Betty Johnson

Betty Johnson (March 16, 1929 – November 6, 2022) was an American traditional pop and cabaret singer born in Guilford County, North Carolina. Her career reached its peak in the 1950s, and she later appeared on Broadway in the musical Take Me Along.

Johnson's entry into performing came through her family. She began singing with the Johnson Family Singers, a group that included her parents and three brothers and performed primarily religious material. After the family won a singing contest in Charlotte, North Carolina, they secured a contract with WBT (AM), a major Charlotte radio station, where they broadcast from 1938 to 1951. Johnson began contributing solo work on the station in 1943, and by 1948 she had her own 15-minute radio program. As a teenager she was signed by Columbia Records, though none of those early recordings achieved commercial success.

Her first marriage, to Dick Redding, lasted from 1949 to 1954 and produced one son, Harold Richard Redding, born in 1952 and known as Dickie. In 1954 she released a children's album with country singer Eddy Arnold, produced by Simon & Schuster, which subsequently signed her to its Bell Records label. That same year she joined the management company Csida-Grean, whose Charles Grean produced many of her later recordings. She signed with RCA Victor in 1955, which brought her to Chicago, Illinois, and she married Grean in 1957, though the marriage ended in 1961 while their professional collaboration continued.

In Chicago, Johnson worked again with Arnold on his syndicated television series Eddy Arnold Time, backed by The Jordanaires, a group that later became widely known for their work with Elvis Presley. She also appeared on Don McNeill's Breakfast Club beginning in 1955, which led to a contract with Bally Records. Her recording of "I Dreamed" in 1956 became her biggest hit for that label, and she continued appearing on The Breakfast Club through 1957. Jack Paar subsequently hired her for his television program Tonight, a position she held until 1962 when Paar was replaced by Johnny Carson. Her work with Paar led to a contract with Atlantic Records in 1957, for which she recorded "Little Blue Man," a novelty number featuring Fred Ebb as the voice of the title character.

In 1964 Johnson married Arthur Gray, an investment banker in New York City. The couple had two daughters, Lydia, born in 1966, and Elisabeth, born in 1968. From that point until 1993 she largely stepped away from show business, during which time she pursued her education, attending classes at Dartmouth College beginning in 1977 and earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1981.

Her return to the stage came in 1984 and 1985, when she played Essie Miller in the Goodspeed Opera House's revival of Take Me Along, the production that constitutes her Broadway credit. In 1993 she resumed her performing career with an engagement at the Algonquin Hotel in New York and founded her own recording label, Bliss Tavern Music. Her subsequent projects included Four Shades of Gray, a collaboration with her daughters Lydia Gray and Elisabeth Gray and her granddaughter Betty Gray, as well as the restoration and remastering of The Take Five Sessions, recordings she had made with the Lou Garisto Quartet in New York City during the late 1950s through early 1960s.

Among her charting singles were "I Want Eddie Fisher for Christmas" (1954), "I Dreamed" (1956), "1492" (1957), "Little White Lies" (1957), "The Song You Heard When You Fell in Love" (1957), "Little Blue Man" (1958), "Dream" (1958), "You Can't Get to Heaven" (1959), and "Slipping Around" (1960). Johnson died at her home in South Carolina on November 6, 2022, at the age of 93.