During World War II her family faced Jewish persecution under German occupation and she went into hiding while her mother and stepfather survived the Nazi concentration camps.

Johanna had never had singing lessons, but she had listened to American singers like Doris Day, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

She sang with bandleader Johnny Millstonford and performed in clubs with the orchestra of Ted Powder for American soldiers in Germany.

In the summer of 1958 she sang in the quartet of pianist Pia Beck[1] in Scheveningen and in 1960 they toured with saxophonist Piet Noordijk in Spain and Morocco.

In the late sixties she was noticed by John J. Vis, the director of the record company Artone, and he produced her first album "Blue Burton" in 1967.