In otherwords: Do you, as you make your way through life, sometimes feel that the part you are playing does not fit into your mental and creative makeup? … This emotion of having missed out on my life's vocation came to me at an age when I should have been thinking of retirement, and all the laid back enjoyment it brings.

Since my birth in 1950, in Chelsea's World's End, London, my life has been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. My early childhood was spent with my mother's parents on their sunny and happy island home of Malta. In 1956 I was brought back to England, and the following nine years sees me being dragged and pushed into a multitude of different schools from England to France. Sometimes so often that I felt that I was reading Victor Shakespeare, and William Hugo!

1965 was the year of change, well for me anyway. Away from the stigma of boarding schools, and in a London college, I cast the heavy anchor of a strict and dominating mother to the ground! This period sees me heavily involved in the Mod culture, which was prominently present in London's youth. My new found life gravitated around what is today called clubbing. From the Ram Jam in Brixton to the Tiles and the Scene in Soho, I would dance and get high to the sounds of Tamla Motown and Stax, or see still to be famous names such as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Hendrix and the Who in their formative days.

The years that followed 1967 were ones of unrest, moving from country to country and job to job, but these years also fulfilled their task, allowing me to meet persons from all walks of life, visually and mentally storing, unknowingly, information for later use. Also, in this roaming phase of my life, I felt the soft touch, and the sharp sting, of love. The late sixties and early seventies, the hippie era, like most of the baby boom generation, I was not deeply associated with this new cult, but found in its message of love and peace, some hope for a troubled world.

It was at this time I started to listen to the lyrics in the songs and not just the song, the words of the street poets, such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and John Lennon became very important part of my being. Reading, again, took an important place in my daily life: feasting my mind on the words of authors, such as Tolkien, and Hesse.

My wandering soul brought me to Switzerland in 1975. Even this placid and tame country could not calm my inner restlessness! I had still not found the real me! The many successes and failures I had did not dampen the hunger. Hunger for what? I did not know.

Then, 25 years after I first came to this beautiful Alpine country, and for some unknown reason, I sat down with pencil and paper and started to put down lyrics to imaginary songs, which soon led to me writing the first scenes to a musical! This surprised me, as I can't play any sort of instrument!

After a while the ideas started to pour out, and the project took a life of its own. The necessary talent needed to put this venture together seems to have appeared as needed out of the mists of Avalon! They do not always come as you foresee them, but as the Universe gives them to you, they are there but it's up to me to discover them!

With 50, the restlessness, and the hunger has subsided, and I know that my long search for the true Alex Johnson is slowly reaching the end. The soul satisfying, pleasurable, rewards of hearing your songs being played on the radio: the realization of your work on the stage, and most of all being accepted as an artist by your peers, what more can a dream be made of?

Some artwork » Musical STORM!   (book, lyrics, some music)
Web Page » www.bar-song.com

» Double Album "Alex Johnson's Bar Songs" full song listening,   or go to iTunes
» Biography .pdf, English, » Biography .pdf, German
» Blog Peter's Law
» Alex Johnson's Amazon Shop
» Sonicbids EPK
» Profile on restorm.comGerman only
» Profile on SoundCloud

17th Annual Billboard Song Contest 2010 - Judges Comments: Song LOVERS: » listen "Well established arrangement and lyrical storyline. Powerful performance with distinct qualities." Song CONFIDENT MOOD: » listen "Cool and fun song. Highly entertaining conjuring a bygone time."