With ad­mi­ra­tion and time­less mem­o­ries, mem­bers of ac­claimed 70s band The John­son Fam­i­ly take time this month to ho­n­our the life of the group's leader and pa­tri­arch, Ed John­son. This De­cem­ber marks the 20th an­niver­sary of Ed's sud­den pass­ing, but he un­doubt­ed­ly left be­hind a mu­si­cal lega­cy that has con­tributed to the dy­nam­ic his­to­ry of mu­sic in Cana­da and his na­tive home­land of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In the late 50s, Ed launched his mu­si­cal ca­reer per­form­ing ca­lyp­so and pop­u­lar mu­sic of the time through­out Eu­rope and the Caribbean along­side his lead­ing woman, and wife, An­gela; earn­ing them the af­fec­tion­ate ti­tle of "Trinidad's singing sweet­hearts." The duet be­came known for their trade­mark melodies com­bin­ing Ed's charis­mat­ic tone with An­gela's sul­try vo­cals, as they show­cased their tal­ent around the world with the likes of Duke Elling­ton, Sam­my Davis Jr, and Ni­na Si­mone.

Ed's mag­nif­i­cent pas­sion for mu­sic was in­spi­ra­tional for those whose paths he crossed, and in­stilled in his grow­ing fam­i­ly the mu­si­cal de­vo­tion that would bring them to­geth­er as The John­son Fam­i­ly. Their soul­ful sin­gle-Peace in the Fam­i­ly-made waves in Cana­da in 1975, demon­strat­ing one of Ed's firmest be­liefs: the fam­i­ly that sings to­geth­er stays to­geth­er.

His as­pi­ra­tions for The John­son Fam­i­ly's suc­cess quick­ly be­came a re­al­i­ty as the band ad­vanced from ban­quet per­for­mances in Toron­to to sell­ing out Queen's Hall in Trinidad. For their role as men­tors and their re­lent­less ded­i­ca­tion to pro­mot­ing mu­sic as a mag­net, bring­ing to­geth­er cul­ture and fam­i­ly, the Na­tion­al Ac­tion Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NACC) ho­n­oured Ed and An­gela for their out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of mu­sic in T&T.

By fam­i­ly and friends, Ed is re­mem­bered as a proud fa­ther, loy­al friend, and dot­ing grand­par­ent. His vi­sion was per­pet­u­al­ly to raise a fam­i­ly in mu­sic, and in his mu­sic he will not be for­got­ten. Ed John­son lost his bat­tle with lung can­cer on De­cem­ber 20, 1990, and he and his wife are fond­ly re­mem­bered by their grand­daugh­ter Ash­ley John­son and the en­tire John­son fam­i­ly. Ash­ley con­tin­ues her fam­i­ly's tra­di­tion of mu­sic as an en­ter­tain­er-www.mspaige­mu­sic.com.