Blow the Man Down: How I navigated the sailboats and station wagons of the music business

If leaving your hometown to get on the roller coaster ride of show business wasn’t enough, add the wine, women, and song, and you’ve got the makings of one hell of an adventure. Johnson rides it for all it’s worth. Doug Holmquist, Nashville music producer/engineer

In the 1970s, Mark Johnson was a gangly North Carolina farm boy with a big imagination. An avid reader of Doc Savage pulp novels and Hardy Boys Mysteries, Johnson knew he wanted adventure in his life. He just had no idea where to get it or how to escape the Christmas tree fields of the Appalachians.

As an even ganglier teenager, Johnson discovered a natural talent in music. Then, girls. These epiphanies would lead to an adventure even Johnson’s wild imagination couldn’t have predicted.

Follow along as Johnson navigates a heart-pounding and often hilarious odyssey through the 1980s and ‘90s music industry as a songwriter and club musician, both in fickle Nashville and the mysterious Caribbean island of ill repute, St. Croix. Johnson reveals both the seductions and the hard truths of life in the world of entertainment.