Axella Johannesson
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One of the first "music cyber stars", due to the ability to distribute her music primarily via the Internet, Australian Singer/songwriter Axella Johannesson was born January 11 1958 in Mount Vernon, New York, United States.
Johannesson's family moved to Selden, New York in 1963, as part of the great exodus to the suburbs. However, she moved to the Smithtown area with her mother Jeannette and sister Linda (b. 1960), when her parents separated prior to divorcing. "Things were kind of weird back then," she said. "I attended six elementary schools by the time I got to fourth grade."
When her mother married Robert Nofer, the family settled in Saint James, New York, and within four years, the family had grown by two - Thomas (b. 1967), and Richard (b. 1971). During this period, Johannesson became both a vegetarian and an avowed atheist, and remains so to this day.
Johannesson credits her mother's "45s" (45 rpm recordings) of '60s pop music, her father's recordings of Trini Lopez and Hank Williams, and her stepfather's diverse collection of recordings by artists including "The Animals" and "Charlie Parker", along with her grandparents' recordings by artists including "The Ink Spots" and "Nat King Cole", with helping her to learn to enjoy many styles of music. Listening to these artists throughout her childhood caused her to decide to try songwriting.
"I was 12 or 13 when I wrote the first one, and in retrospect, it was pretty awful, as you'd expect. Those were the 'Hippie' days back then, and I think the song was called, 'Save the World', or something like that. I didn't provide any plan for how the world should be saved, however, just that it should be saved."
Johannesson continued writing songs, while singing and playing guitar in cover bands during her high school years.
After an unsuccessful marriage which produced daughters Wendy (b. 1978), Reanna (b. 1979), and Michelle (b. 1981), Johannesson eventually settled in Traralgon in Victoria, Australia, and married Martin Taylor (b. 1957).
With the rise of the internet, Johannesson was one of the first to achieve "cyber fame" via on-line music delivery sites (OMDs) such as IUMA, Besonic, and mp3.com, among others, in the 1990s, achieving several genre number ones. She also held the number one spot site-wide on Ampcast.com for a month in 2001, with "Mama Never Told You About Me", co-written with Jon Andersen of Texas.
After years of writing rock songs, and releasing the albums Fighting the Good Fight and Mama Never Told You About Me, Johannesson decided to pay homage to her roots by recording covers of some of her favorite '60s pop songs. Thanks to her early exposure to rhythm and blues records, she began to write and record in that genre ("I'm old enough to sing the blues now"). Her "Ugly Man Blues", a blues/comedy song recorded in 2004, received much airplay on internet radio, as well as being played on commercial and public radio world-wide. Finding it extraordinary that people on the other side of the planet were listening to her music, Johannesson said, "When someone told me that he heard one of my songs on the radio while sitting in a bar in Los Angeles, it blew my mind! I never would've thought that I'd live long enough hear someone say that!"
More recently, Johannesson has branched out into writing music for short films.
Although she still records, Johannesson's live performances are becoming relatively rare. "I don't have a band, but that means I also don't have the hassles that go along with having a band... I'm not going out of my way to put another one together at this point in time, because when they break up, it's almost like losing your family. I've got a studio in my house, and when I feel inspired, I pick up a pen or an instrument, and go for it. It's very liberating."
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