Blues and Jazz guitarist Lonnie Johnson was born today in 1899. He was a pioneering #blues and #jazz guitarist and banjoist. He started playing in cafes in New Orleans and in 1917 he traveled in Europe, playing in revues and briefly with Will Marion Cooks Southern Syncopated Orchestra. When he returned home to New Orleans in 1918, he discovered that his entire family had been killed by a flu epidemic except for one brother. He and his surviving brother, James Steady Roll Johnson moved to St. Louis in 1920 where Lonnie played with Charlie Creaths Jazz-O-Maniacs and with Fate Marable in their Mississippi riverboat bands. Throughout the 1920s he recorded with a variety of bands and musicians, including Eddie Lang, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He pioneered the guitar solo on the 1927 track 6/88 Glide and many of his early recordings showed him playing 12-string guitar solos in a style that influenced such future jazz guitarists as Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, and gave the instrument new meaning as a jazz voice. He excelled in purely instrumental pieces, some of which he recorded with the white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang, whom he teamed up with in 1929. These recordings were among the first in history to feature black and white musicians performing together, but Lang was credited as Blind Willie Dunn to disguise the fact. Much of Johnsons music featured experimental improvisations that would now be categorised as jazz rather than blues. According to blues historian Gérard Herzhaft, Johnson was undeniably the creator of the guitar solo played note by note with a pick, which has become the standard in jazz, blues, country, and rock Johnsons style reached both the Delta bluesmen and urban players who would adapt and develop his one string solos into the modern electric blues style. Johnsons compositions often depicted the social conditions confronting urban African Americans (Racketeers Blues, Hard Times Aint Gone Nowhere, Fine Booze and Heavy Dues). In his lyrics he captured the nuances of male-female love relationships in a way that went beyond Tin Pan Alley sentimentalism. His songs displayed an ability to understand the heartaches of others that Johnson saw as the essence of his blues. After touring with Bessie Smith in 1929, Johnson moved to Chicago, and recorded for Okeh with stride pianist James P. Johnson. However, with the temporary demise of the recording industry in the Great Depression, Johnson was compelled to make a living outside music, working at one point in a steel mill in Peoria, Illinois. In 1932 he moved again to Cleveland, Ohio, where he lived for the rest of the decade. After World War II, Johnson made the transition to rhythm and blues, recording for King Records in Cincinnati, and having a major hit in 1948 with Tomorrow Night, written by Sam Coslow and Will Grosz. This topped the Billboard Race Records chart for 7 weeks, also made # 19 on the pop charts, and had reported sales of three million copies. A blues ballad with piano accompaniment and background singers, the song bore little resemblance to much of Johnsons earlier blues and jazz material. The follow-ups Pleasing You, So Tired and Confused were also major R&B hits. After returning to the U.S., Johnson moved to Philadelphia. His career had been a roller coaster ride that sometimes took him away from music. In between great musical accomplishments, he had found it necessary to take menial jobs that ranged from working in a steel foundry to mopping floors as a janitor. He gradually dropped out of music again in the 1950s, and took menial janitorial jobs; he was working at Philadelphias Benjamin Franklin Hotel in 1959 when WHAT-FM disc jockey Chris Albertson happened upon him and produced a comeback album, for the Prestige Bluesville Records label, Blues by Lonnie Johnson. In 1961, Johnson was reunited with his old Okeh recording partner, Victoria Spivey, for another Prestige album, Idle Hours, and the two singers performed at Gerdes Folk City. In 1963, encouraged by Torontos relative racial harmony, decided to move to the city. He opened his own club, Home of the Blues, on Torontos Yorkville Avenue in 1966, but it was a business failure and Johnson was ultimately fired by the man who became owner. Throughout the rest of the decade he recorded and played local clubs in Canada as well as embarking on several regional tours. In March 1969, he was hit by a car while walking on a sidewalk in Toronto. Johnson was seriously injured, suffering a broken hip and kidney injuries. A benefit concert was held on May 4, 1969, featuring two dozen acts, including Ian and Sylvia, John Lee Hooker and Hagood Hardy. Johnson never fully recovered from his injuries and suffered what was described as a stroke in August. He was able to return to the stage for one performance at Massey Hall on February 23, 1970, walking with the aid of a cane to sing a couple of songs with Buddy Guy and receiving a standing ovation. He died on June 16, 1970 and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Toronto. At the time, Johnson was reported to have been virtually broke. Johnson was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 1997.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Feb 2014 05:32:54 +0000
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