For years, Johnson was one of the best-kept secrets in the local Seattle Americana music scene, enjoying a cult following elsewhere, but no broad national recognition. He worked at Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood staple Al’s Tavern, and played out occasionally. But after “Faraway Skies,” his first single (and still most popular song), that started change:

Borrowing from many and beholden to none, Johnny Mullenax plays a raucous musical smorgasbord he calls “funky country bluegrass.” Though it’s rare for an Americana/country band lead singer also to play lead electric guitar, for the Tulsa, Oklahoma native, splicing lightning-fast solos in between lyric lines appears to be second nature. Mullenax is singularly unconcerned with meeting the expectations of any one descriptor precisely.

“He's a poet and he's a picker, he's a prophet and he's a pusher / He's a pilgrim and a preacher… partly truth and partly fiction,” sings Kris Kristofferson in his seminal song, “Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” inspired by famous wanderers like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Johnny Cash.