The King of Cool

continued

The music center charges $31 for a half-hour weekly private lesson and $90 per month to participate in the band program: weekly hour-long rehearsals plus regular performances. About 20 percent of the students play in the program, and there are currently six adult bands and twenty kid bands.

Johnson still has no definite plan for the future. "We might possibly open another location in another city in maybe four or five years, but there's lots of work to do yet." And he plans to keep doing a lot of it himself--after twenty years, he still teaches seven days a week. "Someday, however, it'll be big enough to take care of me in my golden years, I hope," he says.

It should--as long as boys still know the guitar is the coolest thing in the world, and middle-aged men still have the blues.   

[Originally published in April, 2012.]