Tag: Lonnie Johnson

Continuing on the Halloween theme this week… we have the excellent “Blue Ghost Blues” by Lonnie Johnson.

From the first line, you can tell it’s gonna be a scary tale:

“MMmmm – I feel myself sinkin’ down.
My body is freezin’ I feel something cold creepin’ around.
My windows is rattlin’, my doorknob turnin’ round and round.
This haunted house blues is killin’ me – I feel myself sinkin’ down.”

A later verse seems to possibly indicate that the “blue ghost” perhaps has a more material presence:

“The blue ghost is got the house surrounded – Lord! And I can’t get away
They got shotguns and pistols standin’ all around my door.
They haunt me all night long so I can’t sleep no more.
The blue ghost haunts me all night, the nightmare rides me all night long.
They worry me so in this haunted house, I wish’d I were dead and gone.”

Johnson was a New Orleans jazzman who worked the riverboats with Charlie Creath out of St. Louis in the early 20s. In 1925 he won a blues contest and the prize was a contract with Okeh records – so he followed destiny and became a blues guitarist. His singing and playing made him one of the most popular Okeh artists of the late 20s.

Thankfully, he continued to also also play jazz guitar, recording with Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, Duke Ellington, and Eddie Lang, among others.

This was one of my first big wantlist records – which eluded me for years. Funny story – when I was new to 78 collecting, I bought a copy of this tune on the Decca label, only to find out that Lonnie had re-recorded this tune in the late 30s with piano and bass accompaniment. Same tune but something was missing. It took me a while longer to find this original Okeh recording.

Recorded on November 9, 1927.
Released as Okeh 8557

Credits:
Lonnie Johnson – guitar, vocals

Lonnie Johnson’s career in music is quite remarkable. A key figure in the development of blues and jazz guitar in the 20s and early 30s, he continued making music through the 1960s.

In the late 1940s, he revisited an earlier acoustic tune he recorded for Decca in 1938 (“Laplegged drunk again” on Decca 7537) with an interesting twist: This new version featured Lonnie on electric guitar backed by piano and bass.

Originally released on the King label in 1950 – for whom Lonnie recorded many R&B sides during the postwar period – here we have a British Vogue pressing from 1951. Though the record was released in 1950, the matrix number indicates the recording was made a bit earlier.

Credits –
Lonnie Johnson – guitar and vocal
Allen Smith – piano
Monte Morrison – bass

Classic early blues by guitarist Lonnie Johnson.

This record had so many lam cracks that it causes a bit of a swish but still quite an enjoyable listen.

Recorded August 1927 in New York. Released as Okeh 8497.

Lyrics
“I’m a roamin’ rambler – I ramble and roam everywhere.
I’m a roamin’ rambler – I roam and ramble everywhere.
I’ve rode on every railroad without a nickel fare.

My mammy named me Rambler, I’ll tell you why I was told
My mammy named me Rambler, I’ll tell you why I was told
Because I started to ramblin’ when I was only two years old.

I got a gal in Texas. I got gals in Tennessee.
I’ve got gals in Texas. I’ve got gals in Tennessee.
There’s a hundred those fastened, waitin’ for this rambler’s key.

I never had a woman I couldn’t get her back again.
I never had a woman I couldn’t get her back again.
Cause they want a ramblin’ man – and not no monkey men.

The judges all knows me – knows me as a ramblin’ man.
The judges all knows me – knows me as a ramblin’ man.
When they put me in jail, I gets out on a ‘stallments plan.”

A very early record by Lonnie Johnson documenting a lovely piano and guitar duet between Messrs Johnson and Johnson. This session was recorded by Okeh’s “TrueTone” process – and it is unclear whether this session was acoustically or electrically recorded.

At 1:20, you can hear an unidentified voice in the background (James Johnson?) shout out “How you gonna (unclear)?”, to which Lonnie replies, “I’m gonna kick (keep?) that thing!”

The last lyric beautifully articulates the risks of love: “Love feels very light, but it drives like a weight of iron. Sometimes it drives so heavy, you can’t help from crying.”

Recorded in New York, New York on January 19, 1926.
Released as Okeh 8291

Credits
Lonnie Johnson – guitar, vocals
James Johnson – piano