Bruce Johnston

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Bruce Arthur Johnston
Bruce Johnston, 2006
Background information
Birth name	Benjamin Baldwin
Born	(1942-06-27) June 27, 1942 (age 69) Peoria, IL
Origin	Los Angeles
Genres	Rock and roll
Occupations	Musician, singer, songwriter
Years active	1959–present
Associated acts	The Rip Chords, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd

Bruce Arthur Johnston (born Benjamin Baldwin on June 27, 1942) is a member of The Beach Boys and a songwriter, remembered especially for composing "I Write the Songs".^[1] Johnston was not one of the original members of the band. He joined the band on April 9, 1965 after Glen Campbell (who was substituting on stage for the group's chief song writer Brian Wilson) decided to embark on a solo career. Johnston's first vocal recording with the Beach Boys was "California Girls."

Biography

As a child Johnston was adopted by William and Irene Johnston of Chicago, and grew up on the West side of Los Angeles in Brentwood and Bel-Air. His adoptive father was president of the Owl Rexall Drug Company in Los Angeles after moving from Walgreens in Chicago. Johnston attended private school Bel-Air Town And Country School (later renamed John Thomas Dye School) in Los Angeles and also studied classical piano in his early years. In high school, Johnston switched to contemporary music. He performed in a few "beginning" bands during this time and then moved on to working with young musicians such as Sandy Nelson, Kim Fowley and Phil Spector. Soon Johnston began backing people such as Ritchie Valens, the Everly Brothers, and even Eddie Cochran. In 1959 while still in high school, Johnston arranged and played on his first hit record called "Teenbeat" by Sandy Nelson. The single record reached the Billboard Top Ten. The same year Johnston made his first single under his own name, "Take This Pearl" on Arwin Records (a record label owned by Doris Day) as part of the Bruce & Terry duo.

In 1960, Johnston started his record production career at Del-Fi Records, producing five singles and an album – Love You So – by Ron Holden (for good measure, all but two of the album's eleven tracks were written or co-written by him^[ambiguous]). In 1962 and 1963 Johnston resurrected his recording career with a series of surfin' singles (vocal & instrumental) and an album, Surfin' 'Round The World, credited to Bruce Johnston and another "live" album, The Bruce Johnston Surfin' Band's Surfer's Pajama Party. In 1963 came the first collaboration with his friend Terry Melcher, a mostly instrumental covers album credited to The Hot Doggers. The first artist the pair produced was a group called The Rip Chords. Johnston and Melcher were now working as staff producers at Columbia Records, Hollywood and by the time they were producing the million selling "Hey Little Cobra," a knock-off of the Beach Boys car song vocal style, they also wound up singing every layered vocal part for the recording using an Ampex three track recording machine (without sel-sync!). The two of them made a few recordings as Bruce & Terry, or The Rogues (band), but Terry Melcher began to focus more on his production career (The Byrds, Paul Revere and The Raiders). On April 9, 1965, Johnston joined the Beach Boys, replacing Glen Campbell who was playing bass on the road and singing Brian Wilson's vocal parts. Johnston did not start playing bass until his first tenure with the Beach Boys, and the very first vocal recording Johnston made as one of the Beach Boys was "California Girls". In 1967, he sang on "My World Fell Down," a minor hit for the Gary Usher-led studio group Sagittarius. On his Columbia Records 1977 solo album Going Public (album) he scored a hit on the disco charts with a dance-oriented remake of the Chantays' hit "Pipeline." Also in 1977 he vocal arranged and sang back-up vocals on Eric Carmen's LP, Boats Against the Current, and can be clearly heard on the hit single, "She Did It" which he also vocal arranged.

Johnston is frequently credited^{[by whom?]} as one of the original greatest supporters of the Beach Boys' 1966 signature album Pet Sounds. He flew to London in May 1966 and played the album for John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He wrote several Beach Boys songs, notably 1971's "Disney Girls (1957)," which was covered by Cass Elliot, Captain & Tennille, Art Garfunkel, Jack Jones, and Doris Day.

He wrote the Billboard number one, Barry Manilow hit "I Write the Songs" for which he won a Grammy. "I Write The Songs" has been recorded by over two hundred artists (including Frank Sinatra) and it currently has a cumulative singles/albums worldwide sales figure of twenty-five million copies. In addition, Johnston wrote backing vocal arrangements and also sang on the recordings for Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" and Pink Floyd's album The Wall.

Johnston left the Beach Boys in 1972, returning to the fold in 1978 at Brian Wilson's request to appear on (and co-produce) the album L.A. (Light Album). The following year he was credited as sole producer on the follow-up LP, Keepin' The Summer Alive. As of 2012^[update], Johnston is still a member of the touring version of The Beach Boys, performing 170 concerts a year. Despite his long involvement with the band he no longer has a full membership in Brother Records having traded his shares (but not his artist royalties) in 1972. Johnston still retains his equal ownership of the band's ASCAP publishing company, Wilojarston, and is the only member of the band to have earned a Song of the Year Grammy.

Johnston self-identifies as a Republican.^[2]

See also

• The Beach Boys

References

External links

• Bruce Johnston at the Internet Movie Database
• Bruce Johnston solo discography (very basic)
• Beach Boys Band – current touring band