BY RANDY ROUGHTON
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The singer in an airman battle uniform and combat boots spent last summer where she feels most comfortable, performing for deployed Airmen with her Missouri Air National Guard bandmates. By the time Staff Sgt. Angie Johnson deployed, she had given up expectations of a music career beyond singing with Sidewinder, a 571st Air National Guard Band of the Central States. But even as she focused on singing for troops in Afghanistan, her fellow service members filmed and circulated a video that changed her life.
An Internet video of Johnson singing Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” with Sidewinder generated more than 2.6 million views and attracted the attention of Carson Daly, host of reality talent show “The Voice.” Daly contacted Johnson through a series of social media messages and encouraged her to audition for the show.
Johnson advanced past the blind auditions and was selected for Cee Lo Green’s team before leaving the show after her battle round, televised in early March.
Since Johnson’s appearance on “The Voice,” her schedule has become increasingly crowded with appearance and recording requests.
“I ask myself every day whose life I’m living. I hope they don’t want it back,” Johnson said. “I went from literally being a sergeant in the Air Force singing in Afghanistan to being plucked out of that environment and becoming a contestant on ‘The Voice.’ I really feel like I’m watching a miniseries of someone else’s life. Who does that happen to?”
A few days before her last appearance on “The Voice,” Johnson rehearsed at her Guard unit training assembly in St. Louis for upcoming performances with Sidewinder. She joked with band members between songs and talked with them during lunch, even as a commercial promoting her next performance on “The Voice” appeared on a nearby TV.
Johnson’s drill weekends, spent singing with people who were in her life long before a national audience knew her name, are when she feels most comfortable. She’s less at ease with much of the attention she attracts now, with the exceptions of a Marine who recognized her on the street in Nashville, Tenn., where she is currently recording, and letters she receives from service members and veterans, including some from the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Fortunately, her husband Bobby and her manager deflect much of the business side of her career, so Johnson can concentrate on singing and social media updates.
Ironically, Johnson’s big break happened after she’d given up on her music career. A string of disappointments, including recording a CD she never released, and the realization that few female recording artists begin a successful career after the age of 30, caused Johnson to make a somber New Year’s resolution in 2011. She decided to give up on performing, other than for her Guard career, and use her G.I. Bill benefits to work toward a psychology degree and a career that would allow her to help troops and children afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I stopped writing. I stopped singing,” she said. “I stopped performing anywhere except one weekend a month with the Air National Guard. It was like I lost a piece of my identity, and I was just floundering around trying to find myself. I did well in school. But it just didn’t feel like it was what I was supposed to do.”
When Johnson first saw the video online in August, while Sidewinder was still deployed, she wasn’t thinking about how it could be her big break. She was dismayed that thousands of people had seen her performing in her ABU T-shirt with no makeup.
The performance that circulated the Internet was recorded on a cell phone in July. The concert had been a late-night, impromptu set for a pallet yard crew in Afghanistan. As people became excited about the more than 800,000 views the video had just a couple of days later, Johnson was less than impressed.
“I kept saying to the Sidewinder guys while we were deployed that this is going to blow over by the time we get home,” she said. “No one’s going to remember this. They kept trying to tell me, ‘No, Angie, this is big.’ But I kept saying, ‘When I get my boots on the ground, we’ll see what happens, but I really think this is going to be old news by the time we get home.’”
Johnson has never been so happy to be wrong. Fox and Friends and Entertainment Tonight interviewed the band through Skype, and almost immediately after they returned from Afghanistan, Ellen Degeneres called for an exclusive interview. It only got crazier when “The Voice” was televised in February.
Johnson, the daughter of Ervil, an Air Force retiree, and Masako Long, credits her military experience with preparing her to deal with the anxiety and stress she faced on the show and the numerous demands on her time since the video surfaced.
While other contestants battled their nerves as they waited to walk on stage, Johnson kept telling herself she’d experienced much bigger challenges during her deployments. She admits feeling awkward performing in a dress and high heels instead of her ABUs and combat boots, but Johnson’s Air Force experience and training, from her intelligence background to performing with Tops in Blue and the Air Force Band, helped keep her calm and focused.
“It helps me every single day — the military experience, discipline, having to roll with the punches and be flexible,” Johnson said. “Flexibility is the key to airpower. That’s the truth in the Air Force, but that’s the truth in life. Nothing that I ever do in the music industry is going to be as hard as what I’ve had to do in the military.”
Even as her civilian music career finally seems to be taking off, Johnson still looks forward to her monthly weekend Guard duty. Her Sidewinder colleagues have said that her down-to-earth personality and low-key approach to sudden success makes it easier for them to pull as hard for her as they would for themselves in front of a national TV audience. When Johnson competed on “The Voice,” Tech. Sgt. Kevin Maret, the band’s NCO in charge and percussion player, and other Sidewinder members were constantly communicating with each other through Facebook and text messages.
“We were really glad to be a part of it, whether we made a name for ourselves on the Internet or got Angie on TV,” he said. “Just the fact that we went over and played for the troops was a great thing. We’re happy for Angie as a person and as a member of the military. I’m personally happy she got a break because of all the selfless effort she put in, especially with volunteering for deployments to perform for the troops.”
With “The Voice” now behind her, Johnson is looking forward to inspiring a different and even bigger audience. She hopes the millions of people who viewed the video and watched her compete will come along for the ride.
“For whatever reason, the YouTube video and the story behind it really touched people’s hearts, and it’s gotten them to invest parts of themselves in it,” she said. “They’re following along on the journey like it’s their own journey, and I love that.
“Since leaving ‘The Voice,’ I’ve only been busier, which is a huge blessing,” Johnson said. “Tons of gig requests have come in, and I’ll be doing shows all over the country in the coming months. I’m also writing new music all the time in Nashville, so that when a record label comes calling, I’ll be ready. I send email updates to my mailing list at officialangiejohnson.com frequently, and all show dates can be found there as well. Big things are on the horizon. It’s an exciting time.”
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