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| Lorraine Johnson |
| As you all know I have a penchant for lenghty in-depth biographies of disco artists. However that's not always possible, some people have almost vanished into thin air. Some have very little history before or after their disco fame. That is one of the reasons for this site, to preserve their legacy and make them more than a passing footnote in disco history. One of those artists is Lorraine Johnson. I'll share the brief information I have with you and hope that anyone with additional knowledge will come forth to preserve her legacy. Lorraine is a native of Alabama and her earliest known recording is "Can I Hold You To It" released in May of 1973 on Atlantic Records. It is believed that between 1973 and 1977 she worked in and around Muscle Shoals, Alabama doing background work for various producers. Her first release on album was the 1977 Prelude release "The More You Want." Although her voice was powerful and the producers were in place, the ingredients failed to add up to hit status. The 12" single (Prelude's third) of "The More I Get, The More I Want" was on the B-side of another Alabama artist, Bill Brandon, and his track "People Fall In Love While Dancing." Her version of the McFadden/Whitehead song was actually a sizable hit for Teddy Pendergrass. The album, now a collectors item, was an early example of Preludes commitment to R&B. Prelude often blurred the line between R&B and disco and Lorraine bridged that gap. The first confirmed listing of her background work is for producers Jesse Boyce and Moses Dillard on their 1978 disco outing "Come On Dance, Dance" under the guise of the Saturday Night Band. Her work with Moses & Dillard led to her second album "Learning To Dance All Over Again" which oddly enough doesn't feature her on the cover but some pasty blonde chick. The album produced her one and only mega-hit "Feed The Flame." "Feed The Flame" was not an immediate hit. It took a lenghty overhaul remix to get finnicky disc jockeys to program it. But when they did it reached the top ten on the club charts in the summer of 1978. Lorraine was on a roll that year as her album and 12" sold generously. She reunited with Moses and Dillard for the second Saturday Night Band album "Keep Those Lovers Dancing." Capitalizing on her current fame she was given equal billing but it failed to mark the album into a big hit. By 1979 Lorraine was back to doing session work most notably appearing on the L.T.D. album "Devotion" and it's 12" single "Dance 'N Sing 'N" and Les McCann's disco outting "Tall, Dark And Handsome." By 1980 she seems to have given up on secular music and faded into the background. She resurfaced in 1997 on gospel legend Dorothy Norwood's album "Hattie B's Daughter" as a soprano vocalist and then slipped back into obscurity. As with so many disco artists who have had only one or two hits Lorraine derserves her place in The DiscoMuseum with our thanks and gratitude for her contributions. |
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