Lonnie Johnson – inventor of the modern guitar solo
One hundred years ago (before WWI), the guitar was a general purpose instrument used primarily for rhythmic support, its unamplified steel strings were played with strings rather than individually plucked or plucked. Light and portable, neither too expensive nor too loud (softer than the banjo): it was the ideal “parlor” instrument, useful for parties and long songs (especially in the absence of a house piano) and as a harmonic accompaniment for solo instruments more expressive like the violin or clarinet.
In the 1920s, dance bands and orchestras (the rock groups of their time) the guitar was typically played seated, and in the back with the rhythm section (bass and drums), not in front in the solo section. with the glamorous instruments (trumpet, clarinet, saxophone and trombone). But today, and indeed for many decades, the electric guitar has come to the deafening foreground.
How did the simple “flat box” rise from auditory darkness to global hegemony? Who was the first musician to step up and play a single note guitar solo in the manner of a violinist or trumpeter? The evidence strongly suggests that it was the New Orleans-born bluesman Alonzo “Lonnie” Johnson (1899-1970).
Born into a family of musicians, young Lonnie studied violin, piano, and guitar. As a teenager, he played guitar in his father’s dance band in New Orleans. A highly skilled instrumentalist, he was also a talented singer, and in 1925 he won a contract with Okeh Records (for whom he eventually recorded around 130 sides).
In 1927, he promised to record instrumentally in Chicago with the hugely famous Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. An invitation to perform with the industry’s most successful jazz band was a rare honor, bestowed only on elite avant-garde musicians. Why did Armstrong ask Lonnie Johnson to sit down? It couldn’t have been because of his vocal abilities, Satchmo himself took care of that. Maybe it had something to do with his quirky (ie never before known) single note pick style.
The earliest recorded interpretation of the single-note pick technique (the prototype for what we now call “lead” guitar) was by Lonnie Johnson on the 1927 Hot Five release “6/88 Glide” (perhaps using a Martin acoustic round hole pattern like the one shown above). Thus, Encyclopedia of the Blues (1997) by blues historian Gerard Herzhaft cites Johnson as “without question the creator of the guitar solo played note for note with a pick, which has become the standard in jazz, blues, country and rock “.
How influential were Johnson’s Hot Five sessions in 1927? Many people like to credit 1930s guitar icons such as Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, and Robert Johnson for first introducing the single-note picking technique. However, the simple chronology indicates otherwise. Fifteen years younger than Johnson, Charlie Christian (b.1916) recalled listening to Lonnie’s records on the radio while growing up in Oklahoma during the Depression. Gypsy jazz player Django Reinhardt (b. 1910), a great admirer of Louis Armstrong, no doubt first heard Johnson’s signature technique on the seminal 1927 Hot Five record. In fact, Django and violinist Stephane Grapelli did not form his famous Quintette du Hot Club de France until a few years later, in 1935. And Delta bluesman Robert Johnson (unrelated) didn’t record a lick until 1936-37 (the legendary Dallas / San Antonio Sessions).
Yes, the world’s first lead guitarist was Alonzo “Lonnie” Johnson.
