Listening to Prestige 481 - Lonnie Johnson and Victoria Spivey

Lonnie Johnson is back, this time with an old friend. Victoria Spivey, who had not been active professionally for a decade, may well have been another reclamation project by producer Chris Albertson, as Johnson had been, but it was reunion for the two old entertainers. In the 1920s, Spivey was one of the reigning queens of the blues who changed the face of American music in the 1920s, after Mamie Smith's recording of "Crazy Blues" blasted away the prevailing wisdom that there was no market for records by a black singer. And Lonnie Johnson was a superb jazz violinist and guitarist who found that he could make a living as a blues singer, although it wasn't what he loved most. But when Johnson was brought in to accompany Spivey, on songs like 1927's "Dope Head Blues," you got something of a taste of just how good he was.

Both Johnson and Spivey were consummate entertainers, whose careers lasted beyond the end of the First Blues Craze of the 1920s. As all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing motion pictures began to gain popularity, Spivey was cast in one of the first of them, King Vidor's Hallelujah! She continued with a career on stage (including the hit Broadway musical Hellzapoppin'!), until retiring from show business in 1951.  She made her return with this album and a couple for Prestige, then--always a strong, independent woman--started her own record label. She died in 1976.

The three tracks with Spivey are the highlight of the album, but not because there's anything wrong with Johnson's solo tracks, just because she's the new girl in town. Two of those are Spivey compositions ("I Got the Blues So Bad" and "Idle Hours," originally recorded for Okeh in 1926-27). She was one of the great American songwriters. Johnson was no slouch either, and the rest of the songs are his. Never fully committed to the blues as a way of life, Johnson is often much more drawn to romantic love as subject matter, though he manages to fit it nicely into the 12-bar blues format.

Added to the mix is pianist Cliff Jackson, heard once before with the Swingville All Stars.

Welcome back, Miss Spivey.