Lawrence Johnstone
Square Dance Caller and Teacher

801 Lake Mendocino Dr. #11
Ukiah, CA 95482
Phone: 707-462-0239
Email: loj@pacific.net
Email: loj@loj.name
Web: www.loj.name

Biography

Lawrence Johnstone began square dancing at the age of 14, at his parents' insistence — they met while square dancing in 1962, and wanted it to be something they could all enjoy together as a family. Lawrence took to it immediately, and even felt the urge to try calling at that early stage. He resisted it, though, because he didn't think that he could sing — and never told anyone about the urge.

That changed in 1993, after 15 years of square dancing, when the Ukiah Promenaders' club caller Milt Adams wanted to quit. Lawrence took lessons from Steve Minkin and Bob Bunch, and became the Promenaders' club caller in April of 1994. He has continued to call for them ever since, and currently calls for four different clubs: the Promenaders; the Konocti Kickers in Lake County; the Redwood Coasters in Fort Bragg (along with Ed Tausig); and the Singles & Pairs in Santa Rosa.

Along the way, Lawrence also attended and graduated from Daryl Clendenin's caller school in McCloud, California. He has called in Oregon, northern and central California, and Nevada, and has called several times at the National Square Dance Convention, USAwest Square Dance Convention, and California State Square Dance Convention. He has been recognized numerous times since 1999 by the Northern California Square Dancers' Association as one of the top 10 callers in the northern half of the Bay Area. As of April 2011, he will have been calling for seventeen years.

Lawrence works hard on his teaching skills — the teaching techniques sessions at the annual CALLERLAB convention are among his favorites. In addition to teaching beginner classes for his clubs, he taught classes for the Sonoma County Cooperative group in Sebastopol for several years. Lawrence also enjoys doing what callers refer to as "one-night parties" — that is, parties for groups of non-square-dancing people at which some simple square dancing is taught.

Lawrence tries not to imitate other callers, and strives to be different without being difficult. Part of this comes from his love of and frequent use of Big Band music, and part comes from trying to create smooth, flowing choreography that uses calls in slightly different combinations from those used by many callers. He does, however, admit to great admiration for several well-known callers and has attempted to study and use some of their techniques:

Joe Saltel: "Joe's my absolute favorite. If it weren't for all those tapes I bought from him, I wouldn't be a caller today, so blame him..."
Jerry Quam: "Possibly not as well known as he deserves. I was a dancer when he started, and was one of the 'dolls' that he used to practice on at the Center Wheelers' president's house. Watching him develop into a good caller is the sort of thing that makes you think, 'Hey, maybe I could do that.'"
Nate Bliss: "Great singing voice, great timing, could always make you think hard without interrupting the flow of the dance. And a great friend. I still miss him."

Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures, for use of anyone making a flyer. Click on the thumbnail for the full-size photo:

Recordings

Scot Byars has a recording of a singing call duet with Lawrence on his MySpace Music page. Look in the player for the entry called "Heart Of My Heart Duet." (Even though neither of the songs is actually "Heart Of My Heart!")

In 2009, a square dance record producer asked Lawrence to record a few singing calls. Several of these have come out on the Square Tunes and Grenn record labels:

Title	Call Nbr	Release Date
I Wonder Where You Are Tonight	ST-1067	04/05/09
Meet Me Under The Mistletoe	ST-1072	08/05/09
Forever You'll Be Mine	ST-1073	11/05/09
Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet	ST-1060	02/05/10
Caribbean	ST-1053	03/05/10
Pennies From Heaven	GR-12417	05/05/10
Stairway to Paradise	GR-12419	12/05/10

You can purchase any of these in either CD or MP3 format from Hanhust's Music & Tape Service. If you click on this link, it will take you directly to a search results page showing all of the records that they have under my name. Several will also have short sound clips you can listen to — Side "A" is the Vocal, Side "B" is the Instrumental only. (The sound clips are in RealAudio format, so you'll need either RealPlayer or the free, open-source VLC Media Player.)

Page last updated: Saturday 2011-11-26 13:06 PST

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