By Stanley O. Williford
Director of Publications
There are two sides to Dr. Harold Johnson, the main music assistant in the Crenshaw music department.
Side One is Diana (Dee), his wife of 38 years.
Side Two is, of course, his musical giftings of pianist, arranger and conductor.
The Johnsons joined Crenshaw in 1995, mainly because Harold had been asked to assist as a pianist by former music director Tommie Freeman. Harold and Tommie had known each other from their days at nearby Abundant Life Christian Church. At the time, Harold had been employed both at a dental office and part-time at the now-defunct America West Airlines.
But the hiring did not happen right away because Harold had seen the Crenshaw orchestra on television and was somewhat intimidated. He didn’t think he could fit in.
Harold and Dee met at Prosperity Baptist church. “I was brought in to put together a young adult choir,” he said. “Dee was already there. She was the secretary of the choir.”
Dee, a native of Monroe, La., had been a flight attendant for Eastern Airlines, but to the L.A.-born Harold what stood out most about her was her steady, unflappable temperament.
Their friendship got its boost when Dee was about to graduate from Cal State Dominguez Hills. Harold couldn’t attend her graduation in 1978 because he had to work. “But I asked her if I could take her to dinner as a graduation present, and she said okay,” he said. The dinner cemented their budding relationship, which led to her becoming his June bride in 1980.
Eventually, Dee had an interest in visiting the FKCP III Christian Schools, so Harold drove her to the CCC campus, and decided to drop in on Tommie while he was on the grounds. Tommie again encouraged him to put in an application as a part-time musician, which Harold did. Later when he called to check on the job, he was told the part-time job had been filled. However, the job for a full-time musician was open. He was hired one week later.
After one of their three sons, Hale´, began attending Price High, Dee was asked by then-principal to hold a first-grade class because the teacher had not arrived. Later, she was asked to hold the class again. This second time she remained with the class all day. The following summer Principal Gordon called to say she had lost that first-grade teacher. She asked that Dee and Harold pray about Dee coming to work at Price. Dee began teaching first grade in 1997 and continued through 2016. Dee’s ability and dedication to her students’ advancement led to her inclusion in “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers” in the 2004-2005 and 2006-2007 editions.
If you’ve been around CCC long enough, you might have seen Dr. Johnson’s impactful cantata titled His Only Begotten Son, which has been performed in various venues locally. And he did impressive arrangements of the songs, Noel, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Birth of Christ Medley, on the CCC Christmas CD. Or you may be familiar with his arrangement of Psalm 34 or his rendition of How Excellent on the Sanctuary Voices CD. He also has his own CD, title, Think on These Things.
In 1981, the Johnsons co-founded, the Summer Christian Musical Workshop, or SCMW, which intentionally brought together the choirs of various denominations. “Five denominations at eight churches.”
“When we started doing it, intermixing denominations was not done,” said Harold. “The Baptist were the Baptist and the Lutherans were the Lutherans. I was playing [piano] at two different churches. One was a Pentecostal church and the other was a Baptist Church. I asked both choirs if they would like to do a combined choir concert, and both said yes.”
To demonstrate the opposition that some clergy had against such church mixing, he said, the pastor for the church where the program was being held didn’t show for the concert.
But that wasn’t the attitude everywhere. On the whole, SCMW was a great success. The Johnsons eventually dropped the word Summer, since the concerts were no longer restricted to that time of year. The name was changed to Sowers Christian Ministries Worldwide, which allowed them to retain the initials SCMW.
“With that ministry we have been as far south as San Diego, as far north as San Francisco and as far southeast as Indio,” Harold said. SCMW continued for 25 years.
Harold maintains that his father tricked him into becoming a pianist. As a child, he loved the old player pianos that had preprogrammed music on paper rolls. A person needed only to use the foot pedal to make the rolls move and make music. However, Harold’s legs were too short. Seeing how much he loved the player the piano, his parents took him to music stores where he could play them.
Eventually, his parents bought him an electric player piano. Then they took it a step further. They signed him up for music lessons, which Harold was not particularly interested in. Still, he endured the lessons for “six or seven years.”
Dee also had an early musical orientation. She began playing the cornet in elementary school and continued playing it throughout her junior high school years. She also sang in the choir from elementary school through high school.
The Johnson’s common experiences, unfortunately, extended to physical attacks.
Dee began having health challenges in her last year of teaching. Before the semester was over she was having difficulty breathing. She went to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatments. Both thought the condition was asthma. The treatments helped somewhat, but a month later they returned because she was having the same issue with breathing.
“The doctor decided to take her blood,” said Harold. “We were on our way home when they called and said they wanted her to come back. Her white blood cells were way off. They found it was leukemia, not asthma. The blessing was that the medication she had been given for asthma was the same medication they gave to leukemia patients. She was getting the right stuff for the wrong reasons. The very next day she had her first chemo treatment.”
“My school was out that Friday for the summer break,” said Dee. “I was diagnosed that Saturday. That Monday, Pastor Fred came and laid hands on me, and we just claimed my healing right then and there.”
The next day she was visited by two teachers and two staff members from the Motivational Institute Program who had Bible study in her room.
Dee said she had “not one day of pain.”
In the meantime, the CCC choir laid hands on Harold to lay hands on and pray for her. In addition, the Frederick K.C. Price III Christian school teachers, staff and students kept her lifted up in prayer daily.
Former CCC member, “Evangelist Evelyn Newsome, sent a prayer cloth to be laid on Dee,” said Harold. “Dee took the prayer cloth and put it on I.V. stand so that all the medication that came into her, first came under that prayer cloth.
Dee was recommended to the City of Hope, which specializes in treatment of cancer, including leukemia. While she was there, Harold transported a portable piano up to her room and played praise and worship songs. During the Christmas holidays he added Christmas carols.
Since her three rounds of chemo, followed by a stem-cell transplant (her sister Yolanda was the donor), Dee has shown no signs of leukemia.
Next came an attack on Harold.
“I ate some leftover food one night and started throwing up,” he said. He threw up five times and then passed out. Dee found him on the bathroom floor and took him to the emergency room. After a battery of tests, the doctors found that he had a blockage in his intestines. They performed a biopsy that showed it was cancer.
“The doctor said it was both a curse and blessing,” Harold recalled. “The curse was that it had happened. The blessing was that it got trapped in my intestines, and when they took it out they took out the whole cancer. No other organ was affected.”
In September, he underwent six rounds of chemo. In April, a PET scan imaging test showed no remaining signs of the cancer. The Cantata cast members, CCC, the music department, Faith-Riders motorcycle group and their families kept Harold and Dee in their prayers, aware that “the effective, fervent prayers of a righteous man avails much.”
Harold added this: “Apostle Price at a Tuesday Bible Study said something that was so profound:
“You’ve got to remember that everything God did is in the past. And you have to understand that He has done that in the Spirit world, but we have to open the window to receive it in the physical world by doing what we’re supposed to do – diet, exercise and faith. However, faith without works is dead, and you’ve got to do the right kind of works.”
Dr. Harold & Dee Johnson agreed that their healing had not been especially difficult.
“Receiving our healings was not hard. It was not hard because we’ve been well taught here at CCC,” he said.
