Home → Overview → Blues Artists → Lazy Lester

Lazy Lester

Photo by John G. Rockwood

They Call Him Lazy

Leslie Johnson was born June 20, 1933 in the small town of Torras, Louisiana. As a boy, Lazy Lester purchased a harmonica and Little Walter’s famous Juke record. Lazy Lester began to blow harp, and in a relatively short time became somewhat proficient. One of his brothers had a guitar, which Lazy Lester also had learned to strum. He credits Jimmy Reed and Little Walter as his main blues influences. But Lazy Lester isn’t shy about telling anyone that his first love was and still is country – the real, traditional kind. He got hooked early on Jimmie Rogers. In his late teens, Lazy Lester joined his first ever band, a group called the Rhythm Rockers. The group played primarily high school dances, and Lazy Lester also began to sit in with Guitar Gable’s band on club gigs. It was in the mid-1950s, on a bus, that fate turned Lazy Lester’s way, and the roots to what would become classic music began to grow. As Lazy Lester tells it, he was living in Rayne, Louisiana at the time and was on the bus riding home. Lightnin’ Slim, who was already an established recording artist, was also on the bus and was headed to Crowley to cut a record at Jay Miller’s Studio, where so much of the material for the Nashville-based Excello Records was being recorded. Since Crowley was just seven miles further than Rayne and because Lazy Lester had a serious itch to be around big-time music making, Lester decided to stay on the bus and accompany Lightnin' Slim to the studio. When they got there, the scheduled harp player, Wild Bill Phillips, didn’t show for the session. Lazy Lester told Lightnin' Slim that he had actually played with Lightnin' Slim’s band and thought he could handle the harp parts for the session. Remarkably, Lightnin' Slim and Miller gave Lazy Lester that chance, and he did not disappoint. A classic pairing was born, and Lazy Lester became a mainstay on Lightnin' Slim’s Excello recordings and his gigs. He’d follow Lightnin' Slim’s guitar licks with short, stabbing solos after Lightnin' Slim’s trademark prodding of, "Blow your harmonica, son". Producer Jay Miller was impressed by Lazy Lester’s work with Lightnin’ Slim, and in 1957 Lazy Lester debuted as a lead artist on Excello, recording I’m Gonna Leave You Baby backed with the instrumental Lester’s Stomp with accompaniment from Guitar Gable’s band, which included Gable’s brother Yank on bass and Clarence "Jockey" Etienne on drums. Before the record’s release, Miller had decided that Lazy Lester had more of a ring to it than Lester Johnson. Miller is said to have come up the nickname based on Lazy Lester’s slow, lazy style of talking. And as Lazy Lester’s said, "I was never in a hurry to do nothing". In any case, the name’s stuck for almost 50 years now. Lazy Lester’s first legitimate hits came in 1958 with the release of I’m A Lover Not A Fighter backed with Sugar Coated Love. For almost a decade, Lazy Lester remained as a regular Excello artist, made 15 records for the company and played on sessions for Lightnin’ Slim, Slim Harpo, Katie Webster, Lonesome Sundown, Whispering Smith, Silas Hogan, Henry Gray, Tabby Thomas, Nathan Abshire, Johnny Jano and many, many others. In 1987, Lazy Lester recorded Rides Again for the Blue Horizon label in England. The record won a W.C. Handy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In 1988, Alligator Records released Harp & Soul, further alerting the world that Lazy Lester was done resting. Since, he’s recorded two records for Antone’s and one direct-to-disc for APO Records. In 1998, he was inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame. In 2004, he played at Radio City Music Hall in New York as part of Martin Scorsese’s Year of the Blues super concert that resulted in his Lightning In A Bottle documentary.

Home → Overview → Blues Artists → Lazy Lester