Drop G tuning: DGDGBE low to high
Lonnie Johnson’s success of 1948.
My version is based upon the plan of Willie Salomon, a great german-american bluesartist. It’s an ingenious mix of Lonnie’s old style and brand-new style. The old style refers to his recordings he made in between 1925-37 and uses his “fetish-tuning” drop G (aka G6 tuning, DGDGBE low to high). The brand-new style refers to how he played from 1938 on, strumming with a flatpick in standard tuning.
Here’s Willie’s great performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnnXa8t8i20
Although Lonnie played electric guitar in the years he was found (1959-70) he recorded a really great variation of “Too Late to Cry” on an acoustic guitar while on tour with the AFBF in 1963. He used Muddy Waters’ acoustic of unidentified make https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDRg3XMfU94 It’s a wonderful efficiency, so delicate and lotsa feeling.
I taped and teach numerous of his postwar songs https://www.daddystovepipe.com/lonnie-johnson-volume-2–postwar-style.php
I’m playing a 1927 Gibson L3
