Oh Susanna celebrates the 20th anniversary of her debut album Johnstown, with a re-mastered release available on cd, digitally and for the first time, on vinyl. Originally released in Spring 1999, Johnstown is considered a contemporary folk-noir masterpiece brimming with ghostly songs of melancholic beauty and menace. Oh Susanna’s voice evokes a cinematic narration to simultaneously warm the heart and chill the blood.
Johnstown was produced and recorded in 1998 by Grammy Award winner Peter J. Moore (Cowboy Junkies, The Band, The Clash) at his studio on Beaconsfield Street in Toronto. The album gained traction in the UK when Bob Harris began playing it on his BBC2 radio show. “Back in late spring of 1999, I had just independently released Johnstown and I was traveling down the West Coast of America playing little shows along the way,” Oh Susanna recalls, “I went to perform on new format called ‘internet radio’ in a small town in Oregon. The station was in the owner’s garage around the back of her house. I remember I had to walk through kids’ toys strewn over the backyard and entered a little garage that was made into a studio. I played some songs live on the air and some blokes from Newcastle who were listening got very excited and said I should send my album to some guy named Bob Harris. I scribbled his name on the back of my tour itinerary and told my manager to send him a CD not realizing who he was and how his support would lead to a UK record deal and many UK tours.
