In The News

Need an organist? Local musician creates Web site to help churches worldwide
Reprinted with permission of The (Toledo) Blade.
December 16, 2006

By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

When the pastor of Mineral Baptist Church in Keyser, W.Va., resigned last year, his daughter - who played piano during services - also left, putting the congregation in a double bind.

They found a new pastor, the Rev. Kris Lengel, but it was a resourceful Toledo-area musician who helped save the day for Mineral Baptist's music program.

Elaine Johnson, the daughter of an Assembly of God minister who has been singing and playing in churches since she was a toddler, is the founder of an online firm that provides musical accompaniment for church services, called HymnServe.

She has recorded 50 hymns so far and is working on the next 50, recording such classic titles as "The Old Rugged Cross," "Rock of Ages," "Sweet Hour of Prayer," and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

The music, available by download or on CDs sent by mail, saved the day for Mineral Baptist.

"It's been ideal for us," Mr. Lengel said. "We're a small congregation and we'd been singing the same things over and over. My wife jumped online and found Elaine Johnson's Web site. We listened to some of the samples and ordered some songs. It's worked out ideally for us."

Mrs. Johnson, a gifted musician, was 3 years old when she joined in during a family get-together and started singing in perfect harmony. She began studying piano in grade school and has a smooth, supple touch on the keyboards, adding arpeggios and musical fills that perfectly complement the melodies without sounding ostentatious or distracting.

"This is designed for people who want to sing hymns like the ones you heard in church while you were growing up," said Mrs. Johnson, wife of the University of Toledo's President-emeritus Dan Johnson.

A native of Scotts Bluff, Neb., Mrs. Johnson met her husband when they were students at Evangel College in Springfield, Mo., and the couple, who have two sons, were married in 1961. For their honeymoon, the Johnsons went to New York City - as part of a national tour with the college's Evangel Choir.

"It was a very inexpensive honeymoon," Mrs. Johnson said with a laugh. "Dan helped unload the choir gear."

Mrs. Johnson said she loves all kinds of religious music, from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to Amy Grant, but also cites Ray Charles and "the Man in Black" - Johnny Cash - as personal favorites.

She earned a degree in voice performance from the University of Missouri and went to graduate school at Washington University, ending just short of a doctorate. She has taught music professionally, including nine years at Southwestern College in Waxahachie, Texas, and Blackburn College in Carlinville, Ill.,

With organists and pianists in demand at churches around the country, Mrs. Johnson said she enjoys filling in for church musicians who may be ill or on vacation, or at churches that don't have their own pianist. She has played at services for virtually all Christian denominations in the Toledo area and elsewhere, and donates her fees to charity.

"The people are so appreciative. But I'm only one person. I can only go one place at a time," she said in a recent interview at her home near Grand Rapids, Ohio, where the Johnsons recently moved.

Mrs. Johnson said that playing a digital keyboard led to the inspiration to create Hymnserve.

She began using digital keyboards while living in Anchorage, where Mr. Johnson was president of the University of Alaska, before the couple moved to Toledo in 2001.

Alaskan nights are long during the school year, Mrs. Johnson said, and friends advised her to get out of the house, so she took a part-time job selling keyboards at a piano store. That's where she demonstrated to customers the digital features of the Yamaha Clavinova, a high-tech keyboard that can digitally record a player's actions onto a disc and replay the music exactly. It not only reproduces the pianist's touch on the keyboards, it offers such embellishments as synthesized violins, trumpets, and flutes.

"The manager of the store asked if I could record a few hymn arrangements, and I was having a ball," Mrs. Johnson said. "It was just great, playing the piano and putting in flutes and strings."

One customer asked for a copy of Mrs. Johnson's arrangements on a floppy disc so she could play it on her church's Clavinova, and the request turned into a weekly routine.

"Every week, the customer would call the store with a list of hymns and praise and worship music," Mrs. Johnson said. She would pick up the disc on Saturday and Mrs. Johnson would "play" by proxy at the church services on Sunday morning.

From that experience, Mrs. Johnson began thinking about the possibility of offering traditional hymn arrangements to churches, religious groups, and individuals. The recordings can be used as accompaniment for choirs, soloists, or congregational singing.

While there are many pre-recorded background musical tracks for soloists who want to sing the latest hits in contemporary Christian music, but there are few, if any, accompaniment tracks for traditional hymns suitable for either congregational singing or vocal solos.

Mrs. Johnson sees her music as a tool that can used by small churches, missionaries around the world, at youth summer camps, for personal retreats, for shut-ins who can't get to services, and for weddings, funerals, and other religious services.

More information is available online at www.hymnserve.com
or by calling 877-HYMNSERVE.

Wife of UT president leads life of harmony

Monday, June 13, 2005

When she was 3 years old, Elaine Johnson began harmonizing with the hymn her family was practicing to perform on the radio.

"My family was always singing, so I grew up around music," she said. "They tell me I just sang a perfect harmony, and they were all a little surprised."

Mrs. Johnson is best known locally as the wife of University of Toledo president Dan Johnson. What few people know about her is that she is an accomplished organist who taught college music for nine years, sold Steinway pianos, and plans to launch a Web site offering her own hymn arrangements.

Since coming to Toledo with her husband from Anchorage, Alaska, Mrs. Johnson has not had the chance to play as much as she wants, mostly because of a busy travel schedule accompanying her husband to events. Still, she maintains membership in the American Guild of Organists and often fills in as organist at local churches.

Last August, Mrs. Johnson played every Sunday for the nondenominational service at the Hoover Auditorium in Lakeside, halfway between Toledo and Cleveland. Lakeside religion and education director Barbara Stephens-Rich said those summer Sundays were a unique experience for the Hoover crowd.

"What she did that was new and unusual was play all her own arrangements," Mrs. Stephens-Rich said. "We were impressed by her creativity."

Equally unique is Mrs. Johnson's use of the money she receives as honoraria for playing at Hoover Auditorium and Toledo-area churches: It all goes to a UT fund in her name that will be used "to enhance the spiritual life of the university," she said.

According to Vern Snyder, vice president for institutional advancement, the fund currently totals $3,300.

Mrs. Johnson grew up around church and music, both of which created long-standing passions. Her father, an Assemblies of God minister, also performed with his family on the radio, and Mrs. Johnson and her brothers traveled as a children's trio.

When she married Mr. Johnson, Mrs. Johnson was playing the organ for an ABC radio program. Neither had much money, so their honeymoon was a trip with her choir.

They stayed in people's homes and spent a total of $5 during the trip, she said.

"We were walking down 5th Avenue in New York City and I bought a big pink hat with a big flower on the side," she laughed. "That was all we bought for the whole trip."

When she has more free time, Mrs. Johnson plans to launch a Web site where visitors can download hymn arrangements. The program would be ideal for Scout groups doing church services around the campfire, she said, and could also be used by missionaries in other countries.

For now, Mrs. Johnson, who is the mother of two grown children, is happy soliciting alumni donations and entertaining groups in her home. Some guests are lucky enough to get a private concert on the grand piano in the Johnsons' living room - as long as they will sing along.

"I feel much more comfortable if people are singing," Mrs. Johnson said. "My favorite thing is to be playing and hear voices all around me."

By MEGAN GREENWELL
BLADE STAFF WRITER