Jack on his debut album Brushfire Fairytales in early 2001 with Harper and his lap steel guitar making a guest appearance. He has two sons, one being named Michael Johnson.

Introduction to music

Jack Johnson learned how to surf and skate from his father's best friend Alex Conell. Johnson learned to play the guitar at age of fourteen. He was a professional surfer until an accident at Pipeline in which his front teeth were knocked out and he received more than 150 stitches.[3] Although that is when most people believe he changed from a surfer to an artist, in a recent Rolling Stone cover story (March 6, 2008) he stated that it actually happened a week before in the finals of the trials of the Pipeline Masters on Oahu. At the age of 17 he became the youngest competitor to ever reach the finals. Jack was eventually disqualified after failing to catch three waves. Jack realized that the competitiveness was too much for him, "guys were ready to kill each other to catch the next wave," Johnson remembers.[citation needed] The accident allowed time for Jack to start on his new passions, the guitar and making music. He stated about the accident, "I like to joke that I hit my head so hard that that's why I'm so mellow, but I think it did mellow me out."[citation needed] While he was recovering in bed, he spent his time writing songs and playing guitar. However, Johnson didn't seriously pursue a career in the arts until his college years at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While in school, he met his wife Kim, for whom the song Do You Remember is written.[citation needed] Johnson also played rhythm guitar for the party band "Soil,"[3] and graduated with a degree in film.

Solo band members

Jack Johnson's solo band is comprised of:

Discography

Albums

Soundtracks and EPs

Virtual albums & EPs

Compilations

Unofficial bootlegs

About Bootlegs

Johnson has stated in several interviews that a big part of his success involved his friends recording "bootlegs" of his tracks and distributing them at surf competitions.[3] Johnson has also stated that he supports the sharing of live recordings and bootlegs of his music,[3][4] many of which can be found here.

"It's pretty crazy. There's stuff I would find online that I'd only given to one friend, so I know how it got there," Johnson says. "It's been a spider-web effect. That's the whole reason all this [success] started. I'm sure there's lots of people who hate [downloading], but I really dig it."[3]

Concert DVDs (also on iTunes)

Chart performance

Albums

Year Title Label Chart Positions
US UK NZ AU CA NL DE AT CH FR
2001
Brushfire Fairytales
Everloving Records
 34 36 1 13 — — — — — —
2003
On and On
The Moonshine Conspiracy/Universal
3 30 1 2 — — 88 50 62 94
2005
In Between Dreams
Brushfire/Universal Records
 2 1 1 1 3 7 7 13 8 46
2006
Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George
Brushfire/Universal Records
 1 39 1 1 1 9 3 2 8 42
2008
Sleep Through the Static
Brushfire/Universal Records
 1 1 1 1 1 4 2 3 2 6

Singles

Year Title Chart Positions[5][6][7][8] Album
US US Alt US AC UK NZ AU CA NL DE AT CH FR
2002 "Flake" 73 22 1[9] — 6 — — — — — — — Brushfire Fairytales
2003 "The Horizon Has Been Defeated" — 31 28 — 43 — — — — — — — On and On
2004 "Taylor" — — — — 33 27 — — — — — —
2005 "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" 66 25 18 — 25 24 — 67 82 51 — — In Between Dreams
"Good People" — 29 — 50 25 — — 92 — — — —
"Breakdown" — 40 — 73 — — — — — — — —
"Sitting, Waiting, Wishing"
(UK re-release) 		— — — 65 — — — — — — — —
2006 "Better Together" — — — 24 — — — — — — — —
"Upside Down" 38 25 9 30 22 — 9 56 54 36 — — Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George
"Talk of the Town" — — — — — — — 96 — — — —
2007 "Imagine" 90 — — — — — 41 — — — — — Instant Karma - The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur
"If I Had Eyes" 47 7 17[10] 60 33 — 11 60 73 37 30 — Sleep Through the Static

Note: The archive of the Canadian singles chart (downloads) dates back only to 2006 and the archive of the Canadian album chart dates back to 2005.

"Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" re-issue

The single, "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" only became a chart hit in the United Kingdom, after the re-release climbed into the Top 10 following Jack Johnson's exposure on the 2006 BRIT Awards on ITV1. The single climbed to hit status a week before the release of "Better Together". Both the original release and indeed the re-issue had failed to chart until this point.

"A friend of mine was trying to get this girl named Michelle," said Johnson, "and I tried to write a song that would help him have a laugh at himself because he was spending so much time trying to get her and it obviously wasn't leading anywhere. That was one just to cheer up a friend."[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ e-hawaii.com
  2. ^ JackJohnsonMusic.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Jack Johnson Interviews
  4. ^ Daily Trojan
  5. ^ Chart positions in the U.S. and in Canada
  6. ^ Chart positions in Australia, New Zealand and some European countries
  7. ^ Chart positions in the UK and in Germany
  8. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:wvfrxqukldde~T51 US Modern Rock and Adult Top 40 Chart positions
  9. ^ Top 40 Adult Recurrents
  10. ^ Hot Adult Top 40 Recurrents
  11. ^ Johnson hits the road, sharing his 'Dreams' - The Honolulu Advertiser - Hawaii's Newspaper
Wikiquote has quotations related to Jack Johnson.


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Johnson_(musician)&oldid=217654985"