The sTarving arTisT

Country musician Ray Johnston writes roughly 25 percent of his songs while eating at the Original Pancake House at Northwest Highway and Midway.

He’s on the road 180 days a year, but when he’s in town, “I’m here four days a week,” Johnston says. “These are kind of my friends between 7 and 2.”

Johnston lives “about three par fives” from the restaurant, and found the place soon after moving to Dallas in 2003. The son of a cattle rancher, he hails from Montgomery, Ala., and the pancake house seemed downhome.

“One thing about Dallas that gets on my nerves is the velvetrope action with your name on a list,” he says.

Back when he moved here, he wasn’t a musician. His first gig was as a waiter at Houston’s (which is one reason Johnston double- and triple-tips when he claims a booth for long periods of time). Then he spent about a year and a half as a mortgage banker before joining the Mavericks during open tryouts in 2004, “the same year Steve Nash was traded,” he says.

His professional basketball career ended three months after it began, however, when Johnston was diagnosed with leukemia.

Original Pancake House

4343 W. Northwest Hwy #375 214.351.2012 ophdfw.com

In the past decade, Johnston has battled leukemia five separate times. These days, he’s winning.

“I’m thankful to parents who don’t let me sulk too much,” he says.

He spent a couple of months in a coma, underwent amputations and experienced stretches where he could eat at Original Pancake House only in a booth because his skin and bones had no other cushion.

The men vary in their orders, but the chickenfried chicken is popular. This is Maynard’s order today. “If I’m going out in the evening, I just eat a salad,” he says, “but tonight I’m staying home and watching TV.” Kelly orders breakfast the vast majority of the time. “One of the things I like about Kel’s is that anytime they’re open, you can eat breakfast,” he says. His typical order is oatmeal or egg-white omelets. “I try to watch my weight,” he explains, “but I watch it go up and up.”

Somewhere along the way, he decided to become a musician. He likens his September ’09 debut album to the music of Jack Johnson, John Mayer or Dave Matthews.

“At first I was insecure about my songwriting and my voice,” Johnston says. His band, however, was incredibly talented — the saxophonist now plays for Prince, he says, and the drummer also plays with Snoop Dogg (or Lion). Instead of the Ray Johnston Band, “it should have been called the band featuring Ray,” he quips.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban decided to turn Johnston’s story into a show for his cable channel HDNet (now AXS TV). “Ray Johnston Band: Road Diaries” was “half the band trying to make it, and half me trying to make it,” Johnston says. His leukemia relapsed during filming.

Once again, he fought and won. In September 2012, he came out with a second album, “Against the Grain.” This time, the music had a decidedly more country sound.

“Not many rock guys go duck hunting out of Winnie, Texas,” he says, explaining the genre switch.

Despite what Johnston has been through, his lyrics are “all happy,” he says. He’s actually working on a song inspired by the pancake house called “The Pancake Show.” No solid lines yet, but “the adjectives I think of are relaxed, comfortable, convenient, happy, good food, reliable, so that would be in the song.”

A note from Johnston hangs in the entryway of the restaurant, thanking the staff for the “great hospitality, huevos and Wi-Fi.” He knows the names of most employees and calls manager Abraham Rodriguez “El Padrone,” the boss. Dining there so often provides “pseudo Spanish lessons,” he says. He has learned, for example, “that [his] Spanish is pretty bad.”

In fact, one of the songs on his new album, “Mucho Gusto,” includes Spanish lyrics. It’s the story of a girl in Argentina who took Johnston tango dancing and was “slap-dad gorgeous,” he says. The first half of the chorus is in English, and the second half echoes the first in Spanish.

“I thought, my friends at the pancake house are going to say, ‘Good job!’ ”

They were pleased, but one particular line cracked them up. In English, it’s, “My heart is with the hot girl,” and Johnston translated “hot girl” to “chica caliente.” His Spanish-speaking friends had to explain that “chica caliente” actually translates as “horny girl.”

“The song was already mixed and mastered and out on iTunes, so what are you gonna do?” Johnston shakes his head and laughs.

Order like a regular Johnston holds out a bowl of his unique concoction. “This is straight grits and bacon,” he says. “I call it the Alabama breakfast. I’m bugging Abraham to put it on the menu.” He is also partial to the blueberry pancakes, and requests refill after refill of “café con crema.”