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196 7 Rhythm & Blues Rhythm & Blues—And the First Rock & Roll Record? The Blues Collection reissue label put out two CDs of Lonnie’s recordings from 1937 to 1952. They were titled, Lonnie Johnson: The Rhythm & Blues Years. This was appropriate because Lonnie moved with the times, amped up many recordings, intensified the rhythm in his music in the 1940s, and contributed to the Rhythm & Blues era— though his most famous recording in this period was a ballad. (The term “Rhythm & Blues” was actually initiated in Billboard magazine in 1949 to move beyond the old “race records” label, but the musical genre that the new term denoted and better characterized was underway by the early 1940s.) As Mark Humphrey pointed out: “Johnson updated fluidly without compromising his musical personality, and this, even more than his virtuosity and influence as a guitarist, may be the quality that makes him one of the truly heroic figures of the blues.”1 Indeed he did, and certain of his recordings are especially striking demonstrations of that, as he took himself into the Rhythm & Blues era. We got a nice peek at the beginnings of Lonnie’s energized Rhythm & Blues development in the second of those live private recordings made at Square’s Boulevard Lounge in Chicago in January 1941, “Rocks in My Bed”; this was a significant part of what he was doing in his club work in the 1940s, one of the reasons he “made the place jump,” as the Chicago club owner said. “Mr. Johnson Swing” and “New Falling Rain Blues” from March 1938 demonstrate how elements of swing jazz led to Rhythm & Blues 197 Rhythm & Blues music, especially in the hands of someone like Lonnie with his rhythmic blues and jazz background. Then in February 1947 Lonnie was lead electric guitarist on “Home Last Night,” with “Dirty Red” Nelson singing. The title almost sounds like a lullaby. It was anything but. This recording has a driving Rhythm & Blues feel, rockin’ rhythm and style on the guitar by Lonnie, and what, seven to ten years later, became the essence of the early electric guitar and overall sound of the recordings that established the new musical genre of Rock & Roll. If you compare the guitar work and overall sound in those prime founding documents of Rock & Roll—Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” “Memphis,” and “Back in the USA,” and Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and “It’s so Easy”—the stylistic connection and evolution of electric guitar playing from Lonnie Johnson’s performance on “Home Last Night” and other ’40s Rhythm & Blues numbers to such prime early Rock & Roll recordings is striking. Those connections are not surprising. Buddy Holly’s favorite guitarist was Lonnie Johnson. As Jerry Allison, the drummer from Holly’s band, the Crickets, has reported: “We used to sit around and listen to blues pickers like Lonnie Johnson. Like, there was a song called ‘Jelly Roll’ [presumably meaning ‘Jelly Roll Baker’ from 1947], and the style of guitar that Buddy played on ‘That’ll Be the Day’—that was the sort of guitar that that old blues picker played.” “That’ll Be the Day” was Holly’s first big hit. In his autobiography, Chuck Berry said he “became a fan of Lonnie Johnson” from listening to his records played on the Black East St. Louis radio station.2 In fact, Lonnie’s electric guitar playing on that early 1947 record sounds suspiciously to my ears like the first Rock & Roll record. Many informed observers see the prime candidates for the first Rock & Roll recording as “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” on two separate 1948 releases by Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris, Fats Domino’s 1949 tune, “The Fat Man,” or “Rocket ’88” of 1951 sung by Jackie Brenston and backed by Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. But since “Home Last Night” was recorded in February 1947, it could be seen as the first Rock & Roll record. There is no scientific formula for deciding what is a Rock & Roll record verses a Rhythm & Blues 198 THE ORIGINAL GUITAR HERO AND THE POWER OF MUSIC recording, however; it’s a judgment call. And it was a process of evolution and development. Robert Palmer suggested that assigning such exclusivist musical categories is more a convenience for nonmusicians. Indeed, for some of the first generation of rockers, asserting that what was newly called Rock & Roll was a separate category of music was suspect. Dave Bartholomew, who provided the backing for the early Fats Domino hits, said: “We had rhythm and blues for many, many a year, and here come in a...

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