WATCH
Joe Beckett (left) and Righteous Jolly play blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson and DJ Chris Albertson respectively in CTC's world premiere of Blues in My Soul: The Legend and Legacy of Lonnie Johnson. Photo courtesy of City Theater Company
Bluesman’s Story
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Wilmington playwright David Robson brings to light the story of guitarist Lonnie Johnson Caption. Photo by SonjasEye Photography
By Ken Mammarella
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forgotten but tremendously influential guitar hero and his conflicted and complex relationship with a Philadelphia DJ is the heart of a play getting its world premiere by City Theater Company. Blues in My Soul: The Legend and Legacy of Lonnie Johnson runs March 18, 19, 25 and 26. “I’ve become a little obsessed with Lonnie Johnson, maybe because I can identify with him,” said playwright David Robson. “We all want to have some kind of meaning, some kind of impact. When you look at the things he did, who he was and who he influenced, there’s no doubt he had an impact.” Johnson was “the first guitarist to bring the guitarist forward” in performance, Robson said. Musicians he influenced are legends themselves, including Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley (who recorded several Johnson songs), T-Bone Walker, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, B.B. King and Eric Clapton.
Robson was inspired by a 2013 production of The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith at People’s Light and felt there was a dramatic hook in the life of Johnson, her colleague. The catalyst for his show is Chris Albertson, a DJ and record producer, who in 1959 tracked down Johnson, who had given up on music and was a janitor at a Center City hotel. “Like many Black artists, much of what Lonnie had done had been taken from him,” Robson said. “He’d been duped by shady record executives and promoters.” So Albertson had to earn his trust, then convince him to return to making music. “The play is really an imagined conversation,” with music.
Robson wrote the first draft in 2014, and it sat in a drawer until he ran into Joe Trainor, City Theater’s veteran music director, and they talked about working together. Robson offered his script. In 2021, they gathered a cast at Robson’s North Wilmington home for a reading that gave Robson ideas on rewriting. (Robson’s very familiar with writing: He lists 21 plays on DavidRobsonplay.org; has won two playwriting fellowships and three grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts; has written a dozen books; and is an English professor at Delaware County Community College.) ►
MARCH 2022 | OUTANDABOUTNOW.COM
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