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Post by AlanB on Apr 3, 2014 6:55:56 GMT -5
Regarding Jas O, I've had no response.
However, I'm reliably informed that the current Living Blues contains an LJ feature by him.
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Post by Admin on Apr 12, 2014 8:08:17 GMT -5
I'm still waiting for my copy of Dean Alger's book. But from those that have already read, it seems to be a great bio.
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Post by AlanB on Jun 28, 2014 9:30:32 GMT -5
Here's a well considered review from Ray Templeton, but I'd expect nothing else from someone who's been at it for 40+ years!
THE ORIGINAL GUITAR HERO AND THE POWER OF MUSIC THE LEGENDARY LONNIE JOHNSON MUSIC AND CIVIL RIGHTS Dean Alger University Of North Texas Press, 2014. 365pp, illus, index. ISBN 978 1 57441 546 9, £20.50
In a previous attempt to publish a biography about Lonnie Johnson, Dean Alger found his proposal rejected on the basis that the publisher felt Johnson was not central enough to the history of the blues to deserve a whole book devoted to him. While such an assertion might elicit an incredulous snort from many blues fans, it’s probably true that for most other people it would be at best an indifferent shrug. I can’t remember when in my life I understood just what a colossal figure in the music’s development Lonnie Johnson was, but it was the result of a gradual accumulation of experience rather than the kind of clamour of acclaim so often accorded to far lesser figures. It was like a slow burn – hearing his own 1920s and ‘30s sides, of course, hearing his accompaniments to others’ vocals, his solos on jazz records, his duets with Eddie Lang, his R&B hits in the 1950s, his Bluesville LPs and much more. And, of course, progressively recognising his influence on so many other guitar players and singers. B.B. King is quoted on the dust jacket here, to the effect that “Lonnie Johnson was the most influential guitarist of the 20th century”. Since similar statements have been made in the past about King himself, this – to say the least – is a statement that carries some weight. Dean Alger has a point to prove, and this book – having eventually found a publisher – is his way of setting about it.
In fact, he has a number of points to prove. If you look at the header of this review, you’ll see that the title of the book is laid out over three lines. 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. And as he sees Lonnie Johnson as a central figure in the history of African American music in that period, he lays claim on Johnson’s behalf to a key role in the process that effected those changes.
Alger has a lively writing style, more than a little quirky in its approach – the use of random capitals, for example, or the fact that if an anecdote is worth telling once, it’s worth telling again. He’ll break out of his narrative prose, if he thinks that’s the best way to make his point, as he does on p.82, presenting the major cultural developments of the years 1926-1928 in the form of a list that stretches over six pages (enabling us to note that Lonnie Johnson made his first records in the same year as Fritz Lang made Metropolis, and Pan Am began its air services). But the book’s most distinctive characteristic is its digressive, rather sprawling approach to telling its story. To situate Lonnie Johnson in the context of his era, Alger will sidetrack into a discussion of modernism, referencing Picasso, Debussy, T.S. Eliot. Or in a discussion of the guitar, he’ll bring in everybody from Henry VIII to Beethoven, from Segovia to Led Zeppelin. An account of a Johnson session with Victoria Spivey is interrupted to quote a description of B.B. King at the Apollo Theater, because he sang one of the same songs. Talking about the innovative technique in Johnson’s great 1928 recordings, including ‘Playing With The Strings’ and ‘Away Down In The Alley’, he quotes Eric Clapton, but apparently only for the purpose of observing that Clapton doesn’t mention Johnson, that ‘startlingly’ he seems unaware of Lonnie’s influence on B.B.King. Nothing about rock stars and their ignorance of the blues seems at all ‘startling’ to me, but it underlines the general point that Johnson’s role remains under-appreciated.
Nevertheless, the narrative of Lonnie Johnson’s life is in there, even if just occasionally it feels like you’re winkling it out of a larger and much more all-embracing project. If that sounds like a complaint, it really isn’t meant to – this isn’t a whodunnit where we’re impatient to unravel a mystery, and mostly the wider context is helpful and relevant (and he sensibly reserves his main discussion of the question of the relationship between music and civil rights for a 14-page Appendix, albeit in a tiny typeface). Alger has done thorough research into Lonnie Johnson’s life and has uncovered enough new biographical information to satisfy even the best-read fan. For example, it has long been thought – because Johnson said so in a Jazz Journal interview that seems to have provided the basis for most biographical information published subsequently – that apart from himself and his brother James, his entire family had died in the influenza epidemic of 1917, in New Orleans. But, in an interview with Moses Asch in 1967, as Alger points out, he talked about his mother, and mentioned that she was then 94, while in an unpublished interview in 1960, he told Paul Oliver that his father had died in 1934.
Digging out such interview material, published and unpublished, linking it with discographical data, contemporary newspaper reports and ads and other historical accounts, he is able to draw connections out into what seems to be a highly reliable account (although noting inconsistencies and contradictions where they arise, as they do). But as well as referencing the work of a wide range of other researchers, he has also done research of his own so that, for example, he is able to offer a good account based on new interview material with people concerned, of how Johnson ended up living in Canada, and of his last days there. There’s also plenty of analysis of Johnson’s recordings and of techniques he pioneered. These use some technical jargon, but not enough to be a problem for the musically uninitiated, and to help, Alger has prepared a CD of what he considers to be the best of Johnson’s recordings. (At the time of publication, this doesn’t seem to have been released – a note in Appendix 3 says “record company arrangements pending” – but there’s no shortage of reissues out there on CD, and on streaming services.) Nobody reading Alger’s analyses, while listening to the musical examples he cites, could come away from this in any doubt of Lonnie Johnson’s genius, his innovation both in guitar technique and vocals, and his contribution to blues lyrics.
Right at the start, Alger expresses his firm intention to write a book that will appeal beyond the reach of those blues books which, he feels, put off anybody who isn’t a specialist. One way in which he addresses this is through what seems almost like an obsessional urge to trace Johnson’s influence in every guitar player who came after, in every form of music. This is all great fun, well-argued, and generally convincing, even though it’s often about lines of descent rather than direct influence. For example, towards the end, inserted into the narrative between the 1967 Folkways recordings and Johnson’s death in 1969, is a section which works hard at convincing readers of the debt pop and rock stars like Page, Hendrix, Allman etc owed to Johnson (the direct influence was almost always B.B. King, whose own debt to Lonnie has already been laid out at length). I have no argument with any of this, even if calling Johnson ‘the original guitar hero’ makes me a little uneasy, considering the modern stereotype of that phenomenon, with all its face-screwing, finger-twiddling, posturing bombast – the very antithesis of a man who always seemed to play with the most exquisite taste, for whom subtlety and restraint were always as important as displays of dexterity.
Not that this takes away from what Dean Alger has achieved here. His documenting of Lonnie Johnson’s life and music, the context in which it was made and its continuing cultural importance, is of real substance and considerable value. Lonnie Johnson deserves proper biographical documentation as much as anyone does, and Alger has provided that, and more. In the preface, he encourages readers to start a letter-writing campaign, aimed at Lonnie’s inclusion in the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. In fact, his own book is a far better tribute to this great artist than that dubious honour could ever be. Ray Templeton (Blues & Rhythm 290, p. 45)
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Post by Admin on Jul 2, 2014 15:32:33 GMT -5
Review by Robert Pruter: From RBF Book Room. (DO NOT DUPLICATE OR SHARE OUTSIDE THIS FORUM)
The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: Lonnie Johnson, Music and Civil Rights, by Dean Alger, is an excellent blues biography, exhibiting outstanding research, extremely knowledgeable and insightful authorial commentary, and the valuable placing of the subject within the context and milieu from where the music sprang. Yet, Original Guitar Hero is greatly compromised by its many unfortunate flaws, starting with the ridiculously long title that blurs the fact that this is a biography of one of the great blues artists of the last century, Lonnie Johnson. I am going to get the flaws out of the way in this overly long review.
Most of the flaws manifest themselves in the beginning sections of the book--the Preface, Acknowledgements, and the early chapters. Acknowledgements, how can that be flawed, where an author usually bestows generous comments on all who helped him? While Dean Alger is generous in showing his gratitude, notably to many fellow researchers in the blues community, such as Richard Shurman, Lawrence Cohn, and regular RBF Book Room poster, Chris Smith, he also shows a side of him that he should have probably kept under wraps.
Alger apparently thinks that the publishing industry should view Lonnie Johnson as a subject of a money-making book because he is such a notable and legendary blues artist. They don't, so he lashes out, in several places, snarkly saying, "No 'literary agent' played a significant role in the development of this book or in getting it to a publisher; that fact and the narrow-minded orientations, failure of due diligence, and lack of understanding I experienced from them is troubling for our culture. The same was the case with a series of editors in this field..." Alger does not seem to understand that while Johnson is certainly a notable among the fellow posters on RBF, he is an obscurity to the general public, and that the New York trade book industry is adverse to losing money in its enterprise. Lonnie Johnson is a suitable subject for a non-profit, such as the University of North Texas Press, and he found a good home for the book there.
Alger also seems to think that his relatives are required to give him money to help in getting his book project done. He lashes out at the ones who did not donate--"Otherwise, my family did not help when I was in serious need in the late stages of this project. Frankly, three members of my generation of the extended family were selfish, self-indulgent, and betrayed the values our Granddad Holloway gave to us." I was stunned when I read that. Throughout all these early pages, what seeps through is the author's narcissism and self-regard. This is not the only blues book where I came away with a distaste towards the author, but it the first one in a long time. In the early chapters, Alger developed an unfortunate habit of "telescoping," which is editorial slang for telling the reader what he is going to write about in the upcoming pages. Chapter 4 alone, for example, I found nine instances, and here are three of them--"'Away Down in the Alley Blues,' which is discussed towards the end of the chapter," "Eddie Lang (more on him in the next chapter)," and "On the instrumentals he recorded on February 21, 1928, to which I turn after the following paragraph." Jeez, on the last one, there is just one intervening paragraph. I am surprise his copy editor did not ask him to eliminate this unfortunate tic.
Alger is a musician and he can explain why Lonnie Johnson was a guitar virtuoso, and effectively makes a case why Johnson is the best blues guitarist of all time, and why he should be regarded as the epitome of excellence that informed all later guitarists. Alger also is an experienced singer, and can explain the virtues and faults of Johnson's vocalizing. Some of the technical musical discussion gets beyond the musically illiterate, namely me, however. Alger argues thusly--that Johnson influenced B.B. King and other later blues guitarists, as well as jazz guitarists Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian, and they in turn influenced today's blues, rock-blues, and jazz guitarists. Many readers will balk at some of the claims made in the book, as Alger argues the superiority of Johnson over all others, mainly because he was unsurpassed in his "touch, tone, and vibrato." Alger repeats this argument over and over again, adding up to yet another flaw, too much repetition.
Some readers may fault Alger for spending too much of Johnson's early years discussing the musical context that the artist came out of, but I don't. There was not much personal information on Johnson available, despite Alger's valiant efforts to dig some up, and placing Johnson in context was a good remedy. Alger is particularly good at explaining and appreciate Johnson's King years, when he had a national hit with a ballad, "Tomorrow Night," and subsequently came out with many other ballads. In the penultimate chapter, Alger describes track by track all the LPs Johnson recorded from 1965 to his death in 1970. I found this to be useful and interesting. The book just gets betters as the reader goes along. It could have been much better had his editors and readers reined him in, but it appears to me he is the type that just can't follow advice--too much self-regard.
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