Robert Johnson
Encyclopedia
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues
singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend, including a Faust
ian myth. As an itinerant performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints
, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson enjoyed little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime.
His records sold poorly during his lifetime, and it was only after the first reissue of his recordings on LP
in 1961 that his work reached a wider audience. Johnson is now recognized as a master of the blues, particularly of the Mississippi
Delta blues
style. He is credited by many rock musicians as an important influence; Eric Clapton
has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived." Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
as an "Early Influence" in their first induction ceremony in 1986. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone
's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
, possibly on May 8, 1911, to Julia Major Dodds (born October 1874) and Noah Johnson (born December 1884). Julia was married to Charles Dodds (born February 1865), a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker with whom she gave birth to 10 children. Dodds had been forced by a lynch mob to leave Hazlehurst following a dispute with white landowners. Julia herself left Hazlehurst with baby Robert, but after some two years, sent him to live in Memphis with Dodds, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer.
Around 1919, Robert rejoined his mother in the area around Tunica
and Robinsonville, Mississippi. Julia's new husband was known as Dusty Willis; he was 24 years her junior. Robert was remembered by some residents as "Little Robert Dusty." However, he was registered at the Indian Creek School in Tunica as Robert Spencer. He is listed as Robert Spencer in the 1920 census with Will and Julia Willis in Lucas, Arkansas, where they lived for a short time. Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927 and the quality of his signature on his marriage certificate suggests that he studied continuously and was relatively well educated for a boy of his background. One school friend, Willie Coffee, has been discovered and filmed. He recalls that Robert was already noted for playing the harmonica and jaw harp
. He also remembers that Robert was absent for long periods, which suggests that he may have been living and studying in Memphis.
After school, Robert adopted the surname of his natural father, signing himself as Robert Johnson on the certificate of his marriage to sixteen-year-old Virginia Travis in February 1929. She died shortly after in childbirth. Surviving relatives of Virginia told the blues researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick that this was a divine punishment for Robert's decision to sing secular songs, known as 'selling your soul to the Devil'. McCormick believes that Johnson himself accepted the phrase as a description of his resolve to abandon the settled life of a husband and farmer to become a full-time blues musician.
Around this time, the noted blues musician Son House
moved to Robinsonville where his musical partner, Willie Brown
, already lived. Late in life, House remembered Johnson as a 'little boy' who was a competent harmonica player but an embarrassingly bad guitarist. Soon after, Johnson left Robinsonville for the area around Martinsville, close to his birthplace Hazlehurst
, possibly searching for his natural father. Here he perfected the guitar style of Son House and learned other styles from Isaiah "Ike" Zimmerman. Ike Zimmerman was rumoured to have learned supernaturally to play guitar by visiting graveyards at midnight.
When Johnson next appeared in Robinsonville, he had seemed to have acquired a miraculous guitar technique. House was interviewed at a time when the legend of Johnson's pact with the Devil was well known among blues researchers. He was asked whether he attributed Johnson's technique to this pact, and his equivocal answers have been taken as confirmation.
While living in Martinsville, Johnson fathered a child with Vergie Mae Smith. He also married Caletta Craft in May 1931. In 1932, the couple moved to Clarksdale
in the Delta
. Here Caletta fell ill and Johnson abandoned her for a career as a 'walking' (itinerant) musician.
. He was, however, remembered as exceptional in his restlessness, in the number of places he stayed in and, by some accounts, in his determination to avoid agricultural labour. From 1932 to his death in 1938, Johnson lived his life in a manner that makes biography scarcely possible. He moved frequently between such large centers as Memphis, Tennessee
and Helena, Arkansas
and the smaller towns of the Mississippi Delta
and neighboring regions of Mississippi
and Arkansas
. On occasion, he travelled much further. Fellow blues musician Johnny Shines
accompanied him to Chicago, Texas, New York, Canada, Kentucky, and Indiana. Henry Townsend
shared a musical engagement with him in St Louis. In many places he stayed with members of his large extended family, or with women friends. He did not marry again but formed some long term relationships with women to whom he would return periodically. One was Estella Coleman, the mother of the blues musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. In other places he stayed with a woman seduced at his first performance. In each location, Johnson's hosts were largely ignorant of his life elsewhere. He actually used different names in different places; the most recent count is eight different surnames. Biographers have looked for consistency from musicians who knew Johnson in different contexts: Shines, who travelled extensively with him; Lockwood who knew him as his mother's partner; David "Honeyboy" Edwards whose cousin Willie Mae Powell had a relationship with Johnson.
From a mass of partial, conflicting and inconsistent eye-witness accounts , biographers have attempted to summarize Johnson's character. "He was well mannered, he was soft spoken, he was indecipherable". "As for his character, everyone seems to agree that, while he was pleasant and outgoing in public, in private he was reserved and liked to go his own way". "Musicians who knew Johnson testified that he was a nice guy and fairly average — except, of course, for his musical talent, his weakness for whiskey and women, and his commitment to the road."
When Johnson arrived in a new town, he would play for tips on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. Musical associates stated in live performances Johnson often did not focus on his dark and complex original compositions, but instead pleased audiences by performing more well-known pop standards of the day – and not necessarily blues. With an ability to pick up tunes at first hearing, Johnson had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted, and certain of his contemporaries later remarked on Johnson's interest in jazz and country. Johnson also had an uncanny ability to establish a rapport with his audience; in every town in which he stopped, Johnson would establish ties to the local community that would serve him well when he passed through again a month or a year later.
Fellow musician Shines was 17 when he met Johnson in 1933. He estimated Johnson was maybe a year older than himself. In Samuel Charters' Robert Johnson, the author quotes Shines as saying:
During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-term relationship with Estella Coleman, a woman about fifteen years his elder and the mother of musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. Johnson reportedly cultivated a woman to look after him in each town he played in. Johnson supposedly asked homely young women living in the country with their families whether he could go home with them, and in most cases the answer was 'yes'...until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was ready to move on.
In 1941, Alan Lomax
learned from Muddy Waters
that Johnson had performed in the Clarksdale, Mississippi
area. By 1959, Samuel Charters
could only add Will Shade
of the Memphis Jug Band
remembered Johnson had once briefly played with him in West Memphis, Arkansas
. In the last year of his life, Johnson is believed to have traveled to St. Louis
and possibly Illinois
, and then to some states in the East. He spent some time in Memphis
and traveled through the Mississippi Delta and Arkansas
.
In 1938, Columbia Records
producer John H. Hammond
, who owned some of Johnson's records, had record producer Don Law seek out Johnson out to book him for the first "From Spirituals to Swing
" concert at Carnegie Hall
in New York. On learning of Johnson's death, Hammond replaced him with Big Bill Broonzy
, but still played two of Johnson's records from the stage.
in Jackson, Mississippi
, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas
. At the recording session, held November 23, 1936 in room 414 at the Gunter Hotel
in San Antonio
which Brunswick Records had set up as a temporary studio, Johnson reportedly performed facing the wall. This has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer, a conclusion played up in the inaccurate liner notes of the 1961 album King of the Delta Blues Singers
. Ry Cooder
speculates that Johnson played facing a corner to enhance the sound of the guitar, a technique he calls "corner loading". In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played sixteen selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these.
Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On In My Kitchen
", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues
", "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
" and "Cross Road Blues
". The first songs to appear were "Terraplane Blues
" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", probably the only recordings of his that he would live to hear. "Terraplane Blues" became a moderate regional hit, selling 5,000 copies.
His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", was part of a cycle of spin-offs and response songs that began with Leroy Carr
's "Mean Mistreater Mama" (1934). According to Wald
, it was "the most musically complex in the cycle" and stood apart from most rural blues as a through-composed lyric, rather than an arbitrary collection of more-or-less unrelated verses. In contrast to most Delta players, Johnson had absorbed the idea of fitting a composed song into the three minutes of a 78 rpm side. Most of Johnson's "somber and introspective" songs and performances come from his second recording session.
In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas
, for another recording session in a makeshift studio at the Brunswick Record Building, 508 Park Avenue. Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Because Johnson did two takes of most songs during these sessions, and recordings of those takes survived, more opportunity exists to compare different performances of a single song by Johnson than for any other blues performer of his time and place.
By the time he died, at least six of his records had been released in the South as race records.
s music blog from May 2010, Jon Wilde states that "the common consensus among musicologists is that we've been listening to [Robert] Johnson at least 20% too fast;" i.e., that "the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78 [rpm records], or else were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting." He does not give a source for this statement. Former Sony music executive Lawrence Cohn, who won a Grammy for the label's 1991 reissue of Johnson's works, "acknowledges there's a possibility Johnson's 1936–37 recordings were sped up, since the OKeh/Vocalion family of labels, which originally issued the material, was 'notorious' for altering the speed of its releases. 'Sometimes it was 78 rpms, sometimes it was 81 rpms,' he says. It's impossible to check the original sources, since the metal stampers used to duplicate the original 78 discs disappeared years ago."
. He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles (24 km) from Greenwood. Differing accounts and theories attempt to shed light on the events preceding his death. A story often told is that one evening Johnson began flirting with a woman at a dance, the wife of the juke joint
owner, according to rumor, unaware that the bottle of whiskey she gave to Johnson had been poisoned by her husband. In another version, she was a married woman unrelated to the juke joint owner. Johnson was allegedly offered an open bottle of whiskey that was laced with strychnine
. Fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson
allegedly advised him never to drink from an offered bottle that had already been opened. According to Williamson, Johnson replied, "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand." Soon after, he was offered another open bottle of whiskey, also laced with strychnine, and accepted it. Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after drinking from the bottle and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days, his condition steadily worsened and witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain—symptoms which are consistent with strychnine poisoning
.
Musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick claims to have tracked down the man who murdered Johnson, and to have obtained a confession from him in a personal interview. McCormick has declined to reveal the man's name, however.
In his book Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson, Tom Graves uses expert testimony from toxicologists to dispute the notion that Johnson died of strychnine poisoning. He states that strychnine has such a distinctive odor and taste that it cannot be disguised, even in strong liquor. However, according to the CDC
, strychnine is bitter but odorless. He also claims that a significant amount of strychnine would have to be consumed in one sitting to be fatal, and that death from the poison would occur within hours, not days. This observation was also noted in a recent Guitar World
comment from contemporary David "Honeyboy" Edwards, who said that it couldn't have been strychnine, since he would have died much sooner than the three days he suffered.
The exact location of his grave is officially unknown; three different markers have been erected at possible church cemetery burial sites outside of Greenwood.
An interviewee in the documentary The Search for Robert Johnson
(1991) suggests that due to poverty and lack of transportation Johnson is most likely to have been buried in a pauper's grave (or "potter's field") very near where he perished.
at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil
) who took the guitar and tuned
it. The "Devil" played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. This was in effect, a deal with the Devil
mirroring the legend of Faust
. In exchange for his soul, Robert Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.
, Edward Komara and Elijah Wald
, who sees the legend as largely dating from Johnson's rediscovery by white fans more than two decades after his death. Son House
once told the story to Pete Welding
as an explanation of Johnson's astonishingly rapid mastery of the guitar. Welding reported it as a serious belief in a widely read article in Down Beat
in 1966. Other interviewers failed to elicit any confirmation from House and there were fully two years between House's observation of Johnson as first a novice and then a master.
Further details were absorbed from the imaginative retellings by Greil Marcus
and Robert Palmer. Most significantly, the detail was added that Johnson received his gift from a large black man at a crossroads. There is dispute as to how and when the crossroads detail was attached to the Robert Johnson story. All the published evidence, including a full chapter on the subject in the biography Crossroads by Tom Graves, suggests an origin in the story of Blues musician Tommy Johnson. This story was collected from his musical associate Ishman Bracey
and his elder brother Ledell in the 1960s. One version of Ledell Johnson's account was published in David Evans
's 1971 biography of Tommy, and was repeated in print in 1982 alongside Son House's story in the widely read Searching for Robert Johnson.
In another version, Ledell placed the meeting not at a crossroads but in a graveyard. This resembles the story told to Steve LaVere that Ike Zimmerman of Hazelhurst, Mississippi learned to play the guitar at midnight while sitting on tombstones. Zimmerman is believed to have influenced the playing of the young Robert Johnson. Recent research by blues scholar Bruce Conforth
uncovered Ike Zimmerman's daughter and the story becomes clearer. Johnson and Zimmerman did practice in a graveyard at night because it was quiet and no one would disturb them, but it was not the Hazlehurst cemetery as had been believed. Johnson spent about a year living with and learning from Zimmerman, who ultimately accompanied Johnson back to the Delta to look after him. Conforth's article in Living Blues
magazine goes into much greater detail. There are now tourist attractions claiming to be "The Crossroads" at Clarksdale
and in Memphis
.
" when simply hitchhiking at night; the myth offers a literal explanation. Yet, as mentioned, most of those musicians who knew Johnson well, such as Johnny Shines, never heard him make such a claim and there is no evidence to suggest that he ever did.
In "Me And The Devil" he began, "Early this morning when you knocked upon my door/Early this morning, umb, when you knocked upon my door/And I said, 'Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go,'" before leading into "You may bury my body down by the highway side/You may bury my body, uumh, down by the highway side/So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride."
The song "Crossroads" by British psychedelic blues rock band Cream
is a cover version
of Johnson's "Cross Road Blues
", about the legend of Johnson selling his soul to the Devil at the crossroads, although Johnson's original lyrics ("Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride") suggest he was merely hitchhiking rather than signing away his soul to Lucifer in exchange for being a great blues musician.
, himself associated with crossroads—though author Tom Graves deems the connection to African deities tenuous. As folklorist Harry M. Hyatt discovered during his research in the South from 1935–1939, when African-Americans born in the 19th or early-20th century said they or anyone else had "sold their soul to the devil at the crossroads," they had a different meaning in mind. Ample evidence indicates African religious retentions surrounding Legba and the making of a "deal" (not selling the soul in the same sense as in the Faustian tradition cited by Graves) with this so-called "devil" at the crossroads.
Folk tales of bargains with the Devil have long existed in African American and European traditions, and were adapted into literature by, amongst others, Washington Irving
in "The Devil and Tom Walker
" in 1824, and by Stephen Vincent Benet
in "The Devil and Daniel Webster
" in 1936. In the 1930s, Hyatt recorded many tales of banjo players, fiddlers, card shark
s, and dice sharks selling their souls at crossroads, along with guitarists and one accordionist. Another folklorist, Alan Lomax
, considered that every African American secular musician was "in the opinion of both himself and his peers, a child of the Devil, a consequence of the black view of the European dance embrace as sinful in the extreme".
of the Rolling Stones said in 1990, "You want to know how good the blues can get? Well, this is it." But according to Elijah Wald
, in his book Escaping the Delta, Johnson in his own time was most respected for his ability to play in such a wide variety of styles—from raw country slide guitar
to jazz and pop licks—and to pick up guitar parts almost instantly upon hearing a song. His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues," in contrast to the prevailing Delta style of the time, more resembled the style of Chicago
or St. Louis
, with "a full-fledged, abundantly varied musical arrangement." Unusual for a Delta player of the time, a recording exhibits what Johnson could do entirely outside of a blues style. "They're Red Hot," from his first recording session, shows that he was also comfortable with an "uptown" swing or ragtime
sound similar to the Harlem Hamfats
but, as Wald remarks, "no record company was heading to Mississippi in search of a down-home Ink Spots ... [H]e could undoubtedly have come up with a lot more songs in this style if the producers had wanted them."
help explain why his singing conveys such powerful emotion. Eric Clapton
described Johnson's music as "the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice." In two takes of "Me and the Devil Blues" he shows a high degree of precision in the complex vocal delivery of the last verse: "The range of tone he can pack into a few lines is astonishing." The song's "hip humor and sophistication" is often overlooked. "[G]enerations of blues writers in search of wild Delta primitivism," writes Wald, have been inclined to overlook or undervalue aspects that show Johnson as a polished professional performer.
was first introduced to Johnson's music by his band mate Brian Jones
, he replied, "Who is the other guy playing with him?", not realizing it was Johnson playing on one guitar. "I was hearing two guitars, and it took a long time to actually realise he was doing it all by himself," said Richards, who would later add "Robert Johnson was like an orchestra all by himself."
Johnson would sometimes sing over the triplets
in his guitar playing, using them as an instrumental break; his chord progression
not being quite a standard Twelve-bar blues.
music or vaudeville
. Johnson did record versions of "Preaching the Blues" and "Walking Blues" in the older bluesman's vocal and guitar style (House's chronology is questioned by Guralnick). As with the first take of "Come On In My Kitchen," the influence of Skip James is evident in James's "Devil Got My Woman", but the lyrics rise to the level of first-rate poetry, and Johnson sings with a strained voice found nowhere else in his recorded output.
The sad, romantic "Love in Vain" successfully blends several of Johnson's disparate influences. The form, including the wordless last verse, follows Leroy Carr's last hit "When the Sun Goes Down"; the words of the last sung verse come directly from a song Blind Lemon Jefferson
recorded in 1926. Johnson's last-ever recording, "Milkcow's Calf Blues" is his most direct tribute to Kokomo Arnold, who wrote "Milkcow Blues" and who influenced Johnson's vocal style.
"From Four Until Late
" shows Johnson's mastery of a blues style not usually associated with the Delta. He croons
the lyrics in manner reminiscent of Lonnie Johnson
, and his guitar style is more that of a ragtime
-influenced player like Blind Blake
. Lonnie Johnson's influence on Robert Johnson is even clearer in two other departures from the usual Delta style: "Malted Milk" and "Drunken Hearted Man". Both copy the arrangement of Lonnie Johnson's "Life Saver Blues". The two takes of "Me and the Devil Blues" show the influence of Peetie Wheatstraw
, calling into question the interpretation of this piece as "the spontaneous heart-cry of a demon-driven folk artist."
s, and at Saturday night dances—who worked in a then undervalued style of music, and who died young after recording only a handful of songs. Johnson, though well-traveled and admired in his performances, was little noted in his own time and place; his records even less so. "Terraplane Blues
", sometimes described as Johnson's only hit record, outsold his others but was still only a minor success.
If one had asked black blues fans about Robert Johnson in the first twenty years after his death, writes Elijah Wald
, "the response in the vast majority of cases would have been a puzzled 'Robert who?'" This lack of recognition extended to black musicians:
With the album King of the Delta Blues Singers
, a compilation of Johnson's recordings released in 1961, Columbia Records
introduced his work to a much wider audience—fame and recognition he only received long after his death.
and rock. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
included four of his songs in a set of 500 they deemed to have shaped the genre:
Johnson recorded these songs a decade and a half before the recognized advent of rock and roll, dying a year or two later. The Museum inducted him as an “Early Influence” in their first induction ceremony in 1986, almost a half century after his death. Marc Meyers of the Wall Street Journal wrote that, "His 'Stop Breakin' Down Blues' from 1937 is so far ahead of its time that the song could easily have been a rock demo cut in 1954."
and rock music eras—resulted not from personal appearances or direct fraternization. Instead, the artistic power of his exceptional talents and original compositions would be relayed across the Atlantic many years after his death through the compilation of his works released in 1961 by Columbia Records (King of the Delta Blues Singers
). Examples of the influence he had on major English musicians include:
Alexis Korner
, referred to as "the Founding Father of British Blues", co-wrote and recorded a song entitled "Robert Johnson" on his The Party Album
released in 1978.
Musicians who proclaim his profound impact on them, i.e., Keith Richards
, Jimi Hendrix
, and Eric Clapton
, all rated in the top ten with him on each of these lists. The boogie bass line he fashioned for "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" has now passed into the standard guitar repertoire. At the time it was completely new, a guitarist's version of something people would only ever have heard on a piano.
, a double-disc box set released by Sony/Columbia Legacy
on August 28, 1990, containing almost everything Robert Johnson ever recorded, with all 29 recordings (and 12 alternate takes) won a Grammy Award
for “Best Historical Album” that year. In 2006 he was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (accepted by his son Claud).
. That he was not listed among his mother's children in the 1910 census casts further doubt on these dates. Carrie Thompson claimed that her mother, who was also Robert's mother, remembered his birth date as May 8, 1911. The 1920 census suggests he was born in 1912. Five significant dates from his career are documented: Monday, Thursday and Friday, November 23, 26, and 27, 1936, at a recording session in San Antonio, Texas
. Seven months later, on Saturday and Sunday, June 19–20, 1937, he was in Dallas at another session. His death certificate
was discovered in 1968, and lists the date and location of his death.
The two confirmed images of Johnson were located in 1973, in the possession of the musician's half-sister Carrie Thompson, and were not widely published until the late 1980s. A third photo, purporting to show Johnson posing with fellow blues performer Johnny Shines
, was published in the November 2008 edition of Vanity Fair
magazine. The same article claims that other photographs of Johnson, so far unpublished, may exist.
Johnson's records were greatly admired by record collector
s from the time of their first release and efforts were made to discover his biography, with virtually no success. Noted blues researcher Mack McCormick began researching his family background, but was never ready to publish. McCormick's research eventually became as much a legend as Johnson himself. In 1982, McCormick permitted Peter Guralnick
to publish a summary in Living Blues (1982), later reprinted in book form as Searching for Robert Johnson. Later research has sought to confirm this account or to add minor details. A revised summary acknowledging major informants was written by Stephen LaVere for the booklet accompanying the compilation album
Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings
(1990), and is maintained with updates at the Delta Haze website. The documentary film The Search for Robert Johnson
contains accounts by Mack McCormick and Gayle Dean Wardlow
of what informants have told them: long interviews of David Honeyboy Edwards
and Johnny Shines, and short interviews of surviving friends and family. These published biographical sketches achieve coherent narratives, partly by ignoring reminiscences and hearsay accounts which contradict or conflict with other accounts.
A relatively full account of Johnson's brief musical career emerged in the 1960s, largely from accounts by Son House
, Johnny Shines, David Honeyboy Edwards and Robert Lockwood. In 1961, the sleeve notes to the album King of the Delta Blues Singers
included reminiscences of Don Law who had recorded Johnson in 1936. Law added to the mystique surrounding Johnson, representing him as very young and extraordinarily shy.
label during his lifetime, with a twelfth issued posthumously. All songs are copyrighted to Robert Johnson, and his estate.
The Complete Recordings
: A double-disc box set was released on August 28, 1990, containing almost everything Robert Johnson ever recorded, with all 29 recordings, and 12 alternate takes. (There is one further alternate, of "Traveling Riverside Blues," which was released on Sony's King of the Delta Blues Singers CD and also as an extra in early printings of the paperback edition of Elijah Wald
's "Escaping the Delta.")
To celebrate Johnson's 100th birthday, May 8, 2011, Sony Legacy
released a re-mastered 2 CD set of all 42 Robert Johnson recordings extant, entitled Robert Johnson: The Centennial Collection. In addition, there were two brief fragments: one where Johnson can be heard practicing a guitar figure; the second when Johnson can be heard saying, presumably to engineer Don Law, "I wanna go on with our next one myself." Reviewers commented that the sound quality of the 2011 release was a substantial improvement on the 1990 release.
of Robert Johnson (1936–1937) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board
in the Library of Congress
' National Recording Registry in 2003. The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
included four songs by Robert Johnson in the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.
Articles
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend, including a Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
ian myth. As an itinerant performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints
Juke joint
Juke joint is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly...
, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson enjoyed little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime.
His records sold poorly during his lifetime, and it was only after the first reissue of his recordings on LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
in 1961 that his work reached a wider audience. Johnson is now recognized as a master of the blues, particularly of the Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
Delta blues
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
style. He is credited by many rock musicians as an important influence; Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived." Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
as an "Early Influence" in their first induction ceremony in 1986. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
Early life
Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, MississippiHazlehurst, Mississippi
Hazlehurst is a city in and the county seat of Copiah County, Mississippi, United States, located about 30 miles south of the state capital Jackson along Interstate 55. The population was 4,400 at the 2000 census...
, possibly on May 8, 1911, to Julia Major Dodds (born October 1874) and Noah Johnson (born December 1884). Julia was married to Charles Dodds (born February 1865), a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker with whom she gave birth to 10 children. Dodds had been forced by a lynch mob to leave Hazlehurst following a dispute with white landowners. Julia herself left Hazlehurst with baby Robert, but after some two years, sent him to live in Memphis with Dodds, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer.
Around 1919, Robert rejoined his mother in the area around Tunica
Tunica, Mississippi
Tunica is a town in Tunica County, Mississippi, United States, located near the Mississippi River. Until the early 1990s the town was one of the most impoverished places in the United States, semi-famous for the particularly deprived neighbourhood known as "Sugar Ditch Alley", named for the open...
and Robinsonville, Mississippi. Julia's new husband was known as Dusty Willis; he was 24 years her junior. Robert was remembered by some residents as "Little Robert Dusty." However, he was registered at the Indian Creek School in Tunica as Robert Spencer. He is listed as Robert Spencer in the 1920 census with Will and Julia Willis in Lucas, Arkansas, where they lived for a short time. Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927 and the quality of his signature on his marriage certificate suggests that he studied continuously and was relatively well educated for a boy of his background. One school friend, Willie Coffee, has been discovered and filmed. He recalls that Robert was already noted for playing the harmonica and jaw harp
Jew's harp
The Jew's harp, jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, trump or juice harp, is thought to be one of the oldest musical instruments in the world; a musician apparently playing it can be seen in a Chinese drawing from the 4th century BC...
. He also remembers that Robert was absent for long periods, which suggests that he may have been living and studying in Memphis.
After school, Robert adopted the surname of his natural father, signing himself as Robert Johnson on the certificate of his marriage to sixteen-year-old Virginia Travis in February 1929. She died shortly after in childbirth. Surviving relatives of Virginia told the blues researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick that this was a divine punishment for Robert's decision to sing secular songs, known as 'selling your soul to the Devil'. McCormick believes that Johnson himself accepted the phrase as a description of his resolve to abandon the settled life of a husband and farmer to become a full-time blues musician.
Around this time, the noted blues musician Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
moved to Robinsonville where his musical partner, Willie Brown
Willie Brown (musician)
Willie Brown was an American delta blues guitarist and singer.- Life and career :Born Willie Lee Brown in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Brown played with such notables as Charley Patton, and Robert Johnson. He was not known to be a self-promoting frontman, preferring to "second" other musicians...
, already lived. Late in life, House remembered Johnson as a 'little boy' who was a competent harmonica player but an embarrassingly bad guitarist. Soon after, Johnson left Robinsonville for the area around Martinsville, close to his birthplace Hazlehurst
Hazlehurst, Mississippi
Hazlehurst is a city in and the county seat of Copiah County, Mississippi, United States, located about 30 miles south of the state capital Jackson along Interstate 55. The population was 4,400 at the 2000 census...
, possibly searching for his natural father. Here he perfected the guitar style of Son House and learned other styles from Isaiah "Ike" Zimmerman. Ike Zimmerman was rumoured to have learned supernaturally to play guitar by visiting graveyards at midnight.
When Johnson next appeared in Robinsonville, he had seemed to have acquired a miraculous guitar technique. House was interviewed at a time when the legend of Johnson's pact with the Devil was well known among blues researchers. He was asked whether he attributed Johnson's technique to this pact, and his equivocal answers have been taken as confirmation.
While living in Martinsville, Johnson fathered a child with Vergie Mae Smith. He also married Caletta Craft in May 1931. In 1932, the couple moved to Clarksdale
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 20,645 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Coahoma County....
in the Delta
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
. Here Caletta fell ill and Johnson abandoned her for a career as a 'walking' (itinerant) musician.
Itinerant musician
Robert Johnson was not unique in choosing to be a full professional musician pursuing audiences where and when they had money to spend, rather than a semi-professional like his celebrated neighbour Son HouseSon House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
. He was, however, remembered as exceptional in his restlessness, in the number of places he stayed in and, by some accounts, in his determination to avoid agricultural labour. From 1932 to his death in 1938, Johnson lived his life in a manner that makes biography scarcely possible. He moved frequently between such large centers as Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
and Helena, Arkansas
Helena, Arkansas
Helena is the eastern portion of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas. As of the 2000 census, this portion of the city population was 6,323. Helena was the county seat of Phillips County until January 1, 2006, when it merged its government and city limits with...
and the smaller towns of the Mississippi Delta
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
and neighboring regions of Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
and Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
. On occasion, he travelled much further. Fellow blues musician Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth...
accompanied him to Chicago, Texas, New York, Canada, Kentucky, and Indiana. Henry Townsend
Henry Townsend (musician)
Henry 'Mule' Townsend was an American blues singer, guitarist and pianist.-Career:Townsend was born in Shelby, Mississippi and grew up in Cairo, Illinois. He left home at the age of nine because of an abusive father and hoboed his way to St. Louis, Missouri...
shared a musical engagement with him in St Louis. In many places he stayed with members of his large extended family, or with women friends. He did not marry again but formed some long term relationships with women to whom he would return periodically. One was Estella Coleman, the mother of the blues musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. In other places he stayed with a woman seduced at his first performance. In each location, Johnson's hosts were largely ignorant of his life elsewhere. He actually used different names in different places; the most recent count is eight different surnames. Biographers have looked for consistency from musicians who knew Johnson in different contexts: Shines, who travelled extensively with him; Lockwood who knew him as his mother's partner; David "Honeyboy" Edwards whose cousin Willie Mae Powell had a relationship with Johnson.
From a mass of partial, conflicting and inconsistent eye-witness accounts , biographers have attempted to summarize Johnson's character. "He was well mannered, he was soft spoken, he was indecipherable". "As for his character, everyone seems to agree that, while he was pleasant and outgoing in public, in private he was reserved and liked to go his own way". "Musicians who knew Johnson testified that he was a nice guy and fairly average — except, of course, for his musical talent, his weakness for whiskey and women, and his commitment to the road."
When Johnson arrived in a new town, he would play for tips on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. Musical associates stated in live performances Johnson often did not focus on his dark and complex original compositions, but instead pleased audiences by performing more well-known pop standards of the day – and not necessarily blues. With an ability to pick up tunes at first hearing, Johnson had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted, and certain of his contemporaries later remarked on Johnson's interest in jazz and country. Johnson also had an uncanny ability to establish a rapport with his audience; in every town in which he stopped, Johnson would establish ties to the local community that would serve him well when he passed through again a month or a year later.
Fellow musician Shines was 17 when he met Johnson in 1933. He estimated Johnson was maybe a year older than himself. In Samuel Charters' Robert Johnson, the author quotes Shines as saying:
During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-term relationship with Estella Coleman, a woman about fifteen years his elder and the mother of musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. Johnson reportedly cultivated a woman to look after him in each town he played in. Johnson supposedly asked homely young women living in the country with their families whether he could go home with them, and in most cases the answer was 'yes'...until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was ready to move on.
In 1941, Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
learned from Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
that Johnson had performed in the Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 20,645 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Coahoma County....
area. By 1959, Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters, born Samuel Barclay Charters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1929 , is an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet...
could only add Will Shade
Will Shade
Will Shade was an African American Memphis blues musician, best known for his membership in the Memphis Jug Band. Shade was commonly called Son Brimmer, a nickname from his grandmother Annie Brimmer, because "son" is short for "grandson"...
of the Memphis Jug Band
Memphis Jug Band
The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group in the late 1920s and early to mid 1930s. The band featured harmonicas, violins, mandolins, banjos, and guitars, backed by washboards, kazoo, and jugs blown to supply the bass; they played in a variety of musical styles...
remembered Johnson had once briefly played with him in West Memphis, Arkansas
West Memphis, Arkansas
West Memphis is the largest city in Crittenden County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 27,666 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 28,181 in 2005, and 31,329 in 2011 ranking it as the state's 11th largest city, behind Hot Springs...
. In the last year of his life, Johnson is believed to have traveled to St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
and possibly Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, and then to some states in the East. He spent some time in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
and traveled through the Mississippi Delta and Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
.
In 1938, Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
producer John H. Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, who owned some of Johnson's records, had record producer Don Law seek out Johnson out to book him for the first "From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, Helen Humes, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Mitchell's...
" concert at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in New York. On learning of Johnson's death, Hammond replaced him with Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
, but still played two of Johnson's records from the stage.
Recording sessions
Around 1936, Johnson sought out H. C. SpeirH. C. Speir
H. C. Speir was an American "talent broker" and record store owner from Jackson, Mississippi. He was responsible for launching the recording careers of most of the greatest Mississippi blues musicians in the 1920s and 1930s. It has been said that, “Speir was the godfather of Delta Blues" and was...
in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
. At the recording session, held November 23, 1936 in room 414 at the Gunter Hotel
Gunter Hotel
The Gunter Hotel is a historic hotel in downtown San Antonio, Texas built in 1909 and designed by St. Louis architect John Mauran.Now the Sheraton Gunter, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.-In popular culture:...
in San Antonio
which Brunswick Records had set up as a temporary studio, Johnson reportedly performed facing the wall. This has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer, a conclusion played up in the inaccurate liner notes of the 1961 album King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released in 1961 on Columbia Records. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential blues releases ever...
. Ry Cooder
Ry Cooder
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
speculates that Johnson played facing a corner to enhance the sound of the guitar, a technique he calls "corner loading". In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played sixteen selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these.
Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On In My Kitchen
Come On in My Kitchen
"Come On in My Kitchen" is a blues song by Robert Johnson. Johnson recorded the song on Monday, November 23rd, 1936 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas - his first recording session...
", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues
Kind Hearted Woman Blues
"Kind Hearted Woman Blues" is a blues song recorded on November 23, 1936 in San Antonio, Texas by legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. The song was originally released on 78 rpm format as Vocalion 03416 and ARC 7-03-56. Johnson performed the song in the key of A, and recorded two takes, the first...
", "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
Dust My Broom
"Dust My Broom" is a blues standard originally recorded as "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom"by Robert Johnson, the Mississippi Delta blues singer and guitarist, on November 23, 1936 in San Antonio, Texas. The song was originally released on 78 rpm format as Vocalion 03475, ARC 7-04-81 and Conqueror 8871...
" and "Cross Road Blues
Cross Road Blues
"Cross Road Blues" is a song by Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson; released on a 78 rpm record in 1936 by Vocalion Records, catalogue 3519. The original version remained out of print after its initial release until the appearance of The Complete Recordings in 1990...
". The first songs to appear were "Terraplane Blues
Terraplane Blues
"Terraplane Blues" is a blues song recorded in 1936 in San Antonio, Texas by bluesman Robert Johnson. "Terraplane Blues" was Johnson's first single and it became a moderate regional hit, selling 5,000 copies....
" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", probably the only recordings of his that he would live to hear. "Terraplane Blues" became a moderate regional hit, selling 5,000 copies.
His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", was part of a cycle of spin-offs and response songs that began with Leroy Carr
Leroy Carr
Leroy Carr was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist, who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. He first became famous for "How Long, How Long Blues" on Vocalion Records in 1928.-Life and...
's "Mean Mistreater Mama" (1934). According to Wald
Elijah Wald
Indeed, his first book was a collaboration with his biologist mother entitled Exploding the Gene Myth, in which they wrote that "The myth of the all-powerful gene is based on flawed science that discounts the environment in which we and our genes exist." "There are no definitive histories," he...
, it was "the most musically complex in the cycle" and stood apart from most rural blues as a through-composed lyric, rather than an arbitrary collection of more-or-less unrelated verses. In contrast to most Delta players, Johnson had absorbed the idea of fitting a composed song into the three minutes of a 78 rpm side. Most of Johnson's "somber and introspective" songs and performances come from his second recording session.
In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, for another recording session in a makeshift studio at the Brunswick Record Building, 508 Park Avenue. Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Because Johnson did two takes of most songs during these sessions, and recordings of those takes survived, more opportunity exists to compare different performances of a single song by Johnson than for any other blues performer of his time and place.
By the time he died, at least six of his records had been released in the South as race records.
Playback issues in extant recordings
The accuracy of the pitch and speed of the extant recordings has been questioned. In The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
s music blog from May 2010, Jon Wilde states that "the common consensus among musicologists is that we've been listening to [Robert] Johnson at least 20% too fast;" i.e., that "the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78 [rpm records], or else were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting." He does not give a source for this statement. Former Sony music executive Lawrence Cohn, who won a Grammy for the label's 1991 reissue of Johnson's works, "acknowledges there's a possibility Johnson's 1936–37 recordings were sped up, since the OKeh/Vocalion family of labels, which originally issued the material, was 'notorious' for altering the speed of its releases. 'Sometimes it was 78 rpms, sometimes it was 81 rpms,' he says. It's impossible to check the original sources, since the metal stampers used to duplicate the original 78 discs disappeared years ago."
Death
Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, near Greenwood, MississippiGreenwood, Mississippi
Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The population was 15,205 at the 2010 census. It is the...
. He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles (24 km) from Greenwood. Differing accounts and theories attempt to shed light on the events preceding his death. A story often told is that one evening Johnson began flirting with a woman at a dance, the wife of the juke joint
Juke joint
Juke joint is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly...
owner, according to rumor, unaware that the bottle of whiskey she gave to Johnson had been poisoned by her husband. In another version, she was a married woman unrelated to the juke joint owner. Johnson was allegedly offered an open bottle of whiskey that was laced with strychnine
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
. Fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson
Sonny Boy Williamson II
Willie "Sonny Boy" Williamson was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, from Mississippi. He is acknowledged as one of the most charismatic and influential blues musicians, with considerable prowess on the harmonica and highly creative songwriting skills...
allegedly advised him never to drink from an offered bottle that had already been opened. According to Williamson, Johnson replied, "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand." Soon after, he was offered another open bottle of whiskey, also laced with strychnine, and accepted it. Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after drinking from the bottle and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days, his condition steadily worsened and witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain—symptoms which are consistent with strychnine poisoning
Strychnine poisoning
Strychnine poisoning can be fatal to humans and other animals and can occur by inhalation, swallowing or absorption through eyes or mouth. It produces some of the most dramatic and painful symptoms of any known toxic reaction...
.
Musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick claims to have tracked down the man who murdered Johnson, and to have obtained a confession from him in a personal interview. McCormick has declined to reveal the man's name, however.
In his book Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson, Tom Graves uses expert testimony from toxicologists to dispute the notion that Johnson died of strychnine poisoning. He states that strychnine has such a distinctive odor and taste that it cannot be disguised, even in strong liquor. However, according to the CDC
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
, strychnine is bitter but odorless. He also claims that a significant amount of strychnine would have to be consumed in one sitting to be fatal, and that death from the poison would occur within hours, not days. This observation was also noted in a recent Guitar World
Guitar World
Guitar World is a monthly music magazine devoted to guitarists. It contains original interviews, album and gear reviews and guitar and bass tablature of approximately five songs each month. The magazine is published 13 times per year...
comment from contemporary David "Honeyboy" Edwards, who said that it couldn't have been strychnine, since he would have died much sooner than the three days he suffered.
Gravesite
- Research in the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggests Johnson was buried in the graveyard of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City, MississippiMorgan City, MississippiMorgan City is a town in Leflore County, Mississippi, northeast of Swiftown and south-southwest of Itta Bena along Mississippi Highway 7. The population was 305 at the 2000 census...
, not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave. A one-ton cenotaphCenotaphA cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
memorial in the shape of an obeliskObeliskAn obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
, listing all of Johnson's song titles, with a central inscription by Peter GuralnickPeter GuralnickPeter Guralnick is an American music critic, writer on music, and historian of US American popular music, who is also active as an author and screenwriter. He has been married for over 45 years to Alexandra...
, was placed at this location in 1990, paid for by Columbia Records and numerous smaller contributions made through the Mt. Zion Memorial FundMt. Zion Memorial FundThe Mt. Zion Memorial Fund is a Mississippi non-profit corporation formed in 1989 and named after the 101 year old Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Morgan City, Mississippi...
. - In 1990 a small marker with the epitaph "Resting in the Blues" was placed in the cemetery of Payne Chapel near Quito, MississippiQuito, MississippiQuito is an unincorporated community located in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. Quito is approximately north of Morgan City and south of Itta Bena along Mississippi Highway 7.It is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area....
, by the cemetery's owner. This alleged burial site, in an apparent attempt to strengthen a claim, happens to be located in the center of Richard Johnson's family plot. - More recent research by Stephen LaVere (including statements from Rosie Eskridge, the wife of the supposed gravedigger) indicates that the actual grave site is under a big pecan tree in the cemetery of the Little Zion Church north of Greenwood along Money Road. Sony Music has placed a marker at this site.
An interviewee in the documentary The Search for Robert Johnson
The Search for Robert Johnson
The Search for Robert Johnson is a 1991 UK television documentary film about the legendary Delta blues musician Robert Johnson, hosted by John Hammond, and produced and directed by Chris Hunt...
(1991) suggests that due to poverty and lack of transportation Johnson is most likely to have been buried in a pauper's grave (or "potter's field") very near where he perished.
Devil legend
According to legend, as a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, Robert Johnson was branded with a burning desire to become a great blues musician. He was "instructed" to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery PlantationDockery Plantation
Dockery Plantation was a cotton plantation and sawmill on the Sunflower River between Ruleville and Cleveland, Mississippi. It is widely regarded as the place where Delta blues music was born. Blues musicians residents at Dockery included Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf...
at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
) who took the guitar and tuned
Guitar tunings
Guitar tunings almost always refers to the pitch of the open string, though some tunings may only realistically be attained by the use of a capo on an unmodified instrument....
it. The "Devil" played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. This was in effect, a deal with the Devil
Deal with the Devil
Deal With The Devil is the fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Lizzy Borden released in 2000 .A return to form, featuring a cover by Todd McFarlane.2 covers were recorded...
mirroring the legend of Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
. In exchange for his soul, Robert Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.
Various accounts
This legend was developed over time, and has been chronicled by Gayle Dean WardlowGayle Dean Wardlow
Gayle Dean Wardlow is an American historian of the blues. He is particularly associated with research into the lives of musicians Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson and the historical development of the Delta blues, on which he is a leading world authority.He was born in Freer, Texas, but was...
, Edward Komara and Elijah Wald
Elijah Wald
Indeed, his first book was a collaboration with his biologist mother entitled Exploding the Gene Myth, in which they wrote that "The myth of the all-powerful gene is based on flawed science that discounts the environment in which we and our genes exist." "There are no definitive histories," he...
, who sees the legend as largely dating from Johnson's rediscovery by white fans more than two decades after his death. Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
once told the story to Pete Welding
Pete Welding
Pete Welding was an American blues historian, archivist and record producer.Born Peter J. Welding in Philadelphia, he worked as a journalist for Down Beat magazine and occasionally freelanced for other publications including Rolling Stone...
as an explanation of Johnson's astonishingly rapid mastery of the guitar. Welding reported it as a serious belief in a widely read article in Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
in 1966. Other interviewers failed to elicit any confirmation from House and there were fully two years between House's observation of Johnson as first a novice and then a master.
Further details were absorbed from the imaginative retellings by Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
and Robert Palmer. Most significantly, the detail was added that Johnson received his gift from a large black man at a crossroads. There is dispute as to how and when the crossroads detail was attached to the Robert Johnson story. All the published evidence, including a full chapter on the subject in the biography Crossroads by Tom Graves, suggests an origin in the story of Blues musician Tommy Johnson. This story was collected from his musical associate Ishman Bracey
Ishman Bracey
Ishman Bracey was an American blues singer and guitarist from Mississippi, considered one of the most important early delta blues performers. With Tommy Johnson, he was the center of a small Jackson, Mississippi group of blues musicians in the 1920s...
and his elder brother Ledell in the 1960s. One version of Ledell Johnson's account was published in David Evans
David Evans (musicologist)
David Evans is a musicologist and director of the Ethnomusicology/Regional Studies program at the University of Memphis.He has written or edited a number of books on the blues, and also performs. He won a Grammy in 2003 for "Best Album Notes" for the CD Screamin' And Hollerin' The Blues - The...
's 1971 biography of Tommy, and was repeated in print in 1982 alongside Son House's story in the widely read Searching for Robert Johnson.
In another version, Ledell placed the meeting not at a crossroads but in a graveyard. This resembles the story told to Steve LaVere that Ike Zimmerman of Hazelhurst, Mississippi learned to play the guitar at midnight while sitting on tombstones. Zimmerman is believed to have influenced the playing of the young Robert Johnson. Recent research by blues scholar Bruce Conforth
Bruce Conforth
Bruce Michael Conforth was the first curator of Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is presently a professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan.-Early years:...
uncovered Ike Zimmerman's daughter and the story becomes clearer. Johnson and Zimmerman did practice in a graveyard at night because it was quiet and no one would disturb them, but it was not the Hazlehurst cemetery as had been believed. Johnson spent about a year living with and learning from Zimmerman, who ultimately accompanied Johnson back to the Delta to look after him. Conforth's article in Living Blues
Living Blues
Living Blues is a bi-monthly magazine focused on covering the African American blues tradition, and America's oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O'Neal and Amy van Singel. Alligator Records owner and founder Bruce Iglauer was also one of the...
magazine goes into much greater detail. There are now tourist attractions claiming to be "The Crossroads" at Clarksdale
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 20,645 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Coahoma County....
and in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
.
His own account
There is apparently no documented evidence that proves whether Johnson ever claimed that he had sold his soul to the Devil. Various accounts have given contradictory information in this regard, but no conclusive evidence one way or another has ever surfaced. The crossroads detail was widely believed to come from Johnson himself, as it would seemingly explain his high emotions and religious fervor in "Cross Road BluesCross Road Blues
"Cross Road Blues" is a song by Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson; released on a 78 rpm record in 1936 by Vocalion Records, catalogue 3519. The original version remained out of print after its initial release until the appearance of The Complete Recordings in 1990...
" when simply hitchhiking at night; the myth offers a literal explanation. Yet, as mentioned, most of those musicians who knew Johnson well, such as Johnny Shines, never heard him make such a claim and there is no evidence to suggest that he ever did.
In "Me And The Devil" he began, "Early this morning when you knocked upon my door/Early this morning, umb, when you knocked upon my door/And I said, 'Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go,'" before leading into "You may bury my body down by the highway side/You may bury my body, uumh, down by the highway side/So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride."
The song "Crossroads" by British psychedelic blues rock band Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
is a cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of Johnson's "Cross Road Blues
Cross Road Blues
"Cross Road Blues" is a song by Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson; released on a 78 rpm record in 1936 by Vocalion Records, catalogue 3519. The original version remained out of print after its initial release until the appearance of The Complete Recordings in 1990...
", about the legend of Johnson selling his soul to the Devil at the crossroads, although Johnson's original lyrics ("Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride") suggest he was merely hitchhiking rather than signing away his soul to Lucifer in exchange for being a great blues musician.
Interpretations
The Devil in these songs may not solely refer to the Christian story of Satan, but equally to the African trickster god, LegbaPapa Legba
In Haitian Vodou, Papa Legba is the intermediary between the loa and humanity. He stands at a spiritual crossroads and gives permission to speak with the spirits of Guinee, and is believed to speak all human languages...
, himself associated with crossroads—though author Tom Graves deems the connection to African deities tenuous. As folklorist Harry M. Hyatt discovered during his research in the South from 1935–1939, when African-Americans born in the 19th or early-20th century said they or anyone else had "sold their soul to the devil at the crossroads," they had a different meaning in mind. Ample evidence indicates African religious retentions surrounding Legba and the making of a "deal" (not selling the soul in the same sense as in the Faustian tradition cited by Graves) with this so-called "devil" at the crossroads.
Folk tales of bargains with the Devil have long existed in African American and European traditions, and were adapted into literature by, amongst others, Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...
in "The Devil and Tom Walker
The Devil and Tom Walker
"The Devil and Tom Walker" a short story by Washington Irving that first appeared in his 1824 collection of stories titled Tales of a Traveller. It was part of the "Money-Diggers" portion....
" in 1824, and by Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benét
Stephen Vincent Benét was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body , for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By...
in "The Devil and Daniel Webster
The Devil and Daniel Webster
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" is a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét. This retelling of the classic German Faust tale is based on the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker", written by Washington Irving...
" in 1936. In the 1930s, Hyatt recorded many tales of banjo players, fiddlers, card shark
Card sharp
A card sharp is a person who uses skill and deception to win at poker or other card games...
s, and dice sharks selling their souls at crossroads, along with guitarists and one accordionist. Another folklorist, Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, considered that every African American secular musician was "in the opinion of both himself and his peers, a child of the Devil, a consequence of the black view of the European dance embrace as sinful in the extreme".
Musical style
Robert Johnson is today considered a master of the blues, particularly of the Delta blues style; Keith RichardsKeith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
of the Rolling Stones said in 1990, "You want to know how good the blues can get? Well, this is it." But according to Elijah Wald
Elijah Wald
Indeed, his first book was a collaboration with his biologist mother entitled Exploding the Gene Myth, in which they wrote that "The myth of the all-powerful gene is based on flawed science that discounts the environment in which we and our genes exist." "There are no definitive histories," he...
, in his book Escaping the Delta, Johnson in his own time was most respected for his ability to play in such a wide variety of styles—from raw country slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
to jazz and pop licks—and to pick up guitar parts almost instantly upon hearing a song. His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues," in contrast to the prevailing Delta style of the time, more resembled the style of Chicago
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
or St. Louis
St. Louis blues
St. Louis blues is a type of blues music. It is usually more piano-based than other forms of the blues, and is closely related to the jump blues, ragtime and piano blues...
, with "a full-fledged, abundantly varied musical arrangement." Unusual for a Delta player of the time, a recording exhibits what Johnson could do entirely outside of a blues style. "They're Red Hot," from his first recording session, shows that he was also comfortable with an "uptown" swing or ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
sound similar to the Harlem Hamfats
Harlem Hamfats
The Harlem Hamfats was a Chicago jazz band formed in 1936. Initially, they mainly provided backup music for jazz and blues singers, such as Johnny Temple, Rosetta Howard, and Frankie Jaxon for Decca Records, but when their first record "Oh Red" became a hit, it secured them a Decca contract for...
but, as Wald remarks, "no record company was heading to Mississippi in search of a down-home Ink Spots ... [H]e could undoubtedly have come up with a lot more songs in this style if the producers had wanted them."
Voice
An important aspect of Johnson's singing was his use of microtonality. These subtle inflections of pitchPitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
help explain why his singing conveys such powerful emotion. Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
described Johnson's music as "the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice." In two takes of "Me and the Devil Blues" he shows a high degree of precision in the complex vocal delivery of the last verse: "The range of tone he can pack into a few lines is astonishing." The song's "hip humor and sophistication" is often overlooked. "[G]enerations of blues writers in search of wild Delta primitivism," writes Wald, have been inclined to overlook or undervalue aspects that show Johnson as a polished professional performer.
Instrument
Johnson mastered the guitar, being considered today one of the all-time greats on the instrument. His approach was highly complex and extremely advanced musically. When Keith RichardsKeith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
was first introduced to Johnson's music by his band mate Brian Jones
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
, he replied, "Who is the other guy playing with him?", not realizing it was Johnson playing on one guitar. "I was hearing two guitars, and it took a long time to actually realise he was doing it all by himself," said Richards, who would later add "Robert Johnson was like an orchestra all by himself."
Johnson would sometimes sing over the triplets
Tuplet
In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...
in his guitar playing, using them as an instrumental break; his chord progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
not being quite a standard Twelve-bar blues.
Influences
Johnson fused approaches specific to Delta blues to those from the broader music world. The slide guitar work on "Rambling on My Mind" is pure Delta and Johnson's vocal there has "a touch of ... Son House rawness," but the train imitation on the bridge is not at all typical of Delta blues, and is more like something out of minstrel showMinstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
music or vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
. Johnson did record versions of "Preaching the Blues" and "Walking Blues" in the older bluesman's vocal and guitar style (House's chronology is questioned by Guralnick). As with the first take of "Come On In My Kitchen," the influence of Skip James is evident in James's "Devil Got My Woman", but the lyrics rise to the level of first-rate poetry, and Johnson sings with a strained voice found nowhere else in his recorded output.
The sad, romantic "Love in Vain" successfully blends several of Johnson's disparate influences. The form, including the wordless last verse, follows Leroy Carr's last hit "When the Sun Goes Down"; the words of the last sung verse come directly from a song Blind Lemon Jefferson
Blind Lemon Jefferson
"Blind" Lemon Jefferson was an American blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues"....
recorded in 1926. Johnson's last-ever recording, "Milkcow's Calf Blues" is his most direct tribute to Kokomo Arnold, who wrote "Milkcow Blues" and who influenced Johnson's vocal style.
"From Four Until Late
From Four Until Late
From Four Until Late is a song recorded by blues artist Robert Johnson in 1937. It was covered by the band Cream on their album Fresh Cream in 1966.-External links:*...
" shows Johnson's mastery of a blues style not usually associated with the Delta. He croons
Crooner
Crooner is an American epithet given to male singers of pop standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, either backed by a full orchestra, a big band or by a piano. Originally it was an ironic term denoting an emphatically sentimental, often emotional singing style made possible by the use...
the lyrics in manner reminiscent of Lonnie Johnson
Lonnie Johnson
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos...
, and his guitar style is more that of a ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
-influenced player like Blind Blake
Blind Blake
"Blind" Blake was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist.-Biography:...
. Lonnie Johnson's influence on Robert Johnson is even clearer in two other departures from the usual Delta style: "Malted Milk" and "Drunken Hearted Man". Both copy the arrangement of Lonnie Johnson's "Life Saver Blues". The two takes of "Me and the Devil Blues" show the influence of Peetie Wheatstraw
Peetie Wheatstraw
Peetie Wheatstraw was the name adopted by the singer William Bunch, an influential figure among 1930s blues singers...
, calling into question the interpretation of this piece as "the spontaneous heart-cry of a demon-driven folk artist."
Legacy
Robert Johnson has had enormous impact on music and musicians, but outside his own time, place, and even genre for which he was famous. His influence on his contemporaries was much smaller, due in part to the fact that he was an itinerant performer—playing mostly on street corners, in juke jointJuke joint
Juke joint is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly...
s, and at Saturday night dances—who worked in a then undervalued style of music, and who died young after recording only a handful of songs. Johnson, though well-traveled and admired in his performances, was little noted in his own time and place; his records even less so. "Terraplane Blues
Terraplane Blues
"Terraplane Blues" is a blues song recorded in 1936 in San Antonio, Texas by bluesman Robert Johnson. "Terraplane Blues" was Johnson's first single and it became a moderate regional hit, selling 5,000 copies....
", sometimes described as Johnson's only hit record, outsold his others but was still only a minor success.
If one had asked black blues fans about Robert Johnson in the first twenty years after his death, writes Elijah Wald
Elijah Wald
Indeed, his first book was a collaboration with his biologist mother entitled Exploding the Gene Myth, in which they wrote that "The myth of the all-powerful gene is based on flawed science that discounts the environment in which we and our genes exist." "There are no definitive histories," he...
, "the response in the vast majority of cases would have been a puzzled 'Robert who?'" This lack of recognition extended to black musicians:
With the album King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released in 1961 on Columbia Records. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential blues releases ever...
, a compilation of Johnson's recordings released in 1961, Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
introduced his work to a much wider audience—fame and recognition he only received long after his death.
Rock and roll
Johnson's major influence has been on genres of music that weren’t recognized as such until long after his death: rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
and rock. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
included four of his songs in a set of 500 they deemed to have shaped the genre:
- “Sweet Home ChicagoSweet Home Chicago"Sweet Home Chicago" is a popular blues standard in the twelve bar form. It was first recorded and is credited to have been written by Robert Johnson...
” (1936) - “Cross Road BluesCross Road Blues"Cross Road Blues" is a song by Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson; released on a 78 rpm record in 1936 by Vocalion Records, catalogue 3519. The original version remained out of print after its initial release until the appearance of The Complete Recordings in 1990...
” (1936) - “Hellhound on My TrailHellhound on My Trail"Hellhound on My Trail" is a blues song recorded by Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson in 1937. It was the first song recorded during Johnson's last recording session in Dallas, Texas on Sunday, June 20, 1937 and the first single released from that session...
” (1937) - “Love in VainLove in Vain"Love in Vain" is a 1937 blues song written by Robert Johnson.The song is noted for its sad lyrics, tone, and style. In the 1991 documentary film The Search for Robert Johnson, John P. Hammond plays Robert's recording of "Love in Vain" for the elderly Willie Mae Powell, the woman for whom it was...
” (1937)
Johnson recorded these songs a decade and a half before the recognized advent of rock and roll, dying a year or two later. The Museum inducted him as an “Early Influence” in their first induction ceremony in 1986, almost a half century after his death. Marc Meyers of the Wall Street Journal wrote that, "His 'Stop Breakin' Down Blues' from 1937 is so far ahead of its time that the song could easily have been a rock demo cut in 1954."
English rockers
Many of the artists who claim to have been influenced by Johnson the most, injecting his revolutionary stylings into their work and recording tribute songs and collections, came from a land many thousands of miles from his homeland—and one he’d never visited. His impact and influence on these future star musicians from England—who would then come to develop and define both the rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
and rock music eras—resulted not from personal appearances or direct fraternization. Instead, the artistic power of his exceptional talents and original compositions would be relayed across the Atlantic many years after his death through the compilation of his works released in 1961 by Columbia Records (King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released in 1961 on Columbia Records. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential blues releases ever...
). Examples of the influence he had on major English musicians include:
- Robert PlantRobert PlantRobert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...
of Led ZeppelinLed ZeppelinLed Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
referred to him on NPR's Fresh Air (recorded in 2004) as “Robert Johnson, to whom we all owed our existence, in some way.” His group recorded "Traveling Riverside BluesTraveling Riverside Blues"Travelling Riverside Blues," sometimes called "Mudbone" or "Mud Bone," is a blues song written and recorded in Dallas, Texas by the bluesman Robert Johnson...
", a song that drew from Johnson's original and quoted a number of Johnson's songs in the lyrics. - To Eric ClaptonEric ClaptonEric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, founder and member of many legendary groups, Johnson was "the most important blues musician who ever lived." He recorded enough of his songs to make Me and Mr. JohnsonMe and Mr. JohnsonMe and Mr. Johnson is an album by Eric Clapton released in 2004. The album is a tribute to legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. According to Clapton's autobiography, the recordings weren't intended to become an album. The band had rented the studio, but Clapton didn't have any songs written, so he...
, a blues-rock album released in 2004 as a tribute to the legendary bluesman (also made into the film Sessions for Robert J). He also recorded "Crossroads", an arrangement of "Cross Road BluesCross Road Blues"Cross Road Blues" is a song by Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson; released on a 78 rpm record in 1936 by Vocalion Records, catalogue 3519. The original version remained out of print after its initial release until the appearance of The Complete Recordings in 1990...
", with CreamCream (band)Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
. - Brian JonesBrian JonesLewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
of the Rolling Stones introduced bandmate Keith RichardsKeith RichardsKeith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
to his first Robert Johnson album. The blues master's recordings would have as much impact on him as on Mick JaggerMick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
. The group would perform his "Walkin' BluesWalkin' Blues"Walkin' Blues" is a song that was written by blues musician Robert Johnson in 1936.It has been later recorded by many artists, including Cee Lo Green, Muddy Waters, Colin James, Paul Butterfield, Johnny Cash, Hot Tuna, The Grateful Dead, Rory Gallagher, R.L. Burnside, Eric Clapton, Hindu Love...
" at the Rock and Roll Circus in 1968. They arranged their own version of "Love in VainLove in Vain"Love in Vain" is a 1937 blues song written by Robert Johnson.The song is noted for its sad lyrics, tone, and style. In the 1991 documentary film The Search for Robert Johnson, John P. Hammond plays Robert's recording of "Love in Vain" for the elderly Willie Mae Powell, the woman for whom it was...
" for their album Let It BleedLet It BleedLet It Bleed is the eighth British and tenth American album by English rock band The Rolling Stones, released in December 1969 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States...
; recording "Stop Breakin' Down Blues" for Exile on Main Street. - He was a strong influence on Fleetwood MacFleetwood MacFleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
in the group's early years as a British blues band. Guitarist Jeremy SpencerJeremy SpencerJeremy Cedric Spencer , is a British musician, best known as one of the first guitarists in Fleetwood Mac.Spencer was born in Hartlepool, County Durham. He grew up in South London and was educated at Strand School, where he became known for hilarious impressions of the headmaster and several of his...
contributed two covers of Johnson-derived songs to the group's early albums, and lead guitarist Peter GreenPeter Green (musician)Peter Green is a British blues-rock guitarist and the founder of the band Fleetwood Mac...
would later go on to record Johnson's entire catalog over the course of two albums, The Robert Johnson SongbookThe Robert Johnson Songbook (album)The Robert Johnson Songbook is an album by the British blues band the Peter Green Splinter Group, led by Peter Green. Released in 1998, this was their second album...
and Hot Foot PowderHot Foot Powder (album)Hot Foot Powder is an album by the British blues band the Peter Green Splinter Group, led by Peter Green. Released in 2000, this was their fifth album...
.
Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...
, referred to as "the Founding Father of British Blues", co-wrote and recorded a song entitled "Robert Johnson" on his The Party Album
The Party Album (Alexis Korner)
The Party Album, also known as The Party LP is a 1978 live blues recording by Alexis Korner. The album features Alexis Korner and various guest musicians singing a mix of both classic blues songs as well as some of Korner's own...
released in 1978.
Guitar playing
His revolutionary guitar playing has led contemporary experts, assessing his talents through the handful of old recordings available, to rate him among the greatest guitar players of all time:- In 1990 Spin MagazineSpin (magazine)Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
rated him 1st in its 35 Guitar Gods listing—on the 52nd anniversary of his death. - In 2008 Rolling StoneRolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine ranked him 5th on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time—70 years after he died. - In 2010 Guitar.com ranked him 9th in its list of Gibson.com’s Top 50 Guitarists of All Time—72 years after he died.
Musicians who proclaim his profound impact on them, i.e., Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
, Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, and Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, all rated in the top ten with him on each of these lists. The boogie bass line he fashioned for "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" has now passed into the standard guitar repertoire. At the time it was completely new, a guitarist's version of something people would only ever have heard on a piano.
Lifetime achievement
The Complete RecordingsThe Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album)
The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album's recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were...
, a double-disc box set released by Sony/Columbia Legacy
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
on August 28, 1990, containing almost everything Robert Johnson ever recorded, with all 29 recordings (and 12 alternate takes) won a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for “Best Historical Album” that year. In 2006 he was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (accepted by his son Claud).
Problems of biography
Very little is known of Johnson's early life with any certainty. Two marriage licenses for Johnson have been located in county records offices. The ages given in these certificates point to different birth dates, as do the entries showing his attendance at Indian Creek School, Tunica, MississippiTunica, Mississippi
Tunica is a town in Tunica County, Mississippi, United States, located near the Mississippi River. Until the early 1990s the town was one of the most impoverished places in the United States, semi-famous for the particularly deprived neighbourhood known as "Sugar Ditch Alley", named for the open...
. That he was not listed among his mother's children in the 1910 census casts further doubt on these dates. Carrie Thompson claimed that her mother, who was also Robert's mother, remembered his birth date as May 8, 1911. The 1920 census suggests he was born in 1912. Five significant dates from his career are documented: Monday, Thursday and Friday, November 23, 26, and 27, 1936, at a recording session in San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
. Seven months later, on Saturday and Sunday, June 19–20, 1937, he was in Dallas at another session. His death certificate
Death certificate
The phrase death certificate can describe either a document issued by a medical practitioner certifying the deceased state of a person or popularly to a document issued by a person such as a registrar of vital statistics that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death as later...
was discovered in 1968, and lists the date and location of his death.
The two confirmed images of Johnson were located in 1973, in the possession of the musician's half-sister Carrie Thompson, and were not widely published until the late 1980s. A third photo, purporting to show Johnson posing with fellow blues performer Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth...
, was published in the November 2008 edition of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
magazine. The same article claims that other photographs of Johnson, so far unpublished, may exist.
Johnson's records were greatly admired by record collector
Record collecting
Record collecting is the hobby of collecting music. Although the main focus is on vinyl records, all formats of recorded music are collected.-History:Record collecting has been around probably nearly as long as recorded sound...
s from the time of their first release and efforts were made to discover his biography, with virtually no success. Noted blues researcher Mack McCormick began researching his family background, but was never ready to publish. McCormick's research eventually became as much a legend as Johnson himself. In 1982, McCormick permitted Peter Guralnick
Peter Guralnick
Peter Guralnick is an American music critic, writer on music, and historian of US American popular music, who is also active as an author and screenwriter. He has been married for over 45 years to Alexandra...
to publish a summary in Living Blues (1982), later reprinted in book form as Searching for Robert Johnson. Later research has sought to confirm this account or to add minor details. A revised summary acknowledging major informants was written by Stephen LaVere for the booklet accompanying the compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings
The Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album)
The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album's recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were...
(1990), and is maintained with updates at the Delta Haze website. The documentary film The Search for Robert Johnson
The Search for Robert Johnson
The Search for Robert Johnson is a 1991 UK television documentary film about the legendary Delta blues musician Robert Johnson, hosted by John Hammond, and produced and directed by Chris Hunt...
contains accounts by Mack McCormick and Gayle Dean Wardlow
Gayle Dean Wardlow
Gayle Dean Wardlow is an American historian of the blues. He is particularly associated with research into the lives of musicians Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson and the historical development of the Delta blues, on which he is a leading world authority.He was born in Freer, Texas, but was...
of what informants have told them: long interviews of David Honeyboy Edwards
David Honeyboy Edwards
David "Honeyboy" Edwards was a Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South. Edwards was the last Delta bluesman before his 2011 death.-Life and career:Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi...
and Johnny Shines, and short interviews of surviving friends and family. These published biographical sketches achieve coherent narratives, partly by ignoring reminiscences and hearsay accounts which contradict or conflict with other accounts.
A relatively full account of Johnson's brief musical career emerged in the 1960s, largely from accounts by Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
, Johnny Shines, David Honeyboy Edwards and Robert Lockwood. In 1961, the sleeve notes to the album King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released in 1961 on Columbia Records. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential blues releases ever...
included reminiscences of Don Law who had recorded Johnson in 1936. Law added to the mystique surrounding Johnson, representing him as very young and extraordinarily shy.
Discography
Eleven Johnson 78s were released on the VocalionVocalion Records
Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
label during his lifetime, with a twelfth issued posthumously. All songs are copyrighted to Robert Johnson, and his estate.
The Complete Recordings
The Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album)
The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album's recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were...
: A double-disc box set was released on August 28, 1990, containing almost everything Robert Johnson ever recorded, with all 29 recordings, and 12 alternate takes. (There is one further alternate, of "Traveling Riverside Blues," which was released on Sony's King of the Delta Blues Singers CD and also as an extra in early printings of the paperback edition of Elijah Wald
Elijah Wald
Indeed, his first book was a collaboration with his biologist mother entitled Exploding the Gene Myth, in which they wrote that "The myth of the all-powerful gene is based on flawed science that discounts the environment in which we and our genes exist." "There are no definitive histories," he...
's "Escaping the Delta.")
To celebrate Johnson's 100th birthday, May 8, 2011, Sony Legacy
Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
released a re-mastered 2 CD set of all 42 Robert Johnson recordings extant, entitled Robert Johnson: The Centennial Collection. In addition, there were two brief fragments: one where Johnson can be heard practicing a guitar figure; the second when Johnson can be heard saying, presumably to engineer Don Law, "I wanna go on with our next one myself." Reviewers commented that the sound quality of the 2011 release was a substantial improvement on the 1990 release.
Grammy Awards
| Year | Category | Title | Genre | Label | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Best Historical Album | The Complete Recordings The Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album) The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album's recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were... |
Blues | Sony/Columbia Legacy | Winner |
Grammy Hall of Fame
| Year Recorded | Title | Genre | Label | Year Inducted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1936 | Cross Road Blues Cross Road Blues "Cross Road Blues" is a song by Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson; released on a 78 rpm record in 1936 by Vocalion Records, catalogue 3519. The original version remained out of print after its initial release until the appearance of The Complete Recordings in 1990... |
Blues (Single) | Vocalion | 1998 |
National Recording Registry
The Complete RecordingsThe Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album)
The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album's recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were...
of Robert Johnson (1936–1937) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board
National Recording Preservation Board
The United States National Recording Preservation Board selects recorded sounds for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The National Recording Registry was initiated to maintain and preserve "sound recordings that are culturally, historically or aesthetically...
in the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
' National Recording Registry in 2003. The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of FameRock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
included four songs by Robert Johnson in the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.
| Year Recorded | Title |
|---|---|
| 1936 | Sweet Home Chicago Sweet Home Chicago "Sweet Home Chicago" is a popular blues standard in the twelve bar form. It was first recorded and is credited to have been written by Robert Johnson... |
| 1936 | Cross Road Blues Cross Road Blues "Cross Road Blues" is a song by Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson; released on a 78 rpm record in 1936 by Vocalion Records, catalogue 3519. The original version remained out of print after its initial release until the appearance of The Complete Recordings in 1990... |
| 1937 | Hellhound on My Trail Hellhound on My Trail "Hellhound on My Trail" is a blues song recorded by Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson in 1937. It was the first song recorded during Johnson's last recording session in Dallas, Texas on Sunday, June 20, 1937 and the first single released from that session... |
| 1937 | Love in Vain Love in Vain "Love in Vain" is a 1937 blues song written by Robert Johnson.The song is noted for its sad lyrics, tone, and style. In the 1991 documentary film The Search for Robert Johnson, John P. Hammond plays Robert's recording of "Love in Vain" for the elderly Willie Mae Powell, the woman for whom it was... |
The Blues Foundation Awards
| Robert Johnson: Blues Music Awards | ||||
| Year | Category | Title | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Vintage or Reissue Album | The Complete Recordings The Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album) The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album's recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were... |
Winner | |
Honors and inductions
On September 17, 1994, the U.S. Post Office issued a Robert Johnson 29-cent commemorative postage stamp.| Year | Title | Results | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."... |
Winner | accepted by son Claud Johnson |
| 2000 | Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame located in Clinton, Mississippi, honors it's native sons who carried the state's celebrated music heritage. It's a "who's who" of the blues, rock and roll, and jazz from their beginnings to present day.-Blues:... |
Inducted | |
| 1986 | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame | Inducted | Early Influences |
| 1980 | Blues Hall of Fame Blues Hall of Fame The Blues Hall of Fame is a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1980 by the Blues Foundation, it honors those who have performed, recorded, or documented blues.-1980:*Big Bill Broonzy*Willie Dixon*John Lee Hooker... |
Inducted | |
Tribute albums
There have been a number of tribute albums by guitar virtuosi, including| Artist | Album | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Eric Clapton Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and... |
Me and Mr. Johnson Me and Mr. Johnson Me and Mr. Johnson is an album by Eric Clapton released in 2004. The album is a tribute to legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. According to Clapton's autobiography, the recordings weren't intended to become an album. The band had rented the studio, but Clapton didn't have any songs written, so he... |
2004 |
| Peter Green Splinter Group Peter Green Splinter Group The Peter Green Splinter Group were a band led by the blues guitarist and singer, Peter Green.Green was the leader of Fleetwood Mac until he suffered a mental breakdown during the 1970s. He was rehabilitated with the aid of Nigel Watson, the late Cozy Powell and other friends, and then began... |
The Robert Johnson Songbook The Robert Johnson Songbook (album) The Robert Johnson Songbook is an album by the British blues band the Peter Green Splinter Group, led by Peter Green. Released in 1998, this was their second album... |
1998 |
| Peter Green Splinter Group Peter Green Splinter Group The Peter Green Splinter Group were a band led by the blues guitarist and singer, Peter Green.Green was the leader of Fleetwood Mac until he suffered a mental breakdown during the 1970s. He was rehabilitated with the aid of Nigel Watson, the late Cozy Powell and other friends, and then began... |
Hot Foot Powder Hot Foot Powder (album) Hot Foot Powder is an album by the British blues band the Peter Green Splinter Group, led by Peter Green. Released in 2000, this was their fifth album... |
2000 |
| Peter Green Splinter Group Peter Green Splinter Group The Peter Green Splinter Group were a band led by the blues guitarist and singer, Peter Green.Green was the leader of Fleetwood Mac until he suffered a mental breakdown during the 1970s. He was rehabilitated with the aid of Nigel Watson, the late Cozy Powell and other friends, and then began... |
Me and the Devil | 2001 (A 3-CD set consisting of The Robert Johnson Songbook and Hot Foot Powder with 1 CD of original Robert Johnson recordings) |
| John Hammond John P. Hammond John Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:... |
At the Crossroads | 2003 |
| Todd Rundgren Todd Rundgren Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings... |
Todd Rundgren's Johnson | 2010 |
| Big Head Blues Club Big Head Todd and the Monsters Big Head Todd & the Monsters is a rock band formed in 1986 in Colorado. The band has released a number of albums since 1989 with their 1993 album Sister Sweetly going platinum in the United States... |
100 Years of Robert Johnson | 2011 |
| Rory Block Rory Block -Festival appearances:*Long Beach Blues Festival - 1993*San Francisco Blues Festival - 1999*Notodden Blues Festival - 2006-See also:*List of blues musicians*List of contemporary blues musicians*List of Austin City Limits performers-External links:****... |
The Lady and Mr Johnson | 2006 (2007 Acoustic Blues Album of the Year) |
Films and other media
- The 1986 film CrossroadsCrossroads (1986 film)Crossroads is a 1986 film starring Ralph Macchio, Joe Seneca and Jami Gertz, inspired by the legend of blues musician Robert Johnson.The film was written by John Fusco and directed by Walter Hill and featured an original score featuring Ry Cooder and Steve Vai on the soundtrack's guitar, and...
is about a young white blues guitarist's search for Johnson's "missing" 30th song and the theme of blues artists selling their souls to the devil. - Stones in My Passway: The Robert Johnson Story (1990), a biographical film by Martin SpottlMartin SpottlMartin Spottl is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose works include Across the Line, a drama set on the US-Mexico Border,...
. - The Search for Robert JohnsonThe Search for Robert JohnsonThe Search for Robert Johnson is a 1991 UK television documentary film about the legendary Delta blues musician Robert Johnson, hosted by John Hammond, and produced and directed by Chris Hunt...
(1991), UK documentary hosted by Blues musician John P. HammondJohn P. HammondJohn Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:...
, son of John H. HammondJohn H. HammondJohn Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
. - Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? The Life and Music of Robert Johnson (1997)
- Hellhounds On My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson (2000, directed by Robert MuggeRobert MuggeRobert Mugge is an American documentary film maker. He specializes in films about music and musicians.Mugge was born in Chicago and grew up primarily in the Washington, D.C. area. He received a B.A...
) - Eric Clapton – Sessions for Robert Johnson (2004, documentary)
- Me and the Devil BluesMe and the Devil Bluesis a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Hiramoto about the blues legend Robert Johnson. It was originally serialized in Kodansha's Afternoon. The manga is licensed in North America by Del Rey Manga and in France by Kana. School Library Journal named Me and the Devil Blues as one...
: The Unreal Life of Robert Johnson (published in 2008) is a Japanese mangaMangaManga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series written and illustrated by Akira Hiramoto. It is a phantasmagoric reimagining of Johnson's life. - Celebration of the music and legend of Robert Johnson: Show 502 WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour. Rory BlockRory Block-Festival appearances:*Long Beach Blues Festival - 1993*San Francisco Blues Festival - 1999*Notodden Blues Festival - 2006-See also:*List of blues musicians*List of contemporary blues musicians*List of Austin City Limits performers-External links:****...
and Scott Ainslie discuss Johnson and play his music. Taped 2008-09-29; 60 minutes audio (WMA, MP3), 88 minutes video (WMV). - To commemorate Johnson's 100th birthday, Dogfish Head BreweryDogfish Head BreweryDogfish Head Brewery is a brewing company based in Milton, Delaware founded by Sam Calagione. It opened in 1995 and produces 75,000 barrels of beer annually. Dogfish Head has been a rapidly growing brewery - it grew nearly 400% in between 2003 and 2006...
released "Hellhound on My Ale", a limited edition beer, in collaboration with Sony's Legacy RecordingsLegacy RecordingsLegacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
division.
External links
- The Robert Johnson Blues Foundation
- Robert Johnson Mount Zion Memorial Fund
- 1980 Hall of Fame Inductee at The Blues FoundationBlues FoundationThe Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 Blues organizations from various parts of the world....
- The Robert Johnson Notebooks. Courtney Danforth and Adriana Rissetto. University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
. 1997-07-07/2003-11-03. - Robert Johnson Death Certificate. State of Mississippi.
- Robert Johnson at Find-A-Grave
- Robert Johnson recordings. Three Perfect Minutes – Milestone Recordings in American Music. Bryan Mangum. User-generated reviews of each of Johnson's tracks.
Articles
- Bluesman's Son Gets His Due Ellen Barry, Los Angeles Times. June 2, 2004. Johnson legal battle.
- Portrait of a Phantom – Searching for Robert Johnson. Frank DiGiacomo, Vanity Fair. November 2008. Purported new photo of Robert Johnson with Johnny ShinesJohnny ShinesJohnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth...
. - Steady Rollin’ Man – A Revolutionary Critique of Robert Johnson. John Gibbens, Touched Press Books. About speed adjustments.
- Escaping the Delta/Robert Johnson Elijah Wald. About the book, w/links to related material.
- Delta Guitar Player Robert Johnson. Guitarz For Ever. 2004. (Portion copied from ezinearticles.com)
- Deal with the Devil: Understanding Robert Johnson, His Music and His Impact. D.A.N. Soul of Rock 'n' Roll. 2007-04-06