Mike Johnson (37)

Derby jazz guitarist Mike Johnson the only guitarist to claim a win on the show New Faces. In 1979 Mike was performing as part of the Mike Johnson Quartet as they played a show near long Eaton. In 1980 Mike claimed he was the finest all-round guitarist in the world and he issued a challenge to the entertainment world to prove his point. In an article in The Stage, Mike said, ‘I challenge any other guitarist to prove he’s better than me at rock, jazz, blues, classical and country guitar styles.’ Ray Ellington described him as ‘one of the finest guitar players I have heard in this country for a long, long time,’ and this gave Mike the drive to take on the world. Mike Johnson was known for cramming as many styles as possible into his set, with audiences being particularly receptive to his classical version of Cavatina and his solo rendition of Jose Feliciano’s Malagueña as well as his rock guitar rendition of The Sabre Dance. In the 1980s, despite his ambitions to take on the world, Mike found himself teaching in Derbyshire but still managed to combine this new teaching career with his music and was, for a time, the resident act at The Midland Hotel, Derby. In December 1983 Mike was recruited to assist professional guitarist John Richards with his new venture, the Staffordshire and Derbyshire Guitar Institute in Burton on Trent. The new institute’s aim was to provide tuition to all styles of guitar players as well as providing advice on playing for an audience, selling musical skills, musical arrangement for guitars and surviving in the professional music business. In 1987 Mike played as part of the support group for a show by George Melly & John Chilton’s Feetwarmers at the Burton Town Hall and the same year Mike took a group of his pupils to the Midland Hotel to perform piano and guitar musical pieces ranging from Bach to Handel and Bartok to Joplin.