Nedra Johnson (born July 27, 1966) is an American

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

singer/songwriter and

multi-instrumentalist A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments at a professional level of proficiency. Also known as doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and more efficient employment of musicians, where ...

. She has performed internationally at jazz, blues, pride and women's music festivals as a solo artist, a tuba player, and vocalist.

Early life

Johnson was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1966. She is the daughter of jazz performer Howard Johnson.

Career

Johnson has performed in internationally in cities including

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Nîmes Nîmes ( , ; oc, Nimes ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the prefecture of the Gard department in the Occitanie region of Southern France. Located between the Mediterranean Sea and Cévennes, the commune of Nîmes has an estimated population of 148,5 ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Leverkusen Leverkusen () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne, and to the north the state capital, Düsseldorf. With about 161,000 inhabitants, Leverkusen is on ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and

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. She has also performed with her father Howard Johnson and his group, Gravity. For many years, she performed as a professional bassist and continues with solo acoustic performances with an R&B flair. Johnson, a lesbian, is a performer of

women's music Women's music is music by women, for women, and about women. The genre emerged as a musical expression of the second-wave feminist movement as well as the labor, civil rights, and peace movements. The movement (in the USA) was started by lesbian ...

. On her first album, ''Testify'', she recorded the black lesbian feminist poet

Pat Parker Pat Parker (born Patricia Cooks; January 20, 1944June 17, 1989) was an American poet and activist. Both her poetry and her activism drew from her experiences as an African-American lesbian Feminism, feminist.Pat Parker. Contemporary Authors On ...

's 1978 poem "Where Will You Be?" In 2005, Johnson released her own version of "Amazon Women Rise" as a tribute to the lesbian songwriter Maxine Feldman, a founding figure in women's music.

Awards

Her self-titled release received a 2006 OUTMUSIC Award for Outstanding New Recording-Female.

Discography

Albums

Studio albums

*''Testify'' (1998) *''Nedra'' (2005)

Notable performances

Michigan Womyn's Music Festival The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, often referred to as MWMF or Michfest, was a feminist women's music festival held annually from 1976 to 2015 in Oceana County, Michigan, on privately owned woodland near Hart Township referred to as "The La ...

, Wahalla, MI: 2014, 2005, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1992 *Queer Is Folk Festival, Chicago, IL: 2005 *

National Queer Arts Festival National Queer Arts Festival (NQAF) is an annual queer festival in San Francisco organized by the Queer Cultural Center and established in 1998 to coincide with Pride Month. Other organisations which have assisted over the years include the Harve ...

, San Francisco, CA: 2003, 2002 *Femme Funk Festival, Nouméa, New Caledonia: 2002, 1999 *National Women's Music Festival, Muncie, IN: 1998, 1996

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Nedra 1966 births African-American women singer-songwriters 20th-century African-American women singers American double-bassists American rhythm and blues musicians American tubists Women tubists Feminist musicians Lesbian feminists American lesbian musicians LGBT African Americans American LGBT singers Living people Musicians from New York City Singer-songwriters from New York (state) American women bloggers American bloggers Women's music 21st-century American women singers 21st-century American double-bassists 21st-century tubists 21st-century American singers 20th-century American women singers 20th-century American double-bassists 20th-century tubists 20th-century American singers 20th-century LGBT people 21st-century LGBT people 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American writers