Word: johnson
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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READING the Boston Pheonix, I was surprised to learn that my home state of Oregon is leaning towards Presidential candidate Mike Dukakis. Oregon hasn't voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater...
ASSOCIATE EDITORS: William R. Doerner, John Greenwald, William A. Henry III, Marguerite Johnson, Stephen Koepp, Jacob V. Lamar, Richard N. Ostling, Sue Raffety, J. D. Reed, Thomas A. Sancton, Jill Smolowe, Richard Stengel, Susan Tifft, Anastasia Toufexis, Michael Walsh, Richard Zoglin...
From the moment he rolled out of bed, Arthur Johnson found himself locked in silent combat with a sense of escalating dread. Over breakfast and as he walked to work through Brooklyn's shattered Brownsville section, the power of positive thinking had kept the terror at bay: tonight he'd be making his singing debut at Harlem's Apollo Theater, and that was obviously something to worry about. But the venue shouldn't matter to a real pro, he told himself over and over. If a man hits the right notes in the shower, he can do the same thing...
...Arthur followed the doorman's directions down a maze of passageways to the basement waiting room, another of the evening's aspiring showstoppers fell in behind. It would have been hard to find two folks more different. Where Johnson looked like a jockey in an oversize sweater, New Arrival Steve Cruz was packed into a double-breasted, knife-sharp example of the dry cleaner's art. Their attitudes too were poles apart...
...precisely the sort of thing that Apollo crowds love to see, the ritual of public humiliation that also awaited Arthur Johnson. He tried, he gave it everything. "You and I together/ The dream seemed so real . . .," he sang, embellishing the slinky lyrics with pelvic thrusts and a swaying imitation of sensuality. But the song, Keith Sweat's soul hit I Want Her, doomed him. Some classic Motown would have given him a fighting chance: the familiar opening chords might have warmed the crowd before he even opened his mouth. But Sweat's ode to funky frustration was fraught with peril...