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Born and raised in Marietta, Georgia, an ever-growing suburb of Atlanta, Shelly E. Johnson is a Nashville-based Christian Artist, Songwriter and Worship Leader.  

Raised in a strong Christian home by two parents who loved God and loved each other, Shelly can’t remember a day in her life when she didn’t know about Jesus. Private Christian school, weekly church activities, summer youth camps and mission trips – it was all part of the “Christian” culture in which she grew up. "God was always a part of my life, and until I was fourteen years old, that’s all He ever was—just a part.”
 

In February of Shelly's eighth grade year, her father was diagnosed with cancer, an event that forever changed her life. "My family was always my source of security. The thought of losing one of my parents terrified me and was undoubtedly my greatest childhood fear. At the age of fourteen, I had to face that fear head-on, in a way I never could have prepared myself for.”
 

After ten agonizing months of hospital visits and chemo treatments, Shelly's father died in December of her freshman year of high school. "Music had always been an outlet for me, but now more than ever, it became my only way of dealing with the pain. As I watched my daddy slowly wither away to nothing, my desire to know God and the awareness of my need for God only deepened. I spent hours at the piano, pouring my thoughts and feelings into my music, reaching out to God in the only way I knew how. It was during one of those late-night 'prayer sessions' at my piano that I felt God's presence for the first time in my life. At that moment, I knew that God was real and that I could trust Him completely. Soon, those prayers became songs, and thus, the art of songwriting was born within me.”
 

Throughout high school, Shelly had opportunities to share the songs she was writing with her classmates, and she was amazed to see how God used them to speak to people's hearts in the same way He had spoken to hers. "It was during my first year of high school that I discovered my purpose in life: to use the music God gave me to minister to others."

That dream led Shelly to Nashville in 2003 to attend Belmont University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Commercial Music with an emphasis in Composition and Arranging.

Upon graduating from Belmont in May 2007, Shelly co-produced and recorded her first independent album entitled Wash It Away, comprised of ten original songs. Shelly spent the following year traveling the southeast leading worship, singing in churches, and pursuing her ministry fulltime.

In August 2008, Shelly attended The Gospel Music Association's Music In the Rockies Conference, an annual event for Christian Artists, Songwriters and Worship leaders held in Estes Park, Colorado. With modest hopes of simply learning more about the music business and networking with industry veterans, Shelly was awarded the Grand Prize in both Song Competitions, with her song "That's the Power of the Cross" being named Song of the Year and her song "Draw Near" being named Scripture Song of the Year by the American Bible Society. Shelly was also recognized as the sole-recipient of the Compassion Artist Trip Award, an all-expense-paid international trip with Compassion International, a non-profit organization striving to "release children from poverty in Jesus' name".
 

Upon returning home from Estes Park, Shelly was blessed with opportunities to continue networking within the music industry and write with some of the industry's leading songwriters.
 

In November 2008, Shelly was invited by the American Bible Society to appear as the feature Guest Artist for Faith and Family Night at the New Orleans Hornets NBA game. Shelly was given the half-time platform to perform two of her original songs for over 16,000 NBA fans.
 

In June 2009, Shelly released her second album entitled Mosaic of Grace, comprised of eleven original songs.  

Just several weeks later, in August 2009, Shelly competed in the Gospel Music Association's Immerse National Artist Competition, where she was awarded First Place Winner in her category.  

Shelly continues to enjoy growing momentum with the release of her new album, and is excited about all the opportunities God is opening to lead worship and minister to others through music.  

Her prayer is that her music will encourage people to draw near to God, and her dream is to spend her life in ministry, traveling the world leading people to worship Him.

Shelly and her husband Jack make their home in Franklin, Tennessee.

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