The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights (Volume 8)

North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

by Dean Alger

Lonnie Johnson (1894–1970) was a virtuoso guitarist who influenced generations of musicians from Django Reinhardt to Eric Clapton to Bill Wyman and especially B. B. King. Born in New Orleans, he began playing violin and guitar in his father’s band at an early age. When most of his family was wiped out by the 1918 flu epidemic, he and his surviving brother moved to St. Louis, where he won a blues contest that included a recording contract.  His career was launched.

Johnson can be heard on many Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong records, including the latter’s famous “Savoy Blues” with the Hot Five. He is perhaps best known for his 12-string guitar solos and his ground-breaking recordings with the white guitarist Eddie Lang in the late 1920s. After World War II he began playing rhythm and blues and continued to record and tour until his death.

This is the first full-length work on Johnson. Dean Alger answers many biographical mysteries, including how many members of Johnson’s large family were left after the epidemic. He also places Johnson and his musical contemporaries in the context of American race relations and argues for the importance of music in the fight for civil rights. Finally, Alger analyzes Johnson’s major recordings in terms of technique and style. A new Lonnie Johnson music CD will be released by the author to coordinate with the publication of this book.

Genres: Music

384 pages, Hardcover

First published March 20, 2013

Reviews

[Eric Johns · Rating 2 out of 5]

A boring and poorly-written hagiography by a bitter political scientist that unnecessarily ends with a diatribe against the idea of Jazz as Black music.

[Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I should state from the off that I believe that Lonnie Johnson was an incredibly gifted musician whose influence on modern music is huge. Imagine my excitement when I came across Alger's book which promised to not only confirm my belief but to also place Johnson's life in its historical context and to reveal his wider socio-political influence. The problem I have with this book is that it is almost unreadable. It reads like the work of a 1st year undergraduate who is discovering the complexities of the English language for the first time. Alger, unlike his subject, has no ear or sense of rhythm. Sentences jar the senses. I settled down to read this book in a couple of sittings, but I really struggled to get beyond page 60. Ugly writing is not the correct vehicle for steering us through the complex forces at play in the genius of Lonnie Johnson.
"The first side he recorded that day had the oh-so-apt title, "Playing With the Strings" - borrowed for the title of these two chapters. Beyong the obvious reference to the guitar strings, the title is apt in the sense that his guitar work here has a playful nature, it is very upbeat and lively, and one just feels Lonnie's fingers dancing over the strings". Oh dear.
The book is a terrible read, not only because his use of the language is childlike (I can live with that, just), but because he doesn't convince us of Lonnie Johnson's worth (a crime not to be tolerated). He quite simply doesn't make the case that his title implies. Indeed, he doesn't make the case for anything. I did not expect the great analytical insights of a Greil Marcus, and I wasn't disappointed. Writing in any meaningful way about music is beyond most of us; the ability to shine a light on and illuminate the culture it came from or helped shape is given to a privileged few. But it strikes me that there is someone out there who can make the case that Lonnie Johnson was a collossus in an age when others could claim a similar status. Mr Alger is far from being that man. Woody Allen once said that he did a course on speed reading that allowed him to read War and Peace in twenty minutes, and when asked what it was about he said "Russia". I have to confess that from page 125, and with a heavy heart, I sped through the rest of Alger's book in about twenty minutes. What was it about? I have no idea.
One critic wrote: "This is not a straightforward life story. It's also an attempt to place Lonnie Johnson in a historical context that as well as being about music, is also about the US and the wider world in the 20th century, and the social changes that took place in that time. Dean Alger sees African American music as having played a key role in the modernisation of culture, in the battle for civil rights, and in shaping the changes in race relations that took place in the 20th century." This critic could not possibly have read this book. I particularly like "the modernisation of culture". What does that mean?

There is a well known quote about Lonnie, "I remember my own impression in listening to him was that it would be hard to imagine anybody playing better. There is a quality that the real virtuoso communicates, an added dimension to his playing, that makes it immediately and recognizably distinct from that of one who is merely proficient. Lonnie Johnson had it ... "
That says more about the great man than all of Alger's book.

[Liam Guilar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd book. The title really sums up the problem: it's scattered across too many purposes.

I agree with Alger's basic thesis. Lonnie Johnson is a) relatively unknown b) which is strange because he is one of the great guitar players of the twentieth century and c) his early recordings like 'To do this you have to know how', 'Messing with the strings' and the duets he recorded with Eddie Lang were groundbreaking at their time, and are still astonishing now unlike a lot of early blues which may have been groundbreaking once but are dated now; D) it's possible to argue that the by now familiar 'Guitar hero" playing the 'Expressive guitar solo" was 'invented' by Johnson.

However, Alger's style is nowhere near as smooth as his subject's. The book is hard work. He sounds like he's talking, and talking not writing, to a slightly dumb student who needs everything spelt out and repeated at least twice.

The other problem with the book is that the central thesis is made to carry a lot more baggage than it seems able to bear. A straight autobiography of one of the great guitar players, and investigation into why he was so good and how he got there, would have been enough. The early context is important, but 'the power of music" and "music and civil rights" themes involve stretching the reader's credulity for no real gain.

The book is important in that Johnson has been overshadowed by that other Johnson, Robert, who wasn't half the guitar player. It's an interesting feature of musical history, and a cynic might say that the players who idolised Robert did so because he was easy to imitate and came wrapped in an attitude. The book is also an antidote to the "I sold my soul to the devil and behaved badly' blues stereo type: this is a story of working musicians which is what those guitar players were. And whether you like Blues, Jazz or Rock or any combination of the three, if you haven't heard Johnson's playing you're missing out. And if you think you're good, go listen to "To do this you have to know how" on youtube for a start....the photographs prove he only had two hands and ten fingers.

[Peter Nowakowski]

Wow there is no way to describe this author perhaps delusional, obtuse, petty, repetitive......you get the idea.................story was good.............