Last year, to help this paper mark its 30th anniversary, I called Johnson to talk about his days in KC record stores and alt-weekly publishing. He was gracious and funny, and his recollections and opinions — given more airing than a conversation limited by my deadline and his health allowed — could have, and should have, filled a book.
That interview is in our archive here, and UMKC's still-building Pitch archive has numerous examples of Johnson's wit and wisdom in its PDF'd pages. My favorite of his "fly me" slams, which bore down on hapless records with crude truths and fortune-cookie non sequiturs, is probably his one-line assessment of an album by a forgotten German metal group: "Doro needs a Toro."
LeRoi, here's hoping there's a big green lawn in your hereafter, tended by the bad bands and ready for nightly gigs by the good ones.
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