Vixie's stories: Songs with Billy Johnstone

Hi, in 2020, during lockdown, I started writing lyrics for songs with my uncle, Billy. He wrote the melodies. We did some acoustic online gigs and Billy has sung the songs live as well.

This is my page for our songs: billyandvickiejohnstone.bandcamp.com

These 4 songs are on Spotify (buy tracks)

More links:

Billy Johnstone's Bandcamp page (buy tracks)

Billy Johnstone's Website

Billy Johnstone's SoundCloud

Billy Johnstone's Blog

Introducing you to my uncle, Billy Johnstone, who lives in Carlisle, UK.

A cool thing happened during Lockdown. I wrote a poem, which is on this blog, called A Little Life, and Billy was inspired by it and wrote a song called As the Light.

Since then, I’ve been writing lyrics and he has been turning them into songs. So now I’m thinking that songs are poems with wings!

On June 28, Billy played some of these lockdown songs for the first time at Acoustic Edge. If you missed it you can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw7R5NnWSNo

On December 13, Billy played some of our lockdown songs at Acoustic Edge Xmas. Click here to watch the video if you missed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMXaVnuTMmQ

Billy Johnstone is a singer-songwriter, living in Carlisle, UK

I started trying to play guitar in my late teens, but quickly gave up after taking lessons and being told I would never be able to learn to play.

As I approached my 40th birthday, I made an attempt to start playing guitar again and went for lessons, but was told once again that I would do better to give up as I had no co-ordination between my left and right hand! Having just paid over £500 for a guitar, I was more determined than ever to learn how to play.

Five years later, I still couldn’t play any tunes. Even my nephews advised me to pack it in, but I didn’t. Eventually, I learned my first Neil Young song, Needle and the Damage Done, and then another.

At the age of 50, I played my first solo gig at an open mike night. I then started playing at The Source café in Carlisle, UK, every Thursday night, where I met Dan Russell and we duly formed the Sultans of the Source house band.

Music style: folk, rock.

Links:

Facebook
Website

SoundCloud
Bandcamp (buy tracks)

Blog

Spotify (buy tracks)

You can find Billy Johnstone’s music on SoundCloud. Here are some tracks:

Does That Come as Some Surprise?