Page 36 - MyCottleville Magazine Jan/Feb 2017

Local Girl Sings from the Heart
Marybeth Johnson... Singer committed to sharing her gift
By: Robin Seaton Jefferson, special correspondent
“Every piece of my music comes straight from the heart. It’s raw. It’s risky. But it’s all true.” That’s the way local country music singer, song writer Marybeth Johnson describes her music. The 26-year-old mom and mother/baby nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in St. Louis said she started singing before she could speak.
It would be many years later that she would learn to play the guitar. “I learned to play the guitar at 19 years old,” Johnson said. “I learned simple chords so I could sing along.” It wasn’t long after that before she started booking shows. She did it, she said, to build con - dence in herself. “Everything for me is about challenging myself. It’s easy to stay home and play in your home. But there is no fun in that for me. I had to get out of my comfort zone.
God blessed me with a gift. I believe if you have a gift, you have to share that gift with putting a smile on people’s faces with your talent.”
At least some of Johnson’s music didn’t come from a place of happiness, though. “I’ve
experienced severe loss in my life and thank God above I have music to help me cope with tragedy,” she said. “My father passed away suddenly in June of 2010, leaving behind myself, my mom, my daughter, and my 16-year-old brother, Ricky. After losing my father, I watched how so many people came forward to help us and I learned through that experience that it’s 100 percent okay to cry and to ask for help.”
She said it was from that experience that she wrote “Not Alone,” a textured and emotionally-rich yet hopeful piece about coming back from tragedy. “My two favorite parts of that song are ‘Reach out when someone offers you their hand,’ and ‘It’s hard to nd the strength, but I look at this love around me, and every day I count my blessings.’ Those pieces of the song truly describe how I feel. I learned to surround myself with the best people, reach out when someone offers help, and to focus on the love that is in my life instead of focusing on the negative.”
Less than a year later, another loss would befall the young singer. In 2011, her daughter’s father died in a drunken driving accident. She said that was the “most dif cult thing I’ve dealt with.” It would have been easy to give up at that point, but in- stead she went back to school, immersed herself in her work and focused on raising her daughter. Today she is married and working hard at her nursing and music careers. She plays mostly covers, and whatever music she writes is usually done on sticky notes, at her kitchen table, in the shower, and in bed. She sometimes records herself on her phone to save lyrics for later.
Johnson grew up in Missouri singing in choir and participating in all of her high school musicals. She said her mother recog- nized her talent years ago. “My mom encouraged me. She just knew I could sing. I have videos of me singing Disney songs. There is one of me singing Beauty and the Beast. I saw it and I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this cute little girl! She really can sing!’ I see now what my mom saw.”
At 21, Johnson started traveling back and forth to Nashville, Tenn., where she would meet up with other writers and collab-
orate on music in writers’ rooms and studios. “It’s a fun culture,” she said. “It’s like a college town, but everything’s about music.” But as her daughter grew, she realized she needed to “put down roots” somewhere. So today she only travels locally, performing gigs throughout the St. Louis Metropolitan Area.
“I realized it doesn’t have to be a job,” Johnson said. “It’s a really enjoyable experience for me now. Sometimes it’s sitting on the computer learning new songs for four hours, because as a local musician, you do a lot of the work yourself.”
Johnson said part of being a musician for her is service to others. “I’ve always known I’m a servant for people.” As a young person she worked as a lifeguard. As an adult, she works as a nurse. “I love the postpartum time, helping moms and healthy babies through a joyful, but stressful time. And I get to sing to the babies in the nursery.”
Her own daughter is “more of a writer than a singer,” Johnson said. “She likes to make up her own songs, and she’s actually really good at it.” Johnson said she can sing or play in any genre, but country music is her rst love. “I love telling a story. Country music is a universal love. Everyone can relate to a song, even if they claim they don’t like the whole genre.” Her favorite artist to cover is Miranda Lambert, though she does “love covering old school country.”
Johnson said she plans to further her nursing degree and continue playing local shows. “I want to keep sharing that gift with everyone,” she said. She is now working with a guitarist to expand her repertoire into the genres of pop, rock, and more classic country music covers.
For more information on Johnson and upcoming shows, visit https://www.reverbnation.com/marybethjohnson.
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