Wayne Johnson

Wayne Johnson is an American jazz and acoustic guitarist (not to be confused with the electric blues guitarist Wayne Johnson, or the gospel singer/guitarist Donald Wayne Johnson, or the flamenco guitarist Wayne Wesley Johnson, or the hard rock guitarist from the band Under Command named Wayne Johnson, or the pianist Wayne Johnson). Johnson won a Grammy Award in 2004 for his contribution to the album Pink Guitar, which featured the songs of composer Henry Mancini.^[1][2]

Johnson grew up in Spokane, Washington where he studied guitar under Jack C. Campbell, a pioneer in the chord-melody guitar technique. He attended Boston's Berklee College of Music in the late 1970s and soon after joined the vocal group Manhattan Transfer for more than 20 years. To date, he has recorded eight solo albums, most often in a trio with bassist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Bill Berg, who were founding members of the group Flim & the BB's. He has been the guitarist for Bette Midler's Las Vegas show at Caesar's Palace.

Johnson has performed worldwide with numerous other artists, including Rickie Lee Jones, Elton John, John Tesh, Akiko Yano and Lee Oskar. He is a music educator and instructor and serves as a clinician for Taylor Guitars.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

• 1980 Arrowhead (Inner City)
• 1983 Grasshopper (ITI)
• 1984 Everybody's Painting Pictures (Zebra)
• 1988 Spirit of the Dancer (Zebra)
• 1993 Keeping the Dream Alive (MoJazz)
• 1996 Kindred Spirits (GTSP)
• 1999 Apache with Jeff Richman
• 2003 One Guitar (Solid Air)
• 2014 The Distance with Jeff Richman

As sideman

With The Manhattan Transfer

• 1978 Live
• 1985 Bop Doo-Wopp
• 2003 Couldn't Be Hotter

With others

• 1989 Fingerpaints, Jeff Richman
• 1998 Laguna Cove, Don Grusin

References

External links

• Official web site