From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sat Feb 8, 2003  7:10 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Lonnie Johnson
 
LONNIE JOHNSON

Born Alonzo Johnson, 8 February 1889, New Orleans, Louisiana
Died 16 June 1970, Toronto, Canada

Blues guitar simply would not have developed in the manner that it
did if not for the prolific brilliance of Lonnie Johnson. 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, and he began as a violinist in his father's group. After
touring Europe in 1917-19, he returned home to find all but one brother
dead from the flu epidemic. Devastated, he worked outside music for
some years, but after winning a talent contest in 1925, he soon signed
up with OKeh Records. Eventually he had made the guitar his passion,
developing a style so fluid and melodic that instrumental backing seemed
superfluous. At OKeh he commenced to recording at an astonishing pace
- between 1925 and 1932, he cut an estimmated 130 waxings. The red-hot
duets he recorded with white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang (masquerading as
Blind Willie Dunn) in 1928-29 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 and also crossed over to the pop charts (# 19). More
hits followed, 1948-50: "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 subsidary 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. Finally, in 1969,
Johnson was hit by a car in Toronto and died a year later from the effects of
the accident.
Johnson's influence was massive, touching everyone from Robert Johnson,
whose seminal approach bore 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.

(Adapted from All Music Guide.)

Recommended listening:
Steppin' On The Blues (Columbia Legacy/Sony). 19 OKeh tracks from 1925-32.
The Essential Lonnie Johnson (Classic Blues). 2-CD released in 2002 at budget
price.