The Original Guitar Hero … The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights by Dean Alger (2014)

Dean Alger presents a huge but undervalued figure in American music history in his book on blues guitar innovator, jazz guitar player and composer Lonnie Johnson of New Orleans who started out writing guitar history in the late 1920s. Some earlier writing on Johnson only covered several years with a label or his time in Canada. Not only did Johnson (1899 – 1970) record with Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and a young Duke Ellington but he also was a guitar virtuoso who may be responsible for the way the guitar solo has developed.
His style influenced the great blues guitar players after him like T-Bone Walker, B. B. King and numerous jazz players as well. His duet blues/jazz recordings from 1928 and 29 with Eddie Lang are nothing but fantastic. So for some time he was even more important than fellow guitar great Charlie Christian. In the 1930s, Johnson was considered the leading jazz and blues guitar player by many musicians, also because of his masterful use of vibrato and his soft tone.
Unfortunately, as a rather modest personality, he never had the dire urge to stand in the spotlight, and, therefore, did not attract media attention (only later, in the 1960s with the blues and folk revival). Subsequently, his career is mostly a line of gigs and recording dates often disrupted by his blue-collar jobs.

Nevertheless, his style for years had a great impact on a number of famous guitar players and even singers, namely Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan, who recorded several of his compositions. Of those,  “Tomorrow Night” from 1948 may be the most popular song, Johnson sold more than 3 million copies.

This is a detailed biography of an underappreciated great guitar player done by Alger who writes with much dedication, even if at times it reads like a piece of advertisement that is more on the speculative side and unfortunately omits proof for statements now and then.
The subtitle “music and civil rights” did not really receive coverage here and is somewhat irritating.

Review by Dr. A. Ebert © 2016

Dean Alger. The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights. (North Texas Lives of Musician) University of North Texas Press,  2014, 384 p.