PLA Media Welcomes Back Michael Johnathon, Award-Winning Folksinger, Entrepreneur, and Purveyor of Talent
PLA Media welcomes back folksinger, prolific songwriter and performer, screenwriter, and broadcast personality Michael Johnathon.
“I am so happy to be rejoining forces with the PLA Media team,” says Johnathon. “We have a wonderful synergy and I look forward to their support of my many initiatives including a new season of WoodSongs, WoodSongs Kids TV, the 8th annual gathering of SongFarmers, my 20th studio album, and more.”
“We were involved with Michael Johnathon during the WoodSongs’ launch and infancy. Michael is truly a visionary,” adds CEO of PLA Media, Pamela Lewis. “It is compelling to see the impact he is making on the music industry and careers of thousands of talented musicians discovering, nurturing, and spreading their creativity globally.”
PLA Media previously worked with Michael on a number of projects, including the launch of his radio show WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour, which is aired on over 500 stations, public TV coast-to-coast, American Forces Network on 177 nations and the RFD-TV Network nationwide with a radio and TV audience of over two million fans each week. PLA also supported Michael through the release of his 15th studio album “Legacy,” an album which includes the massive title track, Legacy, a nine-minute epic about the history of songwriters from Bob Dylan to James Taylor, Harry Chapin to the Kingston Trio, hip-hop to the collapse of the record industry as we knew it.
Michael will be featured on an upcoming episode of Applaudable Perspectives PLA Media’s podcast hosted by CEO Pamela Lewis. He will discuss his long legacy across the entertainment industry and beyond.
For more information visit michaeljohnathon.com.
About Michael Johnathon
Michael Johnathon is a banjo playing folksinger. He was Pete Seeger’s neighbor growing up along the Hudson River in his hometown of Beacon, NY. These days, his worldview is shaped from the front porch of his log cabin home outside of Lexington, Kentucky. Among the throngs of artists in the music world, few have elevated “dreaming” to such a high art form.
“Never before in the history of the world has the need to revisit the meaning and spirit of the front porch been so needed,” Johnathon says. “Indeed, war, pandemic and economic uncertainty, civil unrest and gun violence, the shattering of accepted norms and the incessant social media noise have caused many to look back to re-examine where we are heading.”
He has tapped into a global need for friends, community and the genuine comfort that organic art can give in a world of incessant stress.
“We are living among the first generation in human history that gets its music and art as a flatscreen, cell phone, digital tsunami of ones and zeros,” he says. “The real, front porch, organic world of music and art is fading away.”
It is an unlikely career trajectory that hasn’t been seen since folksinger Pete Seeger decided to build the Clearwater sloop to help clean up the Hudson River. While musicians and songwriters reach out for a golden ring that no longer exists in a record industry that has essentially collapsed, Michael Johnathon reaches instead to a global fan base made up of neighbors, families and fellow musicians. He believes in the passion and energy of those artists, the greatest stage in the world is the emotional front porch, the brightest spotlight shines on the figurative living room couch. His belief in the front porch spirit has resulted in powerful partnerships. In fact, the WoodSongs broadcast is described on-air as a multimedia front porch.
The Governor of Kentucky presented him the highest award the Commonwealth can give any artist, the prestigious Milner Award of the Arts, reserved for the likes of Wendell Berry, James Still, Jean Ritchie and others.