Dee Johnson

Dee has worked and toured the world with different artists before she started working with Simply Red since their 1992 "Stars Tour"
The Ten Commandments Of Harrry Lang / Pier66
The band were losing a vocalist at the time and Dee's brother John gave her the call, and she was in. Dee had a week to learn the set before they went gigging at almost every pub and college in England at that time.
at the same time Dee was in another band, called
Pressurepoint
a 7 piece British soul band, who were popular on the club and pub circut in Birmingham at the time.
Dee Warner Lin
Dee Johnson, Lin Sandiford and Warner Baker. The three, got an independent record deal with Swanyard Studios in Highbury, London and were being produced by a prominent member of a successful Brit funk band, who eventually got bored and naffed off leaving them to find a new manager, which they did,
then moved on as a trio to do backingvocals for an extremely popular German boy band called............
Bad Boys Blue
Dee was part of the trio Dee Warner Lin, as backing vocalists for one of the most popular bands out of West Germany…that’s when the travelling started.
The covered parts of Europe extensively, in the back of a Volkswagen camper van. They played very large festivals and some very small clubs. Then Warner left the trio and it was just Dee and Lin.
In between Dee was managing a Dry Cleaning shop in Putney in the week and began touring with another famous band at the weekends.
UB40
The lead singer of Bad Boys Blue, Trevor Taylor was quite well aquainted with the band UB40 and suggested, in their pursuit of new backup singers, that they used “his girls”.
That was Dee's first step into a band of whom she'd been a fan of.
Now the travelling really started!!!
UB40's first major world tour took Dee to around 36 countries in 12 months.
The opportunity arose for Dee to sing duets, "I Got You Babe" and "Breakfast In Bed" with Ali, her eyes like dinner plates thru the whole thing.
Dee recorded several tracks on the album UB40, and appeared in a video or two, too!
There was already a totally new musical singing experience waiting for Dee just around the corner………..
Basia
, Basia Treztrezlewska, known simply as “Basia”.
Latin with serious Jazz inflections, or the other way around if you prefere. Written by a lady that could have been a mathematician.
Now, Dee was using her voice!!!
Basia had her singing notes in a place Dee had never sang them before, what a challenge, what a Show!
Dee recorded the video “Till You Come Back To Me”, a hit in the US in 1990 and the album, “Basia Live On Broadway”which was recorded over a week at “The Neil Simon Theatre” NY, 1994.
Dee said; I have Basia to thank for the huge leap in my vocal ability over that period. Basia made me feel proud of myself when I hear my recordings.
An audition arose for the next band she was to encounter………...
Simply Red
Dee first heard the album “Picture Book” when working in Cologne, Germany. She got back to England... went out... bought the album and played it morning noon and night until her flat mates were brainwashed.:-)
More touring, many recordings, many TV appearances.
The vocals changed but with what she’d learnt over the years with other bands left her well equipped to do what she had to. She enjoyed every minute of the performances and the continual change in her own voice. Getting the opportunity to support yet another fine voice was always going to help her to continue learning and it was amazing every time she discovered something musically new.
Dee has recorded on every album after “Stars” 1992 to the present day. Including Simply Red’s number one single “Fairgroung”.
She appeared in the hit single videos “Ain’t That A Lotta Love” and “Your Perfect Love”, which was recorded in Cuba. With Simply Red she was able to play in parts of Eastern Europe she’d never played before highlighting "when you thought you’d been to so many countries..."
Leading into her next chapter………
The Film "Francescas Key" directed by Pogus Caesar
Dee played the part of a several hundred year old being called “Jezreel”. She lives next to a lake in a parallel universe that watches as time changes the surroundings on normal earth. The film was shot at Edgbaston Reservoire, one of Birmiinghams hidden treasures.
The film premiered 12th September 07 with a red carpet event at Birmingham’s Odeon Cinema.
Dee enjoys art, design & photography, she has been taking pictures since she was 15 years old and has had several of her photographs published.
She also enjoys painting, mostly abstract these days.
xox
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