Blues Ballads

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Editorial reviews

From Amazon.com
This beautiful album was engineered by Rudy Van Gelder in his Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home studio where so much jazz history was made. It features guitar innovators Lonnie Johnson and Elmer Snowden together for the first time--despite a friendship going back to the 1920s when both appeared on some of the earliest jazz and blues 78s. Johnson, the father of single-note six-string soloing, is in marvelous voice on this selection of blues, ballads, and jazz, crooning the double-entendre "Jelly Roll Baker" and the heartache-laden "Back Water Blues" (a Bessie Smith tune he first cut in 1927) with a marksman's sense of pitch and chilling nuance. Snowden serves mostly as accompanist. But these men play so closely that they seem to be sharing every breath. I--Ted Drozdowski/I

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2006-08-06 rating:
A fantastic guitarist and a pretty good singer
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was born in New Orleans but later lived in various big cities. He was an "urban" blues artist if there ever was one. Besides some recordings with blues singers like Victoria Spivey and Texas Alexander, he played with the very best jazz musicians of the day (Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Eddie Lang, Bessie Smith, Hot Lips Page...). He also waxed numerous blues sides either on his own or with simple piano or guitar accompaniment. br / br /He had a huge influence on both blues and jazz guitarists with his innovative guitar playing style that mixed chorded with precise single note lines. This style had not been developed in neither blues nor jazz before. In jazz, he had an impact on Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt whilst B. B. King acknowledges his influence on his style. br / br /This album was recorded in 1960 after Johnson's retirement from the music business in 1954. br /He is in fine form both instrumentally and vocally on a fine repertoire of his favourite material: sentimental blues ballads. The guitar sounds fluid and crystal clear all along. Lonnie's bittersweet, slightly crooning voice is also a joy to hear. The second guitarist and the string bassist appearing on this album complement him really well. Finally, the recording by ace engineer Rudy Van Gelder is of a high standard and captures their performances very nicely. br /

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