Alfonzo "Lonnie" Johnson (February 8, 1894 – June 6, 1970) was a pioneering… Read Full Bio ↴Alfonzo "Lonnie" Johnson (February 8, 1894 – June 6, 1970) was a pioneering blues and jazz singer/guitarist born in New Orleans, Louisiana. There is some dispute over the year of his birth, but 1894 is what appears on his passport.
Lonnie Johnson's early recordings are the first guitar recordings that display a single-note soloing style with use of string bending and vibrato. While it cannot be proven that this contains the influence of earlier players who did not record, it is the origin of Blues and Rock solo guitar. Johnson's influence is obvious in Django Reinhardt, T-Bone Walker and virtually all electric blues guitar players.
[citation needed] Raised in a family of musicians, Johnson studied violin and guitar as a child, but concentrated on the latter throughout his professional career. A 1917 tour to England with a revue may have saved his life, for he returned to New Orleans in 1919 to find that most of his family had died in the 1918 influenza epidemic.

In the early 1920s, Johnson worked with the orchestras of Charlie Creath and Fate Marable on riverboats, but he made St. Louis his home in 1925. There he entered and won an Okeh Records blues contest that resulted in his making a series of memorable recordings for the label between 1925 and 1932, including guitar duets with Eddie Lang and vocal duets with Victoria Spivey. In the 1920s, Johnson also made guest appearances on records by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, the Duke Ellington orchestra, and The Chocolate Dandies, playing 12-string guitar solos in an extraordinary, pioneering single-string style that greatly influenced such future jazz guitarists as Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, and gave the instrument new meaning as a jazz voice.

Lonnie Johnson's career was a rollercoaster ride that sometimes took him away from music. In between great musical accomplishments, he found it necessary to take menial jobs that ranged from working in a steel foundry to mopping floors as a janitor. He was working at Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Hotel in 1959 when WHAT-FM disc jockey Chris Albertson happened upon him. Albertson succeeded in securing for Johnson a Chicago engagement at the Playboy Club, which launched yet another comeback. Johnson subsequently performed with Duke Ellington and his orchestra and with an all-star folk concert, both at Town Hall, New York City.

He also toured Europe and recorded several albums for the Prestige Bluesville label, some with Elmer Snowden, and one with his Okeh vocal partner, Victoria Spivey. To his great regret, Johnson was always tagged as a blues artist, and he found it difficult to be regarded as anything else. "I had done some singing by then," he explained when asked why he entered the Okeh contest, "but I still didn't take it as seriously as my guitar playing, and I guess I would have done anything to get recorded--it just happened to be a blues contest, so I sang the blues."

Johnson died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, June 16, 1970 of complications resulting from a 1969 auto accident. He was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 1997.

One of Elvis Presley's earliest recordings was Johnson's blues ballad, "Tomorrow Night", which was also recorded by LaVern Baker

Bob Dylan wrote about the performing method he learned from Johnson in Chronicles, Vol. 1. Dylan thinks Robert Johnson had learned a lot from Lonnie.

This Love Of Mine
Lonnie Johnson Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

This love of mine goes on and on.
Though life is empty since you have gone.
You're always on my mind, though out of sight.
It's lonesome through the day, oh, the night.

I've cried my heart out, it's bound to break.
Since nothing matters, go on and let it break.
I ask the sun and the moon, and the stars that shine,

Oh, what's to become of it, this love of mine?

It's lonesome through the day, oh, the night.
I've cried my heart out, it's bound to break.
Since nothing matters, go on and let it break.

I ask the sun and the moon, and the stars that shine,
Oh, what's to become of it, this love of mine?

Overall Meaning

Lonnie Johnson's "This Love Of Mine" is a heartfelt ballad about an enduring love despite the absence of the beloved. The lyrics lay out the extent and depth of the singer's love for someone who has left, despite the loneliness it has caused. The song's opening lines, "This love of mine goes on and on, though life is empty since you have gone," set the tone for the rest of the song. The singer is under no illusions about the difficulties that come with a love separated by distance and time, but they remain steadfast in their devotion.

The lyrics go on to describe the painfulness of being constantly reminded of the object of one's affections, even though they are no longer present. The singer asks the sun, moon and stars what the future holds for their love, suggesting that it is a love that is pure and true, but uncertain. The repeated lines of "It's lonesome through the day, oh, the night" emphasize the song's central theme of longing and unfulfilled desire.

Lonnie Johnson's interpretation of "This Love Of Mine" is one of the most well-known versions, although the song has been covered numerous times by other artists. The song's universal message about the power of love has resonated with audiences for decades, making it a timeless classic.

Line by Line Meaning

This love of mine goes on and on.
My love for you is never-ending and will continue to last.

Though life is empty since you have gone.
Since you left, my life feels incomplete and hollow.

You're always on my mind, though out of sight.
Even though you're not here with me physically, my thoughts are consumed by you constantly.

It's lonesome through the day, oh, the night.
Without you, my days and nights are filled with overwhelming loneliness.

I've cried my heart out, it's bound to break.
I have shed so many tears for you that it feels like my heart is going to shatter into a million pieces.

Since nothing matters, go on and let it break.
Since everything else in my life feels meaningless without you, I might as well let my heart break completely.

I ask the sun and the moon, and the stars that shine, Oh, what's to become of it, this love of mine?
I wonder and plead with the universe to tell me the fate of my love for you, uncertain of how it will turn out in the end.

Writer(s): Frank Sinatra, Henry W. Sanicola, Sol Parker

Contributed by Jasmine I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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