Damon Johnson is Grateful for his Rock and Roll Life

Fred Hunter's Alabama

Let me tell you, I would not have imagined when I left Fyffe High School in 1971 that five decades later I’d be sitting on my sofa watching a guy from Geraldine playing guitar with Lynyrd Skynyrd on the network’s New Year’s Eve special.

Damon Johnson finds it equally unbelievable that he is THAT guy.

“I’ve had a lot of memorable gigs in my life, Damons says. “I’ve played giant festivals around the world — Europe, South America, Japan. I’ve played Red Rocks, Madison Square Garden. But let me tell you something: Ringing in the New Year on CBS at the stroke of midnight, playing ‘Free Bird’ live on television… that was not in the playbook ever, you know? What a thrill.”

Damon’s down-to-earth gratitude for all his incredible experiences shines like a spotlight when you speak with him. Born in Macon and having grown up in Monroeville, Alabama, he moved to Geraldine in the 10th grade in 1979. Coming from a musical family, he gravitated toward the guitar as a teen, though he’d taken piano lessons and played trombone in the marching band.

“About the time my high school friends and I all started discovering Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, all that stuff, I got pretty serious about it. I fell in love with it.”

He and his friends started a garage band, and his social life revolved around music.

“Once people heard me play the electric guitar, you would have thought Eric Clapton had landed in DeKalb County,” he laughs. “And I can’t overstate what that did for my confidence. So many nice people saying nice things, encouraging things. I quickly put a band together. So that was kind of how things got started for me in Geraldine.”

At the local convenience store, Damon read music magazines and was consumed with everything about the bands of the time, never dreaming he would make a living the same way.

Today Damon lives in Nashville — a long, rich journey between now and his Geraldine days. He not only plays with the legendary Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, but he also has resurrected a band he started in the early 90s called Brother Cane, whose albums led to three Number 1 singles, and who toured with names such as Aerosmith, Van Halen and Lynyrd Skynyrd. And he is a solo artist who writes, records and performs his original work.

“Lynyrd Skynyrd tours about 50 or 60 shows a year, and that gives me plenty of time to scratch my artistic itch and write new songs,” Damon says. ‘I love writing, I love making recordings. I’ve made a lot of records over the past 30 years and been in a few other projects I could have never, ever imagined. I’m really grateful.”

The impressive acts Damon has written for, recorded with, or performed with include Ted Nugent, Sammy Hagar, Stevie Nicks, Faith Hill and…Alice Cooper?

“It makes me smile when you even mention Alice Cooper,” says Damon. “It was 2004 when I started playing with Alice. And that next year, both my parents had a chance to come and see me play and meet Alice. They couldn’t have been more thrilled to meet him and talk about those early days when they were alarmed to see his album covers in my room. Alice loves it when anybody comes up and says, ‘We thought you were crazy.’ But Alice is a role model in terms of the footprint he is leaving as a true artist, committed to writing and recording and making records. That guy’s never put on a bad show. And he’s a great husband, great father. It’s family first.”

Most folks don’t know that Alice Cooper is an extremely good golfer. In fact, Damon took his clubs on tour with Cooper’s band because the group hit the links most days when on the road.

Though known as a rock artist, Damon made a foray into the world of country music as well. After all, living in Nashville and not dipping his toe into country music would be like living in The Bronx and not going to a Yankees game.

“Country music was always a part of my listening experience as a kid,” Damon says. “Every bit as much as rock music was, because my parents were very much steeped in country. I’m so grateful that my dad always played records by the all-time greats. You know, the Mount Rushmore of great male country artists: Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson. So that was always kind of bubbling beneath my burgeoning love of rock and hard rock. I’ve always been able to add a little of that to whatever band I’m playing in. I’m not a great country player, because I have a different measuring stick of what that means. A lot of that has to do with the equipment you have, the amplifiers you use, the guitars you have. But I’m never afraid to grab a guitar and get in there and see what I can come up with.”

That musical heritage was on full display in 2007 when Damon helped form the country music band Whiskey Falls. “We played a good bit around Alabama and the Southeast,” he says. “We gave it a fully committed effort for two years, 2007 and 2008. It’s another one of those bands that I was in that was just so close to punching through to that next level. And you know, promotion challenges, management challenges, record company challenges —something’s always going to interfere with your goals and your progress, unfortunately. But country music is for sure a part of what I do.”

The variety of acts Damon has worked with makes his career a bit unusual. He can play with just about anyone, anywhere. In 2011 this versatility created an opportunity for Damon to play with legendary Irish rock group Thin Lizzy.

“I saw Thin Lizzy when I was living in Geraldine in high school,” Damon recalls. “It literally changed my life. I was familiar with ‘The Boys Are Back in Town.’ That was such a big song on the radio. But they had such an incredible catalog of fantastic guitar riffs. And the rhythm section, how they played together … the songs had a different groove than any of the other rock music I was listening to. I didn’t know at the time that was some of the Celtic Irish influence.”

Thin Lizzy’s repertoire of powerful songs, their musicianship, and the stage presence of the band led by singer Phil Lynott made an impression on the Geraldine boy. “I think the thing I’ve been most attracted to, you could say addicted to, my whole life is the energy of a great song with a great singer and a great guitar player,” he says. ‘I mean I’m as much a sucker for it right now as I ever was.”

The opportunity to join Thin Lizzy came while Damon was touring with Alice Cooper. “So I’m playing with Alice, and we do a show in Dublin,” he says. “The lineup that night was Def Leppard and Alice Cooper, and Thin Lizzy was opening. I didn’t know this at the time, but they were getting ready to need a replacement for one of the guitar players. They saw me play a couple of shows, I got back home the following week, and the guitar player Scott Gorham calls my house. I used to have posters of Scott Gorham on my wall!”

The call presented the opportunity of a lifetime. “He said, ‘I know you got a great gig with Alice, but we need somebody and your name is on a very short list. Is it something you would have any interest in?’” Damon recalls the conversation. “I’ve learned over the years … I mean, Paul McCartney could call me and offer me a gig and I’d say, ‘Paul, I appreciate the call, but I’m going to have to talk to my wife first.’

“Of course, Lynda knew how much I loved Alice,” Damon continues. “My whole family loves Alice. But she said, ‘Damon, if you don’t take this opportunity to go have that experience and play those amazing...