Lonnie Johnson
Blues guitar simply would not have developed in the manner that it did if not for Lonnie Johnson. He was there to help define the instrument's future within the genre and the genre's future itself at the very beginning, his melodic conception so far advanced from most of his prewar peers as to inhabit a plane all his own. For more than 40 years, Johnson played blues, jazz, and ballads his way; he was a true blues originator whose influence hung heavy on a host of subsequent blues immortals.
Johnson's extreme versatility doubtless stemmed in great part from growing up in the musically diverse Crescent City. Violin caught his ear initially, but he eventually made the guitar his passion, developing a style that was fluid and inexorably melodic. He signed up with OKeh Records in 1925 and commenced to record at an astonishing pace -- between 1925 and 1932, he cut an estimated 130 waxings. The red-hot duets he recorded with jazz guitarist Eddie Lang (masquerading as Blind Willie Dunn) in 1928 and 1929 were groundbreaking in their ceaseless invention. Johnson also recorded pioneering jazz efforts in 1927 with no less than Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Duke Ellington's orchestra.
After enduring the Depression and moving to Chicago, Johnson came back to recording life with Bluebird for a five-year stint beginning in 1939. Under the ubiquitous Lester Melrose's supervision, Johnson picked up right where he left off, selling quite a few copies of "He's a Jelly Roll Baker" for old Nipper. Johnson went with Cincinnati-based King Records in 1947 and promptly enjoyed one of the biggest hits of his uncommonly long career with the mellow ballad "Tomorrow Night," which topped the R&B charts for seven weeks in 1948. More hits soon followed: "Pleasing You (As Long as I Live)," "So Tired," and "Confused."
Time seemed to have passed Johnson by during the late '50s; he was toiling as a hotel janitor in Philadelphia when banjo player Elmer Snowden alerted Chris Albertson to his whereabouts. That rekindled a major comeback, Johnson cutting a series of albums for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary during the early '60s and venturing to Europe under the auspices of Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau's American Folk Blues Festival banner in 1963. In 1969, Johnson was hit by a car in Toronto and died a year later from the effects of the accident.
Johnson's influence touched everyone from Robert Johnson, whose seminal approach bore a strong resemblance to that of his older namesake, to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, who each paid heartfelt tribute with versions of "Tomorrow Night" while at Sun.
© Bill Dahl /TiVo
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Blues and Ballads (Remastered)
Blues - Released by Avid Entertainment on 12 Aug 2016
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Blues by Lonnie Johnson (Remastered)
Blues - Released by Avid Entertainment on 12 Aug 2016
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Presenting Lonnie Johnson
Blues - Released by Universal Digital Enterprises on 3 Dec 1926
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Blues & Ballads
Blues - Released by Original Blues Classics on 1 Jan 1960
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The Complete Folkways Recordings
Blues - Released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on 12 Apr 2019
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Blues, Ballads And Jumpin' Jazz, Vol. 2
Blues - Released by Prestige on 5 Apr 1960
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Ultimate Blues Classics
Blues - Released by Master Series, Inc. on 13 Dec 2011
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Lonnie Johnson Vol. 4 (1928 - 1929)
Blues - Released by Document Records on 22 Mar 2005
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The Essential Blue Archive: Why Should I Cry
Blues - Released by SPV on 13 Jul 2007
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Lonnie Johnson Vol. 1 1937 - 1940
Blues - Released by Document Records on 22 Mar 2005
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Blues Masters, Vol. 4
Blues - Released by Storyville on 20 Nov 1991
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Lonnie Johnson Vol. 5 (1929 - 1930)
Blues - Released by Document Records on 5 Apr 2005
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This Is the Blues! Vol. 3 (Mono Version)
Blues - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1962
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A Life In Music Selected Sides 1925 - 1953
Blues - Released by JSP Records on 4 Feb 2010
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Blues by Lonnie Johnson
Blues - Released by Mojo Workin' on 12 Nov 2021
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Losing Game (Remastered)
Blues - Released by Avid Entertainment on 12 Aug 2016
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Lonnie Johnson Vol. 2 (1926 - 1927)
Blues - Released by Document Records on 5 Apr 2005
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