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Artist
Lonnie Johnson
12+ albums
bluesjazzClassic Bluesguitarmississippi blues
about
Alfonzo "Lonnie" Johnson (February 8, 1894 – June 6, 1970) was a pioneering blues and jazz singer/guitarist born in New Orleans, Louisiana. There is some dispute over the year of his birth, but 1894 is what appears on his passport. Lonnie Johnson's early recordings are the first guitar recordings that display a single-note soloing style with use of string bending and vibrato. While it cannot be proven that this contains the influence of earlier players who did not record, it is the origin of Blues and Rock solo guitar. Johnson's influence is obvious in Django Reinhardt, T-Bone Walker and virtually all electric blues guitar players. [citation needed] Raised in a family of musicians, Johnson studied violin and guitar as a child, but concentrated on the latter throughout his professional career. A 1917 tour to England with a revue may have saved his life, for he returned to New Orleans in 1919 to find that most of his family had died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. In the early 1920s, Johnson worked with the orchestras of Charlie Creath and Fate Marable on riverboats, but he made St. Louis his home in 1925. There he entered and won an Okeh Records blues contest that resulted in his making a series of memorable recordings for the label between 1925 and 1932, including guitar duets with Eddie Lang and vocal duets with Victoria Spivey. In the 1920s, Johnson also made guest appearances on records by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, the Duke Ellington orchestra, and The Chocolate
top songs
albums
Playing With the Strings
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1928-1952 Original Guitar Wiz
Steppin' On The Blues
The Complete Folkways Recordings
Lonnie Johnson Vol. 3 (1944-1947)
Lonnie Johnson Vol. 4 (1928 - 1929)
Blues & Ballads
Lonnie Johnson Vol. 1 1937 - 1940
A Life In Music Selected Sides 1925 - 1953
Chicago Blues
Guitar Blues
Lonnie Johnson Vol. 5 (1929 - 1930)