In 1968, Wells returned from a State Department-sponsored tour of Africa and told a Newsweek correspondent, "We got to one place and they had banners saying 'Welcome Home, Junior'. I told 'em, man I said, this ain't my home, I live one block north of the Loop. Then they asked me what I thought of black power. I said black power is me making it with Aretha Franklin." - from Larry Cohn's Nothing But The Blues
Here's my stab at one of Lonnie's most interesting instrumentals. Compared to others it has more structure and it's fast but not too fast. What an amazing talent he had; although all his prewar instrumentals use the same tuning and key they are very different. I'm certain they were improvised, probably not on the spot, but a few days/weeks before recording. I checked the filmfootage from the 60ies, when he switched to flatpicking. Strangely he only uses downstrokes, doesn't matter whether he's playing chords or single string soloing, alsways downstrokes. When doing single string solo's : he doesn't use his left hand pinky (which I need to play Stompin')....questions, questions....
that saved me watching directly on youtube! wonderful as ever daddystovepipe. do you prefer pre war or later recordings by lonnie johnson? when lonnie switched to useing a flatpick, by useing downstrokes alone, do you think that made lonnies playing less complex?
I prefer Lonnie's prewar fingerpicked recordings. His style became different, not less complicated, because he simply adapted to the changing musicstyles (and tried to make a buck, an issue we amateurs often forget)