Donald William “Bob” Johnston was born on May 14, 1932, in Hillsboro, Texas. He grew up in a professional musical family. His grandmother, Mamie Jo Adams, as well as his mother Diane Johnston were both country-and-western songwriters. He recorded several singles under the name of Don Johnston. In the early sixties, he worked as an arranger and producer for the labels Kapp Records and Dot Records in New York. He married Joy Byers, author and composer of several songs in Elvis Presley’s films. He later claimed that these songs, credited to his wife, were actually cowritten or written by him alone.
He joined Columbia Records in 1965 and produced Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte by Patti Page for that label. When he heard that Tom Wilson had been evicted, Johnston tried to convince John Hammond—who was his boss and for whom he had profound admiration—to let him produce Bob Dylan. Johnston recalls, “[Columbia Records employee Bob] Mercy asked me, ‘Why do you want to work with him? He’s got dirty fingernails, and he breaks all the strings on his guitar.’ But I wanted to. I was afraid they’d give him to [Byrds producer] Terry Melcher, so I had a meeting with John Hammond, Mercy and [Columbia Records president Bill] Gallagher, and they said, ‘Okay, you do him.’”48
He inaugurated his collaboration with Bob Dylan with the sessions for Highway 61 Revisited. “It was in the Columbia Studios on West 52nd Street. I just walked up to him and said, ‘Hi, I’m Bob Johnston,’ and he just smiled and said, ‘Hi, I’m Bob, too.’”45 Both men agreed that Johnston had a power to give greater freedom to musicians. In an interview with Dan Daley of Mix magazine, Johnston said that producers should always be musicians themselves so that they knew to stay out of the way at the right time and to let the artist speak. “As for producing, I always say I’m someone who just lets the tapes roll, but anyone who can’t write songs, can’t sing, can’t produce, can’t perform really shouldn’t be working with an artist. You need to relate on their level, if for no other reason than you can stay out of their way when you need to. All of the other staff producers at Columbia were tapping their feet out of time and whistling out of tune and picking songs based on what their boss liked last week so they could keep their jobs three more months. But I figured Dylan knew something none of us knew, and I wanted to let him get it out. Also, I should tell you that though ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was on Highway 61, it was produced by Tom Wilson. I produced all the rest of the songs on it.”48
After two years in New York, Johnston became head of Columbia Records in Nashville. He produced Dylan’s albums until New Morning in 1970. In addition, he produced significant successes such as Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence (1966) and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966), Johnny Cash’s At San Quentin (1969), Leonard Cohen’s Songs from a Room (1969), and the Byrds’ Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde (1969).