When opportunity knocked, Johnny Rodgers was ‘Johnny on the spot’

The great Stoic Philosopher Seneca said: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. It’s also been said that one would rather “be lucky than good.”

When both are present, like in the case of Waukesha’s pianist/songwriter/composer/arranger Johnny Rodgers, you bear witness to what happens when a lit fuse makes contact with a stick of dynamite (insert your onomatopoeia sound effect here).

It has been a lifetime of being prepared and walking through door after door after door of opportunity that has crossed his path.

Johnny Rodgers performs on Thursdays at Let It Be in Waukesha, flanked by a wide variety of the area’s best

players and vocalists. It’s a show that you should not miss. But, more on the nuts and bolts later in the article.

Johnny has arguably the most impressive musical curriculum vitae in Waukesha other than the Godfather of

the electric guitar, Les Paul. 

Rodgers’ story begins in Florida, however, and the first of the happy happenstances began before he was even born.

Johnny’s older sister was so into the piano, she fashioned a keyboard out of cardboard. Afterabout a year and seeing that the obsession was showing no sign of dissipating, his parents relented and bought a spinet.

Thus, when Johnny arrived on the scene, the love of music and the ivories had been inculcated, perhaps even in utero and the instrument of choice was already there for him.

“I was lucky that there was such a vibrant arts program in Miami, ”Rodgers said in a recent interview. “I would take the train (Metro) to downtown Miami and attend programs there. I went to junior high at a

Middle School for the Arts. It all helped instill my love of music.”

Johnny went to four colleges in six years, but they were all laser-beam

focused on music and theory.

“I studied piano and jazz vocals at a summer program at Duke

University.”

That was followed by a move to Chicago and a long-term gig in the house band at Davenport’s Jazz Club (which closed just last year).

Besides earning his chops at the Davenport’s, a steady stream of New York artists would play.

That regular interaction with players from the hotbed of jazz since its creation led to the logical migration to the Big Apple.

This is where he met Liza Minnelli. Wait…what? In Journalism parlance, there is a phrase “burying the lede” and this would be the quintessential example of that.

After seeing him perform, Liza said to him: “I’m going to take you all over the world, baby!” And she did just that. Then, when Liza heard him sing and saw him dance, she plucked him out of the band and put him in her Tony Award-winning show on Broadway. Luck, sure, but he had to be good to get the opportunity.

Johnny earned his SAG-AFTRA card, for performers on stage, TV, in movies or on radio with bona fide credits. He was a youngster in the short-lived (1993) Key West starring Jennifer Tilly. Burying the lede, part deux.

His work in New York brought Johnny to the attention of Lincoln Center, the singular hub of all the arts in NYC.

Rodgers was tapped by the State Department to lead a band as Jazz Ambassador to travel and bring our musical culture to Africa, Asia, the Pacific isles like Fiji.

“It was a humbling tradition to be a part of,” Johnny said. ”We would go into these small villages and see music bring people together.” Vastly different cultures, but underneath, all the same in reality. Um, burying the lede, part trois.

Currently, Johnny is producing a musical he co-wrote with Sue Fabisch Errico.

“North Platte Canteen: A Musical Miracle” is based on an exceptional, very human story from World War II. Some good citizens of North Platte, Nebraska, decided to greet the train of their fellow citizens returning from the war with all sorts of goodies, today we’d say swag, to help make them feel at home immediately upon deboarding.

Problem was, the first batch of soldiers were not from North Platte. They decided then and there to greet all the trains and went on to welcome more than six million of our armed forces over several years into the Korean War.

North Platte Canteen will be produced at a theater in Bremerton, WA, later this year. And, it will be off and running for many more stagings after that.

In his spare time (lol), Johnny is a creator of puppet musicals as part of Mosaic Creatives in Brookfield.

You just never know where musical royalty dwells in our midst and decides to set up a throne. We have nothing to do but enjoy and support wherever and whenever we can.