Mean Old Bedbug Blues - Lonnie Johnson, Crudup, Arthur "Big
Toothache Blues, Pt. 1
Toothache Blues, Pt. 2
Have to Change Keys (To Play These Blues)
Guitar Blues
She's Making Whoopee in Hell Tonight
Playing with the Strings
No More Women Blues - Lonnie Johnson, Alexander, Alger "T
Deep Blue Sea Blues - Lonnie Johnson, Alexander, Alger "T
No More Troubles Now
Got the Blues for Murder Only
6/88 Glide [#]
Racketeer's Blues
I'm Nuts About That Gal
Not only did Johnson pioneer single-string, blues-guitar improvisation, he still ranks as one of its greatest practitioners. His playing was remarkably fluent, sophisticated, and melodic, yet he never sacrificed emotion or... more » bite. He was the first bluesman to make his mark as a virtuoso instrumentalist, despite his formidable vocals. These 19 early performances (1925-1932) include low-down blues, buoyant ragtime, and catchy hokum, plus examples of sheer instrumental wizardry. Victoria Spivey joins Johnson for the risque vocal duet "Toothache Blues" and Texas Alexander sings lead on a pair of songs, but the instrumentals inevitably remain the highlights. His two guitar duets with jazz great Eddie Lang plus his solo workout on "Playing With the Strings" are astonishing displays of technique. --Marc Greilsamer« less
Not only did Johnson pioneer single-string, blues-guitar improvisation, he still ranks as one of its greatest practitioners. His playing was remarkably fluent, sophisticated, and melodic, yet he never sacrificed emotion or bite. He was the first bluesman to make his mark as a virtuoso instrumentalist, despite his formidable vocals. These 19 early performances (1925-1932) include low-down blues, buoyant ragtime, and catchy hokum, plus examples of sheer instrumental wizardry. Victoria Spivey joins Johnson for the risque vocal duet "Toothache Blues" and Texas Alexander sings lead on a pair of songs, but the instrumentals inevitably remain the highlights. His two guitar duets with jazz great Eddie Lang plus his solo workout on "Playing With the Strings" are astonishing displays of technique. --Marc Greilsamer
Robert Johnson should have sold his soul to Lonnie
D. Chang | DC | 10/12/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Robert Johnson, Robert Johnson, Robert Johnson. If I hear one more word about Robert Johnson I will have to hurt somebody. The man is primarily famous not for the handful of recordings he made, but for a moving but most likely fictional myth. I will give him credit for being a pretty good bluesman, but if he really wanted to learn the blues he needn't sell his immortal soul to Satan, but rather just find Mr. Lonnie Johnson. You should do the same.
Lonnie Johnson was the precursor to the more famous guitar slingers from Chicago years after these recordings. One listen and you will be astounded at his clarity, the crisp, perfectly phrased lines he creates with his acoustic guitar. I definitely was. But he was also an outstanding songwriter. The blues requires a penchant for storytelling and a certain dry wit that most all other musical genres severely lack. And Lonnie had both of these qualities in spades. I cannot help but laugh and chuckle at some of the lyrics he sings with his smooth, classic crooner-style voice. Every line is truly brilliant.
Make no mistake, ALL modern music, from jazz to pop, metal to hip-hop, is based on the blues. Some of them took the music and instrumentation and ran with it(pop and rock), while others took the rhythm and lyrics(r&b and hip-hop), but it can ALL be traced back to the porch steps and cotton fields of the south. Being so, Lonnie Johnson is an essential link between the old and the new. His instrumentation and guitar skill are matched, in my mind, only by the great Reverend Gary Davis, and his music is timeless.
For its age, these recordings sound fantastic. You can hear every note and hum. Sometimes there is a little microphone buzz, and the piano and bass in the background are occasionally muffled, but overall an excellent recording and well worth your money."
Every Blues fan needs this record
Tony Thomas | SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA | 10/23/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Lonnie Johnson was the first great blues guitarist, along with his partner Eddie Lang, he was the first great Jazz guitarist, he remained a song writer and a vocalist able to hit the charts with R & B hits well intothe late 1940s. He was class as both a jazz and blues folk revivalist when he was "refound" in the 1960s and was popular in the US, Europe, and Canada.
Robert Johnson obviously studied Lonnie's Work pretty well. In fact, Robert Johnson would lie and tell people that he was a cousin of the great Lonnie. Lonnie's records sold in the hundreds of thousands into the 1940s, while Robert Johnson never sold more than 2000 records while living on any tune. Lonnie was the antithesis of the false folkie-based stereotype of a blues performer. He was a professional performer as a kid violin virtuosi in vaudville touring the world before he ever learned to play the guitar! While born in New Orleans, he based himself in Chicago and New York during his playing career Johnson was not refound in some Mississippi Cotton field, but as a janitor in Philiadelphia. he went on to open his own night club in Toronto, Canada where he was killed byu complications after an automobile accident. What we see here in these records is a master musician. The guitar playing is unbelievably good, sweet, hot,and very very clean. The singing is always on key, professional, and cuts like a razor. The richness and saltiness of the verses ios tremendous. In the 20s, Johnson once bet someone he could play and compose 300 different blues, and he did with no difficulty and recored most of them! Even without their historical importance--this is what Blues performers aspired to--the records are just fun as expression and entertainment. I would also recommend the great records Johnson made with Lil Hardin Armstrong and others in Bluebird's Chicago stables in the 1940s, as well as the Verve Folkways recordings he made in the late 1960s. Heck, I would recommend you listem to birdcalls if Lonnie Johnson had recorded them!"
I Done Told You Lonnie Was Bad!
Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 04/12/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"In a previous review it's pointed out that Lonnie's earliest recordings (the recordings on this cd) happened about a decade before Robert Johnson's recordings. While that is true, it's of little importance. Lonnie and Robert get compared because of their last names more than because of their music. They were two very different men with two very different musical aesthetics. Robert's name should come up during a discussion of Son House before it should come up in a discussion of Lonnie.While it's pointed out that the instrumentals steal the show here, don't discount the vocal songs. SWEET POTATO BLUES is great. Although vocally, I think the 2 best songs are the Texas Alexander songs with Lonnie on accompanying guitar. Take a listen to the two TOOTHACHE BLUES'. This is the music that was making mothers cover their childrens ears in 1928, quite risque stuff. Victoria's great voice and yearning moans surely made pre-Depression teenage male hearts go pitter-pat!Although Lonnie is thought of as a "blues guitarist" make no doubt about it, some of this stuff is the birth of what's now known as "string swing". I have no doubt that Django and Oscar Aleman were listening to Lonnie before we knew their names. On the sonic quality of the recordings... it is wonderful! If you've heard Charlie Parker stuff on Dial from the mid 1940's and the hissy, scratchy quality bothered you don't worry. Although these recordings were made almost 20 years earlier in some cases, they are better. Lonnie's gloriously strong acoustic guitar tone comes through loud and clear and his melodic solo's are a marvel even now. Because of Lonnie's innovations there are alot of people now who can play faster than he played, but few who play better than he played."
This is an Essential Blues CD
political idiot | california | 10/23/1998
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Lonnie Johnson was a tremendous talent and this CD supports his legendary status. Johnson's vocals are outstanding and his guitar playing is matched by few. Most recordings predate Robert Johnson's by ten or so years. This disc even includes some cuts with Eddie Lang who had to be billed as Blind Willie Dunn because he was white and white bluesman were not welcome anywhere. This is clearly an essential CD to any music collection --especially a blues collection."
Mr. Johnson's Blues
Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 04/08/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Lonnie Johnson (1899(?) -- 1970) had a long, highly successful career as a blues and jazz singer and guitarist. Johnson was a gifted musician who, when he began recording in the mid-1920s, had already appeared as a performer in England. Johnson's early recordings date from the time in which the women "Classic Blues Singers", including Bessie and Clara Smith, Ma Rainey and others were the predominant voice in the blues. Lonnie Johnson soon joined them and became the best-selling blues artist of his era. His recordings influenced the work of the delta blues singer Robert Johnson, among others. There was a great deal of interplay between the urbane, musically sophisticated style of Lonnie Johnson and the sometimes raw and intense blues that later became legendary with Robert Johnson.
This CD, part of the "Roots and Blues" series includes 19 of Johnson's early recordings and shows him as a singer, guitarist, and accompanist. It is an outstanding introduction to the achievement of Lonnie Johnson. I want to mention some of the tracks on this CD that I enjoyed and that are particularly noteworthy for showing the scope of Johnson's early artistry.
The opening track, "Mr. Johnson's Blues" was part of Johnson's first release in 1925 and is justly famous. The song opens with a rolling instrumental passage for guitar and piano followed by a single short blues verse sung by Johnson. The remainder of the recording features a long instrumental take-off on the vocal by Johnson on the guitar together with the piano. This song already shows great originality in the way the brief vocal section is integrated with the the long instrumental solos.
This CD includes several instrumental selections, and the two I want to note are "How to Change Keys (to Play these Blues)" and "Guitar Blues" in which Johnson teams with the white guitarist Eddie Lang (playing under the name "Blind Willie Dunn"). These are outstanding complex guitar solos, showing Johnson's virtuosity on his instrument. The first is a slow, drag with many changes of key while "Guitar Blues" is more uptempo.
The two-track "Toothache Blues" shows Johnson singing with Victoria Spivey, one of the "Classic" blues singers. Spivey had a light voice, and she was known for performing songs with strong sexual innuendos. Her collaboration with Johnson on this song fits that pattern.
Finally, two tracks in which Johnson accompanies the singer Texas Alexander deserve mention for the contrast they show between Johnson's urban blues and country blues. Texas Alexander performed in a country style of the sort that in our day has become better known that the urbane blues style of Lonnie Johnson. One scholar of the blues has written of this collaboration between Alexander and Johnson:
"[Texas Alexander] sang a lot of songs in a loose field holler style, which meant he didn't worry about what the guitar was supposed to be doing. Among the musicians who accompanied him on record was Lonnie Johnson who was one of the finest blues and jazz guitarists of the 1920s. The songs Alexander recorded with Lonnie were brilliant examples of how a guitarist can fill behind a singer who isn't bound much by regular rhythmic patterns."
This CD shows Johnson's musical gifts as vocalist, guitarist, and accompanist, as well as his gifts in developing a blues line and lyric in songs such as "Racketeer's Blues" and "I'm Nuts about that Gal". For listeners wanting to explore the blues and its place in American music, this CD is an excellent choice.
The quotation about Lonnie Johnson's recordings with Texas Alexander is taken from Samuel Charters's recent book, "Walking a Blues Road" (2004) page 221.