Johnson, known for his dobro and slide guitar stylings and vocal acrobatics, has played on over 100 albums.He has appeared on Garrison Keilor's Prairie Home Companion and was featured in the 1997 film Georgia with Mare Winningham.
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Orville Johnson was born in 1953 in Edwardsville, Illinois and came up on the St.Louis, Missouri music scene, where he was exposed to and participated in a variety of blues, bluegrass and American roots music. He began singing in his Pentecostal church as a young boy, in rock bands in middle school, then took up the guitar at 17,with early influences from Doc Watson, Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, and Chuck Berry.
In the early 1970's, Orville spent several seasons playing bluegrass on the SS Julia Belle Swain, a period-piece Mississippi river steamboat plying the inland waterways, with his group the Steamboat Ramblers. Johnson moved to Seattle, Washington in 1978, where he was a founding member of the much-loved and well-remembered folk/rock group, the Dynamic Logs.Other musical associates include Laura Love, Ranch Romance, File' Gumbo Zydeco Band, Scott Law, and the Twirling Mickeys.