Robert Johnson and the electric guitar

What is it about Robert Johnson that invites speculation? From his (re)appearance in popular music in the 1960s, to his resurgence in the early 1990s, he must be the African-American musician about whom most drivel has been written and spoken.

Now that the biography by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow is out—my review: essential reading—, speculation should diminish significantly. Never mind that, I now offer you a bit of guessing, at least to provide some context regarding Johnson and the electric guitar, an instrument with a tradition in blues and rock heavily influenced by Johnson, even though he never really played it himself.

The electric Julian Lage

Photo by Nathan West

Julian Lage is one of the great guitar players of his generation. A child prodigy, as documented in Jules at Eight, he stopped being a promise a long time ago. Today, he regularly partakes in a wide variety of projects, but his own trio—with double bass and drums—is the unit where he shines the brightest.

When he last played London, in July 2018, at one point he asked what day it was, not so much because he'd lost track of the calendar—although that's the life of the touring musician—but in appreciation for the audience who'd packed Camden Town's Jazz Café on a Tuesday to hear, as he said, jazz.

Electric guitar—Who's on first?

When I blogged about Charlie Christian's centennial last July, I said that discussions about who was first to record a regular, or "Spanish", (not lap-steel or "Hawaiian") electric guitar seemed pointless, given the fortuitous nature of such a feat. Interestingly, literature on early electric guitar is mostly focused on the gear rather than the music. The game-changer that was Charlie Christian may have something to do with that, but let that not stop us from having at least a glance on players from the pre-Christian era.

Gage Brewer (on lap steel). Picture from the
Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum

Notes on Charlie Christian's centennial

Today it's the 100th anniversary of Charlie Christian's birthday. For a special 2h30m programme we've done (in Spanish) in El Club de Jazz, I've spent the last few months re-visiting his complete output (except for a very few items, such as Bill Savory's airchecks housed at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem). My playlist tells me that it's 239 tracks long—about 13 hours straight—including the ones where Christian's presumed to play with Benny Goodman's orchestra. On top of that, I've listened to other guitar players (Bus Etri doing "Flying Home" in 1940, anyone?), plus a generous helping of string music from Texas and Oklahoma also known as Western Swing.

Charlie Christian at the Metronome All-Star session
February 7, 1940. Courtesy of Leo Valdés.

Because it is unavoidable that some of the same old stories will be regurgitated for the centennial, I've jotted down a few notes about CC: