Craig Johnson
Musician
Best known for
Songwriter
Craig Johnson was an old-time fiddler, banjo player, guitarist, and singer who spent nearly four decades in string bands — most prominently the Double Decker String Band — and wrote songs that entered the traditional repertoire on their own merits.
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- Born in 1953 and raised in Wayne, Michigan; he came to old-time string-band music while at the University of Michigan.
- Played fiddle, banjo, and guitar, and was known as a singer and songwriter as much as an instrumentalist.
- Played in string bands continuously from 1972 onward.
- Recorded six albums with the Double Decker String Band, and released a solo record, Away Down the Road.
- Wrote “Piney Mountains,” also known as “Damned Old Piney Mountains,” about a West Virginia logger he met who had been a fiddler before losing the fingers of his left hand in a timber accident.
- The song has been recorded by Bruce Molsky on If it Ain’t Here When I Get Back (2013) and by the Appalachian Road Show (2018).
- Worked at finding and preserving traditional Appalachian songs and fiddle tunes.
- Died on December 5, 2009, of esophageal cancer, at fifty-six.
