Big Bill Broonzy said that Lonnie Johnson could pick up a violin, bass, mandolin, banjo or guitar and play each one real well, and could sing his ass off too. His unique style, playing single note lines and advance flat picking technique turned him to a model for many jazz blues guitar players. Being a talented composer and multi instrumentalist, Johnson was getting hot recording spots with the biggest names like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
Lonnie`s career:
Worked as a violinist with family band, 1914-17; in 1917 went to London with a revue tour; 1920 joined Charlie Creath’s band and performed with Fate Marable; won Okeh Records talent contest 1925; made recording debut with Charlie Creath; landed hit with first Okeh recordings 1925; from 1925 to 1927 worked as a house muscian for Okeh; appeared a guest recording musician with Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five; The following year guest recording musician with Duke Ellington and the Chocolate Dandies; recorded famous duets with guitarist Eddie Lang 1929; toured with Bessie Smith; settled in Cleveland and performed in band of Putney Danderidge 1932; from 1937 to 1940 worked with Warren “Baby” Dodds at Three Dueces in Chicago; recorded for Decca 1937-38; recorded with Blue Bird label 1939-43; recorded with King Records 1947 and landed biggest hit “Tommorow Night” in 1948; toured England 1952; worked outside of music until redicovery in 1959; recorded with Prestige label 1960-61 and performed at Town Hall concerts in New York; went to Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival 1963; moved to Toronto, 1965, opened own blues club in 1966; performed last show at Toronto’s Massey Hall in 1970.
Ellington said: “[Johnson] must have must have been a good man, because he spoke only good about other people, and I never heard anyone speak anything but good of him. God bless Lonnie Johnson.”

Lazy mood

PANTALEIMON (pan-ta-lay-mon) is the pseudonym of one Andria Degens (dee-jens). The use of the name Pantaleimon was inspired by Lyra’s dæmon portrayed in the ‘Northern Lights’ trilogy by Philip Pullman.
Pantaleimon creates simple, haunting and beautiful music, somewhere between meditative and psychedelic
a brand new limited edition CD EP, entitled ‘Tall Trees’, is available from Abaton Book Company

I am

 This is brilliant. Post office are not pop. It might be a little hard to digest at first. But it is incredible. This is what they say about “Ascent of the young”:”The energy of youth. Full speed build, layers of sound, and a Tom Chant soprano sax solo, dominate the first half, then insanity and aggression fight out the rest. As bandy as the album gets in terms of the line up (drums, bass, gits, kbds, percussion).”

Ascent of the young

Just for common knowledge – our Top 5 of the week is timeless. Usually it is the best of the post`s songs. So we got a new Top 5 yesterday. Take a listen. Highly recommended.

I love Dylan`s autobiography Chronichles. One name that was mentioned over and over again was Dave Van Ronk`s. The author says he was a big inspiration and influence on his work. So here is a little song to demonstrate why…

Come-back-baby

…”Frànçois came to Bristol from France in September 2003. He drew a picture and put a note in a window announcing his arrival, and asking people to make music with him. He started going to car-boot sales to find some instruments he could use. Overnight, frànçois won the hearts out of this town. Well of course, he’s a sweet kid, but he’s also armed with an eager sense of adventure and a keen taste for pop thrills”…
…”In 2008 Fránçois took a break and went back to live with his parents in France with the intention to stop the music side of things and to hide behind his brushes and watercolour paints. There he found support from a bunch of local friends who convinced him to do some recordings of the works he had prepared for a show in Paris at the Centre Pompidou. The recordings took place partly in Charente-Maritime and partly in the Basques Country. For those sessions the musicians were the poliphonic quintet Bost Gehio and members from Unkle Jelly Fish” … Words from his site..

Francois

This is about a scene in Bristol. When I think of Bristol I think about Massive, Tricky, Protishead and the trip hop scene that had emerged from there. I have just found out about the Bristol lofi collective, mainly acoustic, some electronic from this southern town. Matt Elliott, Third eye foundation, Crescent, Movietone, Flying saucer attack. I have discovered all that after digging into Nick Talbot ( Gravenhurst ) past. Not that I knew about Nick a week ago, but this girl had shown me a video filmed by La Blogoteque of Gravenhurst ( highly recommended and real lofi as expected – you know this is a word we like here ). This is about beautiful bare music, stripped to the bone, which means there are no additional tracks for bullshit overdubs. I will try to post bits and pieces from different artist from this lofi scene in Bristol.

La mort de la France

 2 additional sketches of my Havana serries accompanied by an Ibrahim Ferrer ballad.

Herido_De_Sombras

“For some, music is a hobby, or if they’re lucky a job or a passion; for JJ Cale it’s not even a choice: music is all he’s ever known. He’s a lifer. Born John Weldon Cale in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the guitarist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer has been doing this for over fifty years and on February 24, 2009, Rounder Records will release Roll On, Cale’s sixteenth album”…
It is hard for me to describe what Cale`s music doing to me. I have tried to write several things and scratched it all. So I figured a song could summarize it all. I have chosen “Soulin” . The funkiest soulful groove, this unique whispery chanting singing, the foooonky wa guitar in the intro, the shitty sounding but right distorted lead, I guess it his his famous Casio, the dry tiny drum sound. Everything, man. No wonder why every other musician and his wife covered this guy.

Soulin

Gabby Pahinui was one of the greatest slack key guitarists. For those of you who don’t know what a slack key guitar is,it is a fingerstyle genre, with it`s unique tuning, slack tuning, lower than regular tuning, usually to achieve a chord by hitting the six strings (open). I had heard a track Hawaiian Gabby Pahinui recorded with an admirer of his, Ry Cooder. Gabby was a master of steel guitar as well. Listen to this 2 monsters duet, listen to the feel of this old Hawaiin song Moani Ke`ala – this is with his Hawaiian band.

Moani_Keala