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Lonnie Johnson (Musician)

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Musician

The Resume

    (circa February 8, 1894-June 16, 1970)
    Born in New Orleans, Louisiana
    Blues and jazz guitarist, violinist, and singer
    Recorded the songs ‘Tomorrow Night,’ ‘Hard Times Ain’t Gone Nowhere,’ ‘He’s a Jelly Roll Baker,’ ‘In Love Again,’ ‘Pleasing You,’ ‘So Tired,’ and ‘Confused’
    Played with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Victoria Spivey

Why he might be annoying:

    Guesses for his birth year span more than a decade, from 1889 to 1900.
    He started playing in the brothels of New Orleans’ Storyville district.
    When his music career slowed down in the mid-1950s, he worked as a janitor.
    He opened a nightclub called Home of the Blues in Toronto (1965), but it went bankrupt. The new owner then fired him.
    His grave went unmarked for over four decades, until the Killer Blues Headstone Project paid for a marker in 2014.

Why he might not be annoying:

    His guitar playing influenced Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt.
    Early in his career, Robert Johnson tried to pass himself off as Lonnie’s kid brother and based one of his signature songs, ‘Stop Breakin’ Down,’ on Lonnie’s ‘No More Troubles Now.’
    When he toured England (1952), one of the musicians sharing the bill, Tony Donegan, changed his first name to ‘Lonnie’ to honor Johnson.
    ’Tomorrow Night’ was one of the few country blues songs to cross over to a white audience, reaching #18 on the Billboard pop chart and selling over three million singles (1948).
    He was rediscovered during the 1960s and toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival (1963).
    He was struck by a car while walking on the sidewalk in Toronto (March, 1969), and never completely recovered.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying