For more than three decades, Johnson has been a steady, prolific presence in the Texas music scene. In 1991, he broke out with alternative rock band Funland, and was the leader of beloved indie-rock act Centro-matic and alt-country outfit South San Gabriel. He’s also worked with Jason Molina, David Bazan, Vic Chesnutt, Jim James, Jason Isbell, John Moreland and many other iconic American songwriters. He makes folk art paintings centered on historical baseball figures, which have been shown in galleries across the country. In 2020, he published his debut novel, If or When I Call. As much as Johnson reveres our nation’s iconography and folk traditions, he also doesn’t shy away from interrogating the uglier sides of the American experience. Throughout his new album No Ordinary Crown, he chronicles unsavory tourists and the hypocrisy and blind excess of capitalist society. But he does so with the dark humor and moral resolve of the best Southern Gothic writers. “I was a high fashion wretch / Arm in arm with a blissed-out fool,” he sings on “In Granada” over twinkles of plucked guitar, a character study and composite of archetypes he observed while touring through Spain over the years. Excerpted from Erin Osmon's bio (January 2023)