Johnson has, in effect, had three careers spanning close-harmony rural Appalachian singing, popular music and jazz. In the early 1940s, Betty and her family - father, Jesse Deverin Johnson (1905-1989), mother, Lydia Florence Craven (1907-1979), brothers Kenneth (b. 1928) and twin brothers Jim and Bob (b. 1931) - began to sing in churches and at family events as The Johnson Family Singers. Her father had attended the Baxter-Stamps School of Music in Dallas, Texas, and the family used shape notes to develop a repertoire of largely home and hearth and gospel songs. The Johnsons began an association with WBT, Charlotte, in late 1940 that would last until 1951 and include CBS network carriage. The family recorded more than fifty titles for Columbia Records (1946-1953) and RCA Victor (1954-1959).  Betty herself first appeared as a soloist on WBT's "Briarhopper Time" in 1943, and in 1948, while a freshman at Queens College, had her own 15-mi nute show sponsored by Bendix Company.

In 1949, Betty married Dick Redding with whom she had a son, Harold Richard "Dicky" Redding (b. 1952).  Johnson and Redding divorced in 1954.  In 1951, with Percy Faith as a mentor, Betty began recording for Columbia in 1951. She would go on to have associations with Bell (1954), RCA Victor (1955), and ten other labels.  In late 1957, she began a fruitful association with Atlantic label with several of her records reaching healthy positions on the charts. On radio, Johnson appeared on the Galen Drake Show (1954) and became a regular on Chicago-based Don McNeil's Breakfast Club (1955-1957).  She made a transition to television, appearing as a regular on Eddy Arnold Time (1955).  Early on, she became well known to viewers in advertisements as the Borden Girl. In 1957, she returned to New York to join the cast of the Tonight Show, also titled in these years The Jack Parr Show, remaining with the show until 1962 when Johnny Carson became host.