According to The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, the term "Jelly Roll" can be traced to a composition named "Original Jelly Roll Blues", usually shortened to and known as "Jelly Roll Blues", an early jazz fox-trot composed by Jelly Roll Morton. Copyrighted and published by Ferd "Jelly Roll" Morton as sheet music in 1915, "Original Jelly-Roll Blues" is referenced by name in the 1917 Shelton Brooks composition "Darktown Strutters' Ball". First recorded by Morton as a piano solo in 1924, he rerecorded it with his Red Hot Peppers in Chicago two years later, but, being an instrumental it was not Hokum.
However, three years later, Lil Johnson's song, "You'll Never Miss Your Jelly Until Your Jelly Roller Is Gone" was recorded by Lil Johnson, known as a bawdy blues and hokum singer and composer in the 1920s and 1930s. She first recorded the suggestive "Jelly Roll" in Chicago in 1929, accompanied by pianists Montana Taylor and Charles Avery. That session resulted in five songs including "Rock That Thing". She did not return to the recording studio until 1935, when her more risqué songs included "Get 'Em from the Peanut Man (Hot Nuts)", "Anybody Want to Buy My Cabbage?", and "Press My Button (Ring My Bell)" with lyrics that include "Come on baby, let's have some fun. Just put your hot dog in my bun". She also recorded a version of "Keep A-Knockin'", a song that later became a hit for Little Richard in the 1950s.
From her second session onwards, she hit up a striking partnership with the ragtime influenced pianist "Black Bob" Hudson, who provided ebullient support to Johnson's increasingly suggestive lyrics. In 1936 and 1937, she recorded over 40 songs, mostly on the Vocalion label, some featuring Big Bill Broonzy on guitar and Lee Collins on trumpet. Her other songs included "Was I Drunk", "My Stove's in Good Condition", "Take Your Hand Off It" and "Buck Naked Blues". Although Morton's instrumental "Jelly Roll Blues" is the origin of the term, it was Lil Johnson's explicit lyrics that gave "Jelly Roll" it's unmistakable bawdy reputation. All her songs were sung in a vigorous and sometimes abrasive way, and have been anthologized on many later blues collections. There is no record of what became of Johnson after her recording career ended in 1937, but her legacy lived on with numerous songs by diverse performers in the "Jelly Roll" tradition.
In 1925, guitarist Lonnie Johnson entered and won a blues contest at the Booker T. Washington Theatre in St. Louis. The prize was a recording contract with Okeh Records. To his regret, he was then typed as a blues artist, and later found it difficult to be regarded as anything else. He later said, "I guess I would have done anything to get recorded – it just happened to be a blues contest, so I sang the blues." Between 1925 and 1932 he made about 130 recordings for the Okeh label (many were good sellers). He was called to New York to record with the leading blues singers of the day including Victoria Spivey and country blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander. He also toured with Bessie Smith's show.
In December 1927, Johnson recorded in Chicago as a guest artist with Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, paired with banjoist Johnny St. Cyr. He played on the sides "I'm Not Rough", "Savoy Blues", and "Hotter Than That." In 1928 he recorded "Hot and Bothered", "Move Over", and "The Mooche" with Duke Ellington on Okeh Records and he also recorded with a group called The Chocolate Dandies (aka McKinney's Cotton Pickers). He pioneered the guitar solo on the 1927 track "6/88 Glide" and many of his early recordings showed him playing 12-string guitar solos in a style that influenced such future jazz guitarists as Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, and gave the instrument new meaning as a jazz voice. He excelled in purely instrumental pieces, some of which he recorded with the white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang, whom he teamed up with in 1929. These recordings were among the first in history to feature black and white musicians performing together, but Lang was credited as Blind Willie Dunn to disguise the fact.
Beginning in 1939, during sessions for the Bluebird label with pianist Joshua Altheimer, Roosevelt Sykes and Blind John Davis among others, Lonnie Johnson recorded 34 tracks for Bluebird, including "He's a Jelly Roll Baker," which topped the "race music" chart in 1940.
After World War II, Johnson made the transition to rhythm and blues, recording for King Records in Cincinnati, and having a major hit in 1948 with "Tomorrow Night", written by Sam Coslow and Will Grosz. This topped the Billboard "Race Records" chart for 7 weeks, also made # 19 on the pop charts, and had reported sales of three million copies. A blues ballad with piano accompaniment and background singers, the song bore little resemblance to much of Johnson's earlier blues and jazz material. The follow-ups "Pleasing You", "So Tired" and "Confused" were also major R&B hits.
In 1952 Johnson toured England. Tony Donegan, a British musician who played on the same bill, paid tribute to Johnson by changing his name to Lonnie Donegan. After returning to the U.S., Johnson moved to Philadelphia. His career had been a roller coaster ride that sometimes took him away from music. In between great musical accomplishments, he had found it necessary to take menial jobs that ranged from working in a steel foundry to mopping floors as a janitor. He was working at Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Hotel in 1959 when WHAT-FM disc jockey Chris Albertson happened upon him and produced a comeback album, for the Prestige Bluesville Records label, titled "Blues by Lonnie Johnson". This was followed by other Prestige albums, including "Blues & Ballads" with former Duke Ellington boss, Elmer Snowden. There followed a Chicago engagement for Johnson at the Playboy Club and this succession of events placed him back on the music scene at a fortuitous time as young audiences were embracing folk music and many veteran performers were stepping out of obscurity. In short order, Lonnie Johnson found himself reunited with Duke Ellington and his orchestra and appearing as special guest at an all-star folk concert, at Town Hall, New York City.
In 1961, Johnson was reunited with his old Okeh recording partner, Victoria Spivey, for another Prestige album, "Idle Hours". In 1963 he toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival show, with Muddy Waters and others, and recorded an album with Otis Spann.
In May 1965, he performed at a club in Toronto before an audience of four people. Two weeks later, his shows at a different club attracted a larger audience and Johnson, also encouraged by Toronto's relative racial harmony, decided to move to the city. He opened his own club, 'Home of the Blues', on Toronto's Yorkville Avenue in 1966, but it was a business failure and Johnson was ultimately fired by the man who became owner. Throughout the rest of the decade he recorded and played local clubs in Canada as well as embarking on several regional tours.
In March 1969, he was hit by a car while walking on a sidewalk in Toronto. Johnson was seriously injured, suffering a broken hip and kidney injuries. A benefit concert was held on May 4, 1969, featuring two dozen acts, including Ian and Sylvia, John Lee Hooker and Hagood Hardy. Johnson never fully recovered from his injuries and suffered what was described as a stroke in August. He was able to return to the stage for one performance at Massey Hall on February 23, 1970, walking with the aid of a cane to sing a couple of songs with Buddy Guy and receiving a standing ovation. He died on June 16, 1970 and although a funeral was held for him at Mount Hope Cemetery in Toronto by his friends and fellow musicians, his family members insisted on transferring the body to Philadelphia where he was buried. At the time, Johnson was reported to have been "virtually broke."
In 1993, Smithsonian Folkways released "The Complete Folkways Recordings", Johnson's anthology of music on Folkways Records. He had been featured on several compilation blues albums, on Folkways, beginning in the 1960s. Johnson was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 1997.
His "Mr. Jelly Roll Baker" is one of the more tame and often covered examples of the Hokum Jelly Roll theme and is a good representation of his enduring skill as a composer, singer and instrumentalist.
~ Lonnie Johnson ~
Mr. Jelly Roll Baker
~ Leon Redbone ~
Mr. Jelly Roll Baker
~ Joe Bonamassa ~
