Marcus Johnson Bio

Marcus Johnson is a music producer/songwriter.

Having starting out singing with world-renowned gospel choir LCGC in 1984, Marcus moved on to working in bands and songwriting with friends Bryan Powell and Mark Beswick and ended up picking up a couple of gospel songwriter awards. Alongside Steve Campbell, Bryan and Mark, Marcus also worked with the young Fay Simpson, Robert Anderson and Andrew Smith and they started doing shows supporting the likes of USA’s great Richard Smallwood and Bebe & Cece Winans. They also performed on the main stage at the Greenbelt Gospel Festival with ‘Sounds of Blackness’ where he also met Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who have been a big influence on his career.

In the late 80s Marcus tagged along with Bryan Powell to LA who at this stage was signed to BMG music publishing, here they learnt a lot by spending time with artists such as gospel legend Daryl Coley, Earth Wind and Fire and the great songwriter Jon Lind. As a result, Marcus started growing in strength and belief.

In the early 90's Marcus returned back to the UK and with Steve Campbell formed a production partnership called the ‘Ethnic Boyz’. They immediately started working on some demos with UK gospel artists ‘The Escoffery's' who were eventually signed to Atlantic records. Alongside Sandra Escoffery, Marcus co-wrote the majority of their album. which was a success on both sides of the Atlantic. The album spawned the first UK Gospel hit in the Top 20 US Billboard-RnB Charts. The success lead to most of the major labels in the UK, knocking at the door of the ‘Ethnic Boyz’.

A meeting held with Marcus and A&R Colin Barlow lead to the UK group ‘Nu Colours’ being signed. Meanwhile, Marcus had been working on demos with a young RnB group called ‘Rhythm N Bass’, which consisted of the young Wayne Hector and Ali Tenant. Through this process, Marcus wrote the song along with his good friend Bryan Powell called ‘Rose’ and another song called “Blame it on the rain” along with Michelle Escoffery. This got the attention of Peter Thomas of Real Housewives of Atlanta, who then put the ‘Ethnic Boyz’ into the studio to take tracks to another level. Consequently, the boys ended up getting signed to Sony UK and had some success in the UK charts.

Calls were coming fast and thick and next Dome Records were in contact about working with an up and coming artist from the Midlands called Beverly Knight. Marcus and Steve produced Knights Top Forty UK hit “Moving on Up” at the same time as working with Nu Colours. In 1994 the pair got a call from UK Legend, Jazzie B to remix Soul II Soul club classic ‘Fair play’ for a Greatest Hits album.

Around this time Jazz Summers of Big Life Records contacted them to work with a young boy band they had called ‘Damage’. The pair ended up doing work on their first album including Marcus co-writing the UK Top 5 smash ‘Forever’. Throughout the 90s the pair worked on countless recordings and remixes and helped bring through other up and coming producers.

Always with a good eye for talent Marcus partnered with Big Life A&R Steve Marshall to sign 'Truce', a trio put together by Marcus his brother Lawrence. In 1999 a conversation with A&R Colin Barlow lead to Marcus and music partner forming a band with Jay Henry (a backing vocalist for George Michael) called ‘7TH Son’. The band signed a three-album deal with Warner Brothers, it was an album that was recorded in the

UK and mixed in the USA. However this album unfortunately did not see the light of day because of internal changes within the label.

Marcus's prolific career and catalogue secured him a publishing deal with Universal Music - Lots of Hits. Today the story is still unfolding and Marcus is involved in mentoring a few up and coming artists as well as continuing to write and produce for independent artists.