Baton Rouge guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jonathon “Boogie” Long has announced his new album Courage In The Chaos, set for release November 14th via Myrical Media. The 12-song collection is the most honest and musically adventurous statement of his career, drawing from decades of songs and experiences that chart his life as one of Louisiana’s fiercest blues-rock voices.
Alongside today’s announcement, Boogie has released the album’s lead single, “A Fool Can See,” with an accompanying music video. Built around a hook that recalls fool’s gold—something that shines until you get close—the track sets the tone for the album’s raw honesty. “I kept hearing this idea of fool’s gold – how something shines until you get close. The rest wrote itself,” Boogie says. Over a swaggering groove, the lyric clocks all the little tells that reveal the truth of a thing – a relationship, an industry promise, the stories we tell ourselves to get through the night. His guitar is vocal here – bends that sound like someone choosing not to say what they’re thinking, then finally saying it anyway.
Jonathon “Boogie” Long learned to make a guitar talk before he learned to make sense of the world. He grew up in Baton Rouge in a family where music wasn’t a hobby so much as a language. His parents sang gospel and led services. His grandfather preached fire-and-brimstone sermons, strumming simple chords and urging the boy at his side to “pick it.” By six, Jonathon was carrying a little guitar into churches, nursing homes, even prisons, picking “Amazing Grace” and watching rooms change temperature. “Music is a universal language,” he says. “It can make a mad person calm or a calm person crazy.” That was the lesson that stuck.
Lessons with his mentor Mark Wascom taught him how to find things by ear and trust feel over theory. Blues jams with Louisiana elders like Kenny Neal and Larry Garner gave him a second education. At eleven he had his first paying gig. At fourteen he walked into the principal’s office, said he was done, and went on the road with Henry Turner Jr. A teenage side-man in grown-man rooms, he learned to travel light, listen hard, and take care of himself.
The long apprenticeship made him fast, then it made him patient. Years with New Orleans soul titan Luther Kent recalibrated him. “I tried to be the hot-shot,” he admits, “then Luther’s band slapped me back to reality.” JazzFest sets with the big band taught him space and seasoning. In 2011, Guitar Center’s King of the Blues crown put a national spotlight on his fretwork. Bookers and managers followed. So did the usual mix of breaks and bruises.
