From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Wed Dec 18, 2002  6:19 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Lonnie Brooks

LONNIE BROOKS a.k.a. GUITAR JUNIOR

Born Lee Baker, Jr., 18 December 1933, on a farm near Dubuisson,
Louisiana

Singer / guitarist.
Lonnie Brooks (not to be confused with Louis Brooks, who recorded
for Excello) became interested in music after moving with his parents
to Port Arthur, Texas, in the early fifties. He began his career playing
everything from rock 'n' roll to country & western and R&B. Originally
desiring to play banjo (his grandfather was an accomplished banjo player),
Brooks instead mastered the electric guitar. His first professional job
came when zydeco legend Clifton Chenier saw him playing guitar on
his front porch and drafted him into the famous Red Hot Louisiana Band.

Lonnie's earliest recordings - and probably the most interesting ones for
our list members - were made under the moniker Guitar Junior, for Eddie
Shuler's Goldband label. His very first solo record, the swamp pop tune
"Family Rules", was a local hit. At this time, he also wrote and recorded
"Pick Me Up On Your Way Down" (with Barbara Lynn on backing vocals)
and "The Crawl" which was revived 30 years later by the Fabulous Thunder-
birds. Guitar Junior quit Goldband in 1958, moved to Chicago in 1959, where
he recorded and toured with Jimmy Reed (you can hear Lonnie's guitar on
"Big Boss Man"). He made an unsuccessful single for Mercury (The Horse)
before changing his stage name again, to Lonnie Brooks, because there
was already another Guitar Junior (Luther Johnson) in Chicago.
During the '60s, Brooks performed in the Chicago area, making singles for
Midas, Palos, USA and Chess, where Let It All Hang Out was a local hit. In
1969, he made an album for Capitol but his career only began to develop
when he toured Europe with Willie Mabon in 1975. There he recorded in
France for Black And White and in 1978 he signed to Chicago blues label,
Alligator. By then he had forged his own sound, a vibrant mix of rock 'n' roll,
R&B, funky Cajun boogie, country twang, and hard Chicago blues, a style
his band dubbed "voodoo blues." During the '80s, Lonnie Brooks made five
Alligator albums and built up a large following on the Midwest college and
club circuit and made several trips to Europe.

Official website: http://www.lonniebrooks.com/lbbio.html
His Goldband recordings have been reissued as
Guitar Junior, The Crawl (Charly CD BM 1) in 1992, as Vol. 1 of the
Charly Blues Masterworks. 14 tracks.