Brian Johnson Birthplace — Dunston, Gateshead

Brian Johnson was born on October 5, 1947, in Dunston, Gateshead — a working-class community on the south bank of the Tyne, across the river from Newcastle — to a mixed Italian and British family. His father served in the British Army; Brian sang in choirs as a boy and became obsessed with rock and roll as a teenager. He fronted several Newcastle-area bands before forming Geordie in 1972, a glam-influenced hard rock act that had a modest UK chart run. By the late 1970s Geordie had stalled and Johnson was working in a car windscreen repair business when AC/DC came calling.

Johnson auditioned for AC/DC in 1980 following Bon Scott's death and was chosen partly because of a performance Bon Scott himself had reportedly praised. His debut with the band, "Back in Black" (1980) — recorded in the Bahamas as a tribute to Scott — became the second-best-selling album in history, with global sales estimated at over 50 million copies. His screaming, sandpaper-raw voice was an ideal match for Angus Young's guitar and the band's unvarying but devastatingly effective hard rock formula. Songs like "You Shook Me All Night Long," "Hells Bells," and "Thunderstruck" became cornerstones of rock radio.

Gateshead and the wider Tyneside area have a strong claim on Johnson as a native son, though Newcastle's music heritage — which also includes Sting, Mark Knopfler, and the Animals — is centred across the river. Johnson's memoir "The Lives of Brian" (2022) recounts his Gateshead upbringing in detail. He continues to front AC/DC, having returned to the band in 2020 after a period of hearing-loss-related absence.