Bob Johnston

American record producer and musician

Donald William "Bob" Johnston (May 14, 1932 – August 14, 2015) was an American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Simon & Garfunkel.

Johnston was born into a professional musical family. His grandmother, Mamie Jo Adams, was a songwriter, as was his mother Diane Johnston. By 1964, he had moved into production work at Kapp Records in New York, freelance arranging for Dot Records, and signed as a songwriter to music publisher Hill and Range. He also married songwriter Joy Byers with whom he began to collaborate.

In later years, Bob Johnston claimed that songs still credited to his wife Joy Byers were actually co written, or solely written by himself.

Dissatisfied with his salary earnings as a Columbia staff producer, particularly after several hit albums which earned him no royalties, Johnston became an independent producer, most successfully with Lindisfarne on Fog on the Tyne, which topped the British album chart in 1972. In 1972, he toured with Leonard Cohen as a keyboard player, and produced the resulting live album Live Songs. In 1978, he produced Jimmy Cliff's Give Thankx album, featuring "Bongo Man". In 1979, Johnston produced an album with the San Francisco band
Reggae Jackson, titled Smash Hits that featured Jimmy Foot, Cheryl Lynn, Kenneth Nash, and Wayne Bidgell (the low voice heard on Jimmy Cliff's "Bongo Man" track). In 1985, Johnston produced an album Walking In The Shadow by the San Francisco band The Rhyth O Matics, for engineer Fred Catero's newly formed Catero label. Billboard magazine's "Pop Pick of The Week", the album's release was plagued with distribution difficulties. During a period of financial difficulty, when he was under scrutiny from the IRS, Johnston moved to Austin, Texas, and did no record production for some time. He eventually returned with work on Willie Nelson's 1992 album The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories? (Nelson had his own financial difficulties at the time). In the mid 1990s, Johnston produced Carl Perkins' album Go Cat Go! which featured numerous guest stars including Paul Simon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, as well as unreleased recordings of Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes" by John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. This album's release was delayed until 1996. Towards the end of his life Johnston returned to working with fresh talent including singer songwriters Natalie Pinkis (USA), Eron Falbo (Brazil), and indie rock band Friday's Child (USA). Falbo's album 73 was released in 2013. The final project Johnston worked on was Evolution: Live at the Saxon Pub which he co produced for Austin band Hector Ward and The Big Time in 2015, which was released in 2016.

Johnston was in a memory facility and a hospice in Nashville for the last week of his life before dying on August 14, 2015. His wife Joy Johnston (née Byers) died in May 2017.