Top Ten Reasons Why the Most Influential Guitarist in the World is Django Reinhardt
10. No other guitarist, living or dead, has inspired so many luthiers to make guitars that look specifically like his: Gitane, Manouche, Ehlers, Risto Ivanovsky, Draleon, Patenotte, Cigano, David Hodson, Shelly Park, Michael Dunn, Dell Arte, and scads of others.
9. No other guitarist, living or dead, for that matter, has a mandolin designed to look like the guitars he played. True story. Made by David Hodson. It’s called the Djangolin. Cute little bugger.
8. No other guitarist, living or dead, has given his name to an open-source online news web framework, or for that matter…
7. …a series of major international programming conferences. DjangoCon, yes. EuroDjangoCon, yes. SegoviaCon—nope. EuroHendrixCon—I don’t think so. AsiaVanHalenCon—hey, you’re really starting to sound desperate. Hang it up.
6. No other guitarist, living or dead, has inspired so many musicians to name their band after his. Hot Club of San Francisco. Hot Club of Detroit. Rose City Hot Club. Clearwater Hot Club. Hot Club of London. Parisota Hot Club. 12th Avenue Hot Club. Red Rock Hot Club. Hot Club of New Orleans. Hot Club of Boulder. Hot Club of Marin. Hot Club of Cowtown. Hot Club of Huntsville. Hot Club of Las Vegas. Hot Club of Spokane. Hot Club de Paris. Hot Club of Hulaville. Hot Club of Phoenix. Golden Gate Hot Club. Hot Club de Concord. Hot Club Pacific. Hot Club de Norvege. Hot Club de Lyon. Hot Club du Jour. Hot Club of Mars. Hot Club Sandwich. No, I’m not joking.
5. No other guitarist, living or dead, has guitar festivals in his name in New York, Fort Worth, Samois sur Seine, Whidbey Island, Mill Valley, Hildesheim, Laguna Beach, Liberchies (where he was born), Los Angeles, Washington, Austin, San Francisco, Albuquerque and even New Caledonia, in the Pacific Ocean. Probably more, for all I know.
4. Elderly Instruments, the fine megaguitarstore in Lansing, Michigan, sells T-shirts featuring only eight guitarists: Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Wes Montgomery, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, B.B. King, Elmore James and Django Reinhardt. Django outsells all the others.
3. No other guitarist, living or dead, has restaurants named after him in Atlanta, New York, Des Moines and Crested Butte.
2. No other guitarist, living or dead, inspires people to try to imitate him by playing with two fingers. And finally….
1. No other guitarist, living or dead, has had a spaghetti western named after him. Seriously. Django (1966). Directed by Sergio Corbucci. Look it up.
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Django was not the most influential guitarist of the 20th century. LONNIE JOHNSON was.
Django was and is celebrated as a great popular guitarist, even a genius, but his own playing was rather unique and has not, in reality, been widely adopted. In a basic inspirational sense,he has, however, affected many other guitarists, from jazz players to BB King.
But as I document in my forthcoming book, The Second Most Important Musician of the 20th Century – the Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music and Society, it was Lonnie Johnson who was the primary figure who first recorded genuinely innovative, virtuoso lead guitar lines in jazz. He did so much more than Eddie Lang, who was significant, but gets more credit as the initiator of lead jazz guitar than merited – just listen to the 10 historic duets Lonnie and Eddie made, where Eddie defers to Lonnie to play lead the great majority of the time and Lonnie shows far more creative, inspired and improvised lead playing. Lonnie was the true Founding Father of lead and solo guitar for jazz and for blues – and ultimately, for all of popular music.
Further, Lonnie J was the prime pioneer force in development of the EXPRESSIVE capacities of the guitar, starting with his first recordings in November 1925, and especially demonstrated in his stunning solo guitar instrumentals of Feb 1928, “Away Down in the Alley Blues” and 3 others, as well as the 10 guitar duets with Eddie Lang in 1928-1929. In addition, there were his vital contributions to 3 landmark Louis Armstrong-Hot Five recordings in December 1927 and 4 recordings with Duke Ellington’s band in fall 1928, especially the masterpiece, “The Mooche”, featuring Lonnie J.
His profound influence on BB King, who in turn, was hugely influential on so many Blues and Rock guitarists over the last 60 years must be noted (as BB himself has gladly acknowledged). That influence especially included the extraordinary TONE Lonnie got on the guitar – also part of his unparalleled expressive guitar work. (That tone, BTW, was far superior to the tone Django achieved.)
Further, we know that Django was most greatly influenced by Louis Armstrong, and he listened to “Savoy Blues” with Lonnie J’s sparkling lead guitar work (and no doubt he also listened to and was influenced by the other 2 Louis and Lonnie gems, “Hot and Bothered” and “I’m Not Rough”).
Lonnie Johnson’s influence was simply immense, from Eddie Lang himself, to Django to Charlie Christian, to BB King to Buddy Guy to Eric Clapton and many, many others. As BB King told me, “When you mention guitar, the first thing I think of is Lonnie Johnson.”
Enjoyed your list. I got to number 6 and thought, “what about Hot Club Sandwich, of Seattle?” But you got ’em.
Love ’em!
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