iSound

Some of the best human stories are the hardest to tell – those stories that are acted out inside a person, instead of obviously out in the world. But the facts of Ben Johnson’s life more than hint at the presence of just such a story. For without some kind of internal movement, how does a self-described “nerd” kid move from wanting to be liked for something other than his musical talent to pursuing a career as a performing singer and songwriter? How does he get from the shelter of his southwestern Missouri farm family to facing down life as a working musician in the Windy City? The answers to these questions and some you wouldn’t dare to ask can be found in his work, which is at once searching, intimate and subtly powerful. He is already well on his way to meeting his own standard of being “lyrically direct and musically adventurous.” In a review of a performance at the Burning Question Coffeehouse, Tribune journalist George Rawlinson described Ben’s performance as “lightning...