Lonnie Johnson was a guitarist and vocalist who pioneered the use of the guitar in jazz and was just as comfortable singing the blues. Victoria Spivey was a major blues singer in the 20s and 30s. In the year of 1928 they recorded a quartet of songs that are landmarks of early blues. As was often the case, the songs were recorded in two parts adorning both sides of a 78rpm record. The internet archive’s 78rpm collection has collected all four songs totaling eight tracks allowing us to hear these rather rare gems that are now in the public domain. Both Johnson and Spivey continued to record separately all the way up to the 70s and did reunite for four more songs in 1961 but these 1928 masterpieces still ring with all the authenticity and hard living you expect from the blues.

The four songs are “Furniture Man Blues”, “Black Snake Blues”, “Toothache Blues”, and “You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now”. They all feature the back and forth dueling style of the blues duet and are loaded with double entendres. “Furniture Man Blues” is my favorite of the four and it is has a theme that repeatedly shows up in blues and black minstrel songs; that of the furniture man coming to repossess the furniture while the poor sweet lady tries to talk him out of it. I found this interesting essay that not only tells the history of these songs but has the lyrics to this old classic by Johnson and Spivey. The contrast between part 1 and 2 is quite revealing. The first half has Spivey pleading with Johnson to let her keep her furniture while Johnson moans that he’ll lose his job if he does that. In Part 2 the piano accompaniment become a bit seductive as Spivey sweet talks and bribes him into leaving her belongings alone (”When I get through, you’ll cancel every debt I owe”) and Johnson succumbs to the temptation:

Spivey: Come into my parlor, furniture man, and close the door
Johnson: Baby I can’t stand it. You will get me nervous, I’m sure
Spivey: I got something for you
Johnson: Why ain’t you said that long before?

The other four songs are just as clever and usually as obvious. The songs of Johnson and Spivey are all about the troubles in life, the endless battle between man and woman and, most importantly, a lot of fun. All together there is 24 minutes of good time blues on this excellent collection.

All tracks are available in Ogg Vorbis, 64kbps MP3, or VBR MP3. The VBR MP3s are about 96kbps MP3 which is just fine for these monaural and slightly scratchy transfers from the original recordings.

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