At the tender age of six, at a festival in Manning, South Carolina, Tiffany Anne Johnson sang in public for the first time. Perched on an upright piano, her brown braids stuck full of bobby pins, Tiffany wore a pair of Buster Brown Mary Janes that her mother had rolled in glue and red glitter -- her “Dorothy” shoes. She sang “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and the audience loved it. Tiffany recalls it as the moment she fell in love with music, performing, and people.

Now in Nashville, Tennessee, with her first full-fledged album in hand, a grown-up Tiffany Johnson is light years away from that precious beginning and looking back over the road she took to get here.

Tiffany’s debut CD is Scuffed and Simple. The title is taken from a line in “My Dorothy Shoes,” the tune she co-wrote about her small-town debut and the impact it had on her life‘s direction.

“That title reminds me a lot of myself,” she says. “I’m pretty simple and I’ve had some bumps and bruises but, just like the shoes, there’s a lot of potential there.”

“My Dorothy Shoes” was co-crafted by singer/songwriter Lionel Cartwright, who also produced much of the project. It’s the only one Tiffany wrote on, but all seven songs on Scuffed and Simple were chosen for their personal impact on her.


After her Dorothy debut, young Tiffany sang at fairs and pageants, and even with a country band in her tiny hometown. At 14, Tiffany began attending church and later studied music and ministry at a Christian college. After graduation, she moved to Nashville and began singing and leading worship at her new church home.

Although she first pursued a Christian record deal, fellow artists urged Tiffany to explore new kinds of music – R&B and Motown, and artists like Aretha Franklin and Etta James – and to take her talent beyond church walls. With friends she formed a band, The Zodiacs, and began playing local clubs and events.

“That for me has been really huge in my journey as a singer and artist, discovering this whole genre of music I’d never sung,” she says. “I’d listened to some of it before, but just singing it for me was like putting on a pair of jeans that fit right. I’m learning you can make an impact through any genre of music and really in any kind of venue,” she adds. “People are looking for inspiration and hope, and sometimes they don’t even realize what they are searching for, until they hear it through a song, or through the words we speak to them.”