Despite the double billing, this is actually a collection of four Lonnie Johnson LPs made from 1946-62, one of which teams him with Victoria Spivey, plus the duets that Johnson recorded with Eddie Lang in the 1920s.

It’s a shame that some of the dozen or so 78 sides that Spivey and Johnson recorded in 1928 aren’t represented here, as they’d make a fascinating contrast to their 1961 Woman Blues session which is included.

That said, the two of them make a great blues team, and Spivey’s spiky piano playing complements Johnson’s more urbane guitar. They’re perfectly matched, vocally and instrumentally, on ‘Let’s Ride Tonight’, and the witty ‘I Got Men All Over This Town’. The other albums collected here show that in 1962 Johnson’s instrumental talent still shone brightly not least on ‘Blues After Hours’ from the 1962 Another Night To Cry LP. By then he was using the electric instrument, but his mastery of the acoustic guitar was still apparent in the tracks collected here from the 78s that made up his Blues album from 1946, though it is at its extrovert best in his virtuoso duets with Lang from 1926, notably the celebrated ‘Hot Fingers’.

Finally, the Lonesome Road album from the 1950s shows just why this fine singer and guitarist inspired the stage name of young Tony Donegan, who heard him in London at the start of that decade.