William "Holly" Johnson (born 9 February 1960) is an English singer, songwriter and artist. He is best known as lead vocalist of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, who achieved huge commercial success in the mid-1980s. Prior to that, in the late 1970s he was a bassist for the band Big in Japan. In 1989, Johnson's debut solo album, Blast, reached number one in the UK Albums Chart. Two singles from the album – "Love Train" and "Americanos" – reached the top 5 of the UK Singles Chart. In the 1990s, he also embarked on writing, painting, and printmaking careers.
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Early life
Johnson was born on 9 February 1960 in Liverpool, England, to Eric and Pat (née McGlouchlin) Johnson. His paternal grandfather Patrick was Irish and his maternal grandfather Patrick McGlouchlin was of three-quarters Indian descent. Johnson was the third of four children and was nicknamed Billy as a child. He started his education in Liverpool at St Mary's Church of England primary school and at age eleven went to the Liverpool Collegiate School in Everton. At 14, Johnson took on the name Holly, inspired by actress Holly Woodlawn, a friend of Andy Warhol.
During his second year at Liverpool Collegiate, Johnson and his friend were teased and nicknamed Jolly Johnson and Honey Heath. The two shared an interest in Marc Bolan and David Bowie.
Johnson met his partner, Wolfgang Kuhle, in the early 1980s.
Career
While he attended Liverpool Collegiate, Johnson was actively involved in that city's punk rock/new wave scene of the late 1970s. Johnson played bass with the local band Big in Japan and also released two solo singles on the Eric's label. Both "Yankee Rose" and "Hobo Joe" failed to chart, however.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
After gaining some measure of local celebrity from being a member of Big in Japan, Johnson became involved with a group of younger musicians who together would become the nucleus of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson himself named the new band after seeing the headline of an article about Frank Sinatra. This new band quickly gained a reputation for their stage show which had strong sadomasochistic overtones. It was during this period that guitarist Brian Nash and backing vocalist Paul Rutherford completed the band's established lineup.
After the band's reputation grew large enough to attract record company interest, they were eventually signed to a new record company, ZTT. Johnson became exposed to the general public via the phenomenal success of their debut single "Relax", which was a huge, and controversial, hit in 1984. The band's first three singles - "Relax" (1983), "Two Tribes" (1984), and "The Power of Love" (1984) all reached No. 1 of the UK Singles Chart; their fourth single, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" (1985) reached No. 2. Frankie's debut album Welcome to the Pleasuredome, released in October 1984, sold around a quarter of a million copies in its first week, peaked at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, and was a top-10 seller internationally.
After such success during 1984, when the band spent nearly four months at the top of the singles chart, Johnson was firmly established as a household name. By autumn 1986, his star had faded considerably. Frankie Goes to Hollywood had not released any material since early 1985 and were absent from that year's Live Aid event. In addition, Johnson did not perform on the successful charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid in December 1984.
Recorded in March–July 1986, Frankie Goes to Hollywood's second album, Liverpool, was released the following October. Liverpool peaked at No. 5 in the UK Albums Chart and spawned three singles: "Rage Hard" (1986), "Warriors of the Wasteland" (1986), and "Watching the Wildlife" (1987). "Rage Hard" was a top 5 hit in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at #4, but "Warriors of the Wasteland" and "Watching the Wildlife" peaked at #19 and #28 respectively, suggesting Frankie's popularity was waning. Furthermore, the band was wracked by infighting; by 1987, Johnson's relationship with the rest of the band had broken down irretrievably, not helped by his decision to gain legal rights to exclusive use of the band's name, without consultation with other members. The UK Intellectual Property Office ruled against Johnson, however. During a reunion on the TV show Bands Reunited many years later, when the five members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood were invited to play together using equipment that had been set up for them, he (and guitarist Brian Nash) declined to take part, but he did not rule out the possibility in the future. In his own words; "If it happens, we do it properly. We have a reputation. I'm not a wedding singer!"
Solo career and later projects
Johnson left Frankie Goes to Hollywood in 1987 because of disagreements regarding their musical direction. He became the subject of an injunction from the group's record company, ZTT Records, and its sister publishing company, Perfect Songs, which cited a breach of his prior recording and publishing contracts, thus barring him from pursuing a solo career with any other new label. He embarked on a two-year legal battle with ZTT, the case being settled in Johnson's favour on 10 February 1988, the judge ruling that the original contracts had constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade, remarking that "Mr. Johnson could be 70 years old and still be bound to this contract".
ZTT unsuccessfully appealed against the judge's decision, the Appeal Court concluding on 26 July 1989 that the original recording and publishing contracts were "not a fair bargain". The result represented a landmark legal outcome, contemporary press reports stating that the result "set a legal precedent which rocked the music business", adding that ZTT had by this time released most of its artists from their original contracts.
Johnson's relationship with ZTT owners Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair broke down irretrievably due to the court case: "They, [Horn and Sinclair] have never really forgiven me for winning my freedom in the law courts", the singer said in 2001, adding that the worst part of being in FGTH was "the contract we signed with ZTT."
In 1989, Johnson finally made his first solo debut with the album Blast, for MCA Records, which was a major success and reached UK No. 1. Singles "Love Train", "Americanos" and "Atomic City" met with warm reception, the former two both charting in the UK's top 5. Johnson took part in a charity project for the Hillsborough disaster fund and recorded a popular single "Ferry Cross the Mersey" with Paul McCartney, the Christians and others. The single reached number 1 in the UK and Ireland.
After the 1990 remix album Hollelujah, Johnson released his second solo album in 1991. Dreams That Money Can't Buy was a commercial failure and did not chart in the UK, while the singles "Where Has Love Gone?" and "Across the Universe" performed very poorly on UK singles chart. In November 1991, Johnson learned that he was HIV positive. This triggered a temporary withdrawal from the music business and public life in general, with one of his last TV performances around the time being at the Diamond Record Awards, Antwerp, where he performed "Americanos" and "Where Has Love Gone?". His HIV status was made public during an interview with The Times in April 1993.
Personal life
Johnson has been referred to as a "monumental LGBTQ+ icon". In 1991, Johnson was diagnosed with HIV and wrote an autobiography, A Bone in my Flute; he did not expect to live much longer. Johnson remained creative working as a painter and printmaker and writing songs until 1994 when he returned to performing music occasionally. One of Johnson's paintings appears as the cover to the Kirsty MacColl single "Angel".