'AVID Roots presents the latest release in our Four Classic Albums series with a re-mastered 2CD second release from Lonnie Johnson & Victoria Spivey, complete with original artwork, liner notes and personnel details; "Blues"; "Lonesome Road"; "Victoria Spivey with Lonnie Johnson: Woman Blues" and "Another Night to Cry" plus nine bonus singles. Born into a large musical family in New Orleans, Lonnie Johnson was always much more than just the bluesman that he became known as during his long and intermittent career. He began learning to play music from a very young age tackling and mastering the piano, guitar, violin and mandolin and quickly finding his place in the family musical unit. By his early teens Lonnie was primarily playing guitar and violin in his father’s band and by 1917 he joined a revue that toured England! On his return in 1919 he discovered that tragedy had struck his family. All but one brother, James, had died in the 1918 influenza epidemic of that year. With James alongside him, Lonnie later settled in St. Louis in 1921 where he began performing as a duo with his brother. During these early years he was probably playing as much jazz as blues but after winning a blues competition in 1925 he was signed to the Okeh Records label and this pretty much sealed his reputation as a blues singer and a superb guitarist. He tried to break out of the strictly blues field in 1948 when he recorded the famed “Tomorrow Night” for King Records, topping the Billboard race charts for 7 weeks and even the pop charts reaching number 19 selling 3 million copies, an extraordinary amount of sales even for those faraway non digital days...... (album notes)