For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson ( disambiguation )
musical artist
Reading: Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson ( May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938 ) was an american blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced late generations of musicians. He is now recognized as a dominate of the blues, particularly the Delta blues manner. As a traveling performer who played by and large on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson had small commercial success or public recognition in his life. He participated in only two recording sessions, one in San Antonio in 1936, and one in Dallas in 1937, that produced 29 distinct songs ( with 13 surviving alternate takes ) recorded by celebrated Country Music Hall of Fame producer Don Law. These songs, recorded at low fidelity in improvised studios, were the entirety of his recorded output. Most were released as 10-inch, 78 revolutions per minute singles from 1937–1938, with a few released after his death. other than these recordings, identical little was known of him during his liveliness outside of the small musical racing circuit in the Mississippi Delta where he spent most of his life ; much of his report has been reconstructed after his death by researchers. Johnson ‘s ill documented life and death have given rise to much caption. The one most closely associated with his life is that he sold his soul to the annoy at a local crossroads to achieve musical success. His music had a small, but influential, following during his life and in the two decades after his death. In recently 1938 John Hammond sought him out for a concert at Carnegie Hall, From Spirituals to Swing, only to discover that Johnson had died. Brunswick Records, which owned the original recordings, was bought by Columbia Records, where Hammond was employed. Musicologist Alan Lomax went to Mississippi in 1941 to record Johnson, besides not knowing of his death. Law, who by then worked for Columbia Records, assembled a collection of Johnson ‘s recordings titled King of the Delta Blues Singers that was released by Columbia in 1961. It is widely credited with finally bringing Johnson ‘s oeuvre to a wide audience. The album would become influential, specially on the nascent british blues movement ; Eric Clapton has called Johnson “ the most authoritative blues singer that always lived. ” Musicians such as Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and Robert Plant have cited both Johnson ‘s lyrics and musicianship as key influences on their own workplace. many of Johnson ‘s songs have been covered over the years, becoming hits for other artists, and his guitar licks and lyrics have been borrowed by many belated musicians. Renewed interest in Johnson ‘s work and life led to a outburst of scholarship starting in the 1960s. much of what is known about him was reconstructed by researchers such as Gayle Dean Wardlow and Bruce Conforth, specially in their 2019 award-winning biography [ 2 ] of Johnson : Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson ( Chicago Review Press ). Two films, the 1991 objective The Search for Robert Johnson by John Hammond Jr., and a 1997 objective, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, the Life and Music of Robert Johnson, which included reconstructed scenes with Keb ‘ Mo ‘ as Johnson, were attempts to document his liveliness, and demonstrated the difficulties arising from the light diachronic record and conflicting oral accounts. Over the years, the significance of Johnson and his music has been recognized by numerous organizations and publications, including the Rock and Roll, Grammy, and Blues Halls of Fame ; and the National Recording Preservation Board .
Life and career [edit ]
early life [edit ]
Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, 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 golden landowner and furniture maker, with whom she had ten children. Charles Dodds had been forced by a lynch gang to leave Hazlehurst following a quarrel with white landowners. Julia left Hazlehurst with baby Robert, but in less than two years she brought the son to Memphis to live with her conserve, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer. Robert spent the next 8–9 years growing up in Memphis and attending the Carnes Avenue Colored School where he received lessons in arithmetic, read, lyric, music, geography, and physical exercise. It was in Memphis that he acquired his sleep together for, and cognition of, the blues and popular music. His education and urban context placed him apart from most of his contemporary blues musicians. Robert rejoined his mother around 1919–1920 after she married an illiterate sharecropper named Will “ Dusty ” Willis. They primitively settled on a plantation in Lucas Township in Crittenden County, Arkansas, but soon moved across the Mississippi River to Commerce in the Mississippi Delta, near Tunica and Robinsonville. They lived on the Abbay & Leatherman Plantation. [ 6 ] Julia ‘s new conserve was 24 years her junior. Robert was remembered by some residents as “ Little Robert Dusty ”, but he was registered at Tunica ‘s indian Creek School as Robert Spencer. In the 1920 census, he is listed as Robert Spencer, living in Lucas, Arkansas, with Will and Julia Willis. Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927. [ 8 ] The quality of his signature on his marriage security suggests that he was relatively well educated for a boy of his background. A educate supporter, Willie Coffee, who was interviewed and filmed in later life, recalled that as a youth Robert was already noted for playing the harmonica and yack harp. Coffee recalled that Robert was absent for long periods, which suggests that he may have been living and studying in Memphis. once Julia informed Robert about his biological father, Robert adopted the surname Johnson, using it on the certificate of his marriage to sixteen-year-old Virginia Travis in February 1929. She died in childbirth curtly after. Surviving relatives of Virginia told the blues researcher Robert “ Mack ” McCormick that this was a divine punishment for Robert ‘s decisiveness to sing secular songs, known as “ selling your soul to the Devil ”. McCormick believed that Johnson himself accepted the phrase as a description of his conclude to abandon the settle life of a conserve and farmer to become a full-time blues musician. [ 13 ] Around this time, the blues musician Son House moved to Robinsonville, where his melodious partner Willie Brown lived. Late in animation, House remembered Johnson as a “ little son ” who was a competent harmonica actor but an embarrassingly bad guitarist. soon after, Johnson left Robinsonville for the area around Martinsville, close to his birthplace, possibly searching for his natural founder. here he perfected the guitar dash of House and learned other styles from Isaiah “ Ike ” Zimmerman. Zimmerman was rumored to have learned preternaturally to play guitar by visiting graveyards at midnight. When Johnson following appeared in Robinsonville, he seemed to have miraculously acquired a guitar proficiency. House was interviewed at a time when the caption of Johnson ‘s treaty with the hellion was well known among blues researchers. He was asked whether he attributed Johnson ‘s technique to this treaty, and his equivocal answers have been taken as confirmation. While living in Martinsville, Johnson fathered a child with Vergie Mae Smith. He married Caletta Craft in May 1931. In 1932, the pair settled for a while in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the Delta, but Johnson soon left for a career as a “ walk ” or itinerant musician, and Caletta died in early 1933 .
itinerant musician [edit ]
From 1932 until his death in 1938, Johnson moved frequently between the cities of Memphis and Helena, and the smaller towns of the Mississippi Delta and neighbor regions of Mississippi and Arkansas. On occasion, he traveled much further. The blues musician Johnny Shines accompanied him to Chicago, Texas, New York, Canada, Kentucky, and Indiana. Henry Townsend shared a musical date with him in St. Louis. In many places he stayed with members of his large extended family or with female friends. He did not marry again but formed some long-run relationships with women to whom he would return sporadically. In other places he stayed with whatever charwoman he was able to seduce at his operation. In each placement, Johnson ‘s hosts were largely ignorant of his biography elsewhere. He used different names in different places, employing at least eight distinct surnames. Biographers have looked for consistency from musicians who knew Johnson in different context : Shines, who traveled extensively with him ; Robert Lockwood, Jr., who knew him as his mother ‘s partner ; David “ Honeyboy ” Edwards, whose cousin Willie Mae Powell had a kinship with Johnson. From a aggregate of partial derivative, conflict, and inconsistent eyewitness accounts, biographers have attempted to summarize Johnson ‘s character. “ He was well mannered, he was balmy speak, he was indecipherable ”. “ As for his character, everyone seems to agree that, while he was pleasant and outgoing in populace, in secret he was reserved and liked to go his own direction ”. “ 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 battlefront of the local barbershop or a restaurant. melodious associates have said that in live performances Johnson frequently did not focus on his black and complex original compositions, but alternatively please audiences by performing more well-known pop standards of the day [ 32 ] – and not necessarily blues. With an ability to pick up tunes at beginning listen, he had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted, and sealed of his contemporaries late remarked on his pastime in jazz and area music. He besides had an preternatural ability to establish a rapport with his consultation ; in every township in which he stopped, he would establish ties to the local community that would serve him well when he passed through again a calendar month or a class belated. Shines was 20 when he met Johnson in 1936. He estimated Johnson was possibly a year older than himself ( Johnson was actually four years older ). Shines is quoted describing Johnson in Samuel Charters ‘s Robert Johnson :
Robert was a very friendly person, evening though he was sulky at times, you know. And I hung around Robert for quite a while. One even he disappeared. He was kind of a peculiar chap. Robert ‘d be standing up playing some station, playing like cipher ‘s business. At about that time it was a hustle with him arsenic good as a pleasure. And money ‘d be coming from all directions. But Robert ‘d merely pick up and walk off and leave you standing there playing. And you would n’t see Robert no more possibly in two or three weeks. … thus Robert and I, we began journeying off. I was just, matter of fact, tagging along. [ 33 ]
During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-run relationship with Estella Coleman, a charwoman about 15 years his senior and the mother of the blues musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. Johnson reportedly cultivated a womanhood to look after him in each township he played in. He reputedly asked homely young women living in the nation with their families whether he could go base with them, and in most cases, he was accepted, until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was fix to move on. In 1941, Alan Lomax learned from Muddy Waters that Johnson had performed in the area around Clarksdale, Mississippi. By 1959, the historian Samuel Charters could add entirely that Will Shade, of the Memphis Jug Band, remembered Johnson had once briefly played with him in West Memphis, Arkansas. In the stopping point year of his animation, Johnson is believed to have traveled to St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and New York City. In 1938, Columbia Records producer John H. Hammond, who owned some of Johnson ‘s records, directed record manufacturer Don Law to seek out Johnson to book him for the first “ From Spirituals to Swing “ concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. On learn of Johnson ‘s death, Hammond replaced him with Big Bill Broonzy, but he played two of Johnson ‘s records from the degree .
Recording sessions [edit ]
In Jackson, Mississippi, around 1936, Johnson sought out H. C. Speir, who ran a cosmopolitan store and besides acted as a talent lookout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who, as a salesman for the ARC group of labels, introduced Johnson to Don Law to record his first sessions in San Antonio, Texas. The commemorate seance was held on November 23–25, 1936, in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio. In the ensuing three-day school term, Johnson played 16 selections and commemorate surrogate takes for most of them. Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were “ I Believe I ‘ll Dust My Broom “, “ Sweet Home Chicago “, and “ Cross Road Blues “, which later became blues standards. The first to be released was “ Terraplane Blues “, backed with “ last Fair Deal Gone Down “, which sold ampere many as 10,000 copies. Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another record session with Don Law in a makeshift studio apartment at the Vitagraph ( Warner Bros. ) Building, [ 39 ] on June 19–20, 1937. Johnson recorded about half of the 29 songs that make up his entire discography in Dallas and eleven records from this school term were released within the trace class. Most of Johnson ‘s “ somber and introspective ” songs and performances come from his second read school term. Johnson did two takes of most of these songs, and recordings of those takes survived. Because of this, there is more opportunity to compare unlike performances of a individual song by Johnson than for any early blues performer of his time and identify. In contrast to most Delta players, Johnson had absorbed the estimate of fitting a composed birdcall into the three minutes of a 78-rpm side .
death [edit ]
Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, approach Greenwood, Mississippi, of unknown causes. His death was not reported publicly ; he merely disappeared from the diachronic phonograph record and it was not until about 30 years by and by, when Gayle Dean Wardlow, a Mississippi-based musicologist researching Johnson ‘s life, found his death certificate, which listed only the date and location, with no official campaign of death. No formal autopsy was done ; alternatively, a pro forma examination was done to file the death security, and no immediate cause of death was determined. It is likely he had congenital syphilis and it was suspected by and by by medical professionals that may have been a contributing factor in his end. however, 30 years of local legend and oral tradition had, like the rest of his life sentence report, built a caption which has filled in gaps in the stint historical record. [ 44 ] respective differing accounts have described the events preceding his death. Johnson had been playing for a few weeks at a area dance in a town about 15 miles ( 24 kilometer ) from Greenwood. According to one theory, Johnson was murdered by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. In an bill by the blues musician Sonny Boy Williamson, Johnson had been flirting with a married woman at a dance, and she gave him a bottle of whiskey poisoned by her husband. When Johnson took the bottle, Williamson knocked it out of his hand, admonishing him to never drink from a bottle that he had not personally seen opened. Johnson replied, “ Do n’t always knock a bottle out of my pass. ” soon after, he was offered another ( poisoned ) bottle and accepted it. Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after and had to be helped back to his room in the early on morning hours. Over the next three days his condition steadily worsened. Witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of austere annoyance. The musicologist Robert “ Mack ” McCormick claimed to have tracked down the man who murdered Johnson and to have obtained a confession from him in a personal interview, but he declined to reveal the man ‘s name. [ 13 ] While strychnine has been suggested as the poison that killed Johnson, at least one learner has disputed the notion. Tom Graves, in his book Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson, relies on technical testimony from toxicologists to argue that strychnine has such a classifiable olfactory property and taste that it can not be disguised, even in strong liquor. Graves besides 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. In their 2019 record Up Jumped the Devil, Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow suggest that the poison was naphthalene, from dissolved mothballs. This was “ a common way of poisoning people in the rural South ”, but was rarely black. however, Johnson had been diagnosed with an ulcer and with esophageal varices, and the poison was sufficient to cause them to hemorrhage. He died after two days of dangerous abdominal pain, vomit, and bleeding from the mouth. The LeFlore County registrar, Cornelia Jordan, years belated and after conducting an investigation into Johnson ‘s death for the state director of full of life statistics, R. N. Whitfield, wrote a clarify eminence on the back of Johnson ‘s death certificate :
I talked with the white man on whose place this black died and I besides talked with a black woman on the space. The grove owner said the negro serviceman, apparently about 26 years honest-to-god, came from Tunica two or three weeks before he died to play banjo at a black dance given there on the plantation. He stayed in the house with some of the negroes saying he wanted to pick cotton. The white homo did not have a doctor for this negro as he had not worked for him. He was buried in a homemade coffin furnished by the county. The plantation owner said it was his impression that the man died of syphilis. [ 47 ]
In 2006, a medical practitioner, David Connell, suggested, on the footing of photograph showing Johnson ‘s “ artificially farseeing fingers ” and “ one bad eye ”, that Johnson may have had Marfan syndrome, which could have both affected his guitar play and contributed to his death due to aortal dissection .
Gravesite [edit ]
Alleged gravesite at Payne Chapel near Quito, with one of Johnson ‘s three tombstones The exact location of Johnson ‘s dangerous is officially unknown ; three different markers have been erected at potential sites in church cemeteries outside Greenwood .
- Research in the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggests Johnson was buried in the graveyard of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City, Mississippi, not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave. A one-ton cenotaph in the shape of an obelisk, listing all of Johnson’s song titles, with a central inscription by Peter Guralnick, was placed at this location in 1990, paid for by Columbia Records and numerous smaller contributions made through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund.
- In 1990, a small marker with the epitaph “Resting in the Blues” was placed in the cemetery of Payne Chapel, near Quito, Mississippi, by an Atlanta rock group named the Tombstones, after they saw a photograph in Living Blues magazine of an unmarked spot alleged by one of Johnson’s ex-girlfriends to be Johnson’s burial site.
- More recent research by Stephen LaVere (including statements from Rosie Eskridge, the wife of the supposed gravedigger, in 2000) 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. Through LaVere, Sony Music placed a marker at this site, which bears LaVere’s name as well as Johnson’s. Researchers Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow also concluded this was Johnson’s resting place in their 2019 biography.
John Hammond, Jr., in the objective The Search for Robert Johnson ( 1991 ), suggests that owing to poverty and lack of transportation Johnson is most probable to have been buried in a pauper ‘s sculpt ( or “ potter ‘s field “ ) very near where he died .
Devil legend [edit ]
According to legend, as a young homo living on a grove in rural Mississippi, Johnson had a frightful desire to become a great blues musician. One of the legends often told says that Johnson was instructed to take his guitar to a intersection near Dockery Plantation at midnight. ( There are claims for at least a twelve other sites as the placement of the crossroads. ) [ citation needed ] 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 domination of the instrument. This report of a bargain with the Devil at the crossroads mirrors the caption of Faust. In exchange for his soul, Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became celebrated .
respective accounts [edit ]
This legend was developed over prison term and has been chronicled by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Edward Komara and Elijah Wald, who sees the caption 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 amazingly rapid mastery of the guitar. Welding reported it as a unplayful belief in a widely read article in Down Beat in 1966. [ citation needed ] early interviewers failed to elicit any confirmation from House and there were fully two years between House ‘s notice of Johnson as beginning a novitiate and then a master. promote details were absorbed from the imaginative retellings by Greil Marcus and Robert Palmer. Most significantly, the detail was added that Johnson received his giving from a big black world at a crossroads. There is dispute as to how and when the crossroads detail was attached to the Robert Johnson narrative. All the published attest, including a fully chapter on the subject in the biography Crossroads, by Tom Graves, suggests an origin in the report of the blues musician Tommy Johnson. This history was collected from his musical consort Ishman Bracey and his elder buddy Ledell in the 1960s. One version of Ledell Johnson ‘s account was published in David Evans ‘s 1971 biography of Tommy Johnson, and was repeated in print in 1982 alongside House ‘s fib in the wide read Searching for Robert Johnson, by Peter Guralnick. In another version, Ledell placed the converge not at a crossroads but in a cemetery. This resembles the story told to Steve LaVere that Ike Zimmerman of Hazlehurst, Mississippi, learned to play the guitar at midnight while sitting on tombstones. Zimmerman is believed to have influenced the play of the young Johnson .
The crossroads at Clarksdale, Mississippi late inquiry by the blues scholar Bruce Conforth, in Living Blues magazine, makes the history clear. Johnson and Ike Zimmerman did practice in a cemetery at night, because it was tranquillity and no matchless would disturb them, but it was not the Hazlehurst cemetery as had been believed : Zimmerman was not from Hazlehurst but nearby Beauregard, and he did not practice in one cemetery, but in several in the area. [ 60 ] Johnson spent about a year living with and learning from Zimmerman, who ultimately accompanied Johnson back to the Delta to look after him. While Dockery, Hazlehurst and Beauregard have each been claimed as the locations of the fabulous crossroads, there are besides tourist attractions claiming to be “ The Crossroads ” in both Clarksdale and Memphis. Residents of Rosedale, Mississippi, claim Johnson sold his soul to the monster at the intersection of Highways 1 and 8 in their township, while the 1986 movie Crossroads was filmed in Beulah, Mississippi. The blues historian Steve Cheseborough wrote that it may be impossible to discover the claim location of the fabulous crossroads, because “ Robert Johnson was a digressive guy ” .
Interpretations [edit ]
Some scholars have argued that the monster in these songs may refer not entirely to the christian figure of Satan but besides to the deceiver deity of African origin, Legba, himself associated with crossroads. Folklorist Harry M. Hyatt wrote that, during his inquiry in the South from 1935 to 1939, when African-Americans born in the 19th or early twentieth hundred said they or anyone else had “ sold their soul to the devil at the crossroads ”, they had a different mean in heed. Hyatt claimed there was evidence indicate African religious retentions surrounding Legba and the seduce of a “ deal ” ( not selling the person in the same sense as in the faustian tradition cited by Graves ) with the alleged devil at the crossroads .
The Blues and the Blues singer has truly particular powers over women, specially. It is said that the Blues singer could possess women and have any woman they wanted. And therefore when Robert Johnson came back, having left his community as an apparently average musician, with a clear genius in his guitar expressive style and lyrics, people said he must have sold his soul to the annoy. And that fits in with this old african affiliation with the crossroads where you find wisdom of solomon : you go down to the crossroads to learn, and in his case to learn in a faustian treaty, with the annoy. You sell your person to become the greatest musician in history. [ 64 ]
This view that the annoy in Johnson ‘s songs is derived from an african deity was disputed by the blues scholar David Evans in an essay published in 1999, “ Demythologizing the Blues ” :
There are … respective unplayful problems with this crossroads myth. The hellion imagination found in the blues is thoroughly familiar from westerly folklore, and nowhere do blues singers ever citation Legba or any other african deity in their songs or other lore. The actual African music connected with cults of Legba and exchangeable prankster deities sounds nothing like the blues, but quite features polyrhythmic percussion and chorale call-and-response sing. [ 65 ]
The musicologist Alan Lomax dismissed the myth, express, “ In fact, every blues twiddler, banjo picker, harmonica electric fan, piano strummer and guitar framer was, in the opinion of both himself and his peers, a child of the Devil, a consequence of the black opinion of the european dancing embrace as iniquitous in the extreme ” .
musical style [edit ]
Johnson is considered a master of the blues, particularly of the Delta blues vogue. Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stones, said in 1990, “ You want to know how estimable the blues can get ? well, this is it ”. But according to Elijah Wald, in his book Escaping the Delta, Johnson in his own fourth dimension was most respected for his ability to play in a wide range of styles, from raw nation chute guitar to wind and pop licks, and for his ability to pick up guitar parts about instantaneously upon hearing a sung. His first recorded song, “ Kind Hearted Woman Blues “, in contrast to the prevail Delta style of the time, more resembled the manner of Chicago or St. Louis, with “ a full-fledged, abundantly deviate melodious placement ”. The song was part of a bicycle 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 thoroughly composed lyric, rather than an arbitrary solicitation of more or less unrelated verses. Unusual for a Delta player of the clock, a recording exhibits what Johnson could do wholly outside of a blues style. “ They ‘re crimson Hot “, from his first record school term, shows that he was besides comfortable with an “ uptown ” swing or ragtime sound similar to that of the Harlem Hamfats, but as Wald remarked, “ no criminal record company was heading to Mississippi in search of a down-home Ink Spots … [ H ] einsteinium could undoubtedly have come up with a set more songs in this stylus if the producers had wanted them. ”
To the uninitiate, Johnson ‘s recordings may sound like just another cold Delta blues musician wailing aside. But a careful listen reveals that Johnson was a revisionist in his clock time … Johnson ‘s anguished soul vocals and anxiety-ridden guitar play are n’t found in the cotton-field blues of his contemporaries. [ 73 ]
— Marc Myers
part [edit ]
An significant expression of Johnson ‘s spill the beans was his consumption of microtonality. These subtle inflections of sales talk help explain why his singing conveys such mighty emotion. Eric Clapton described Johnson ‘s music as “ the most knock-down cry that I think you can find in the human voice ”. In two takes of “ Me and the Devil Blues “ he shows a high academic degree of preciseness in the complex vocal delivery of the survive poetry : “ The range of tone he can pack into a few lines is astonishing. ” The song ‘s “ hep liquid body substance and sophistication ” is frequently overlooked. “ [ G ] enerations of blues writers in research of godforsaken Delta primitivism ”, wrote Wald, have been inclined to overlook or undervalue aspects that show Johnson as a milled professional performer. Johnson is besides known for using the guitar as “ the other singer in the song ”, a technique late perfected by B.B. King and his personify guitar named Lucille : “ In Africa and in african-american tradition, there is the custom of the talking instrumental role, beginning with the drums … the one-strand and then the six-strings with bottleneck-style operation ; it becomes a compete spokesperson … or a complemental voice … in the performance. ” [ 64 ]
When Johnson started sing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in fully armor. I immediately differentiated between him and anyone else I had always heard. The songs were n’t accustomed blues songs. They were therefore absolutely fluid. At beginning they went by agile, excessively agile to even get. They jumped all over the space in range and subject topic, short punchy verses that resulted in some bird’s-eye story-fires of world blasting off the surface of this spinning slice of plastic. [ 76 ]
— Bob Dylan
legal document [edit ]
Johnson mastered the guitar, being considered today one of the all-time greats on the instrument. His approach was complex and musically advanced. When Keith Richards was first base introduced to Johnson ‘s music by his bandmate Brian Jones, he asked, “ Who is the early guy playing with him ? “, not realizing it was Johnson playing one guitar. “ I was hearing two guitars, and it took a hanker time to actually realise he was doing it all by himself ”, [ 77 ] said Richards, who late stated that “ Robert Johnson was like an orchestra all by himself ”. [ 73 ] “ As for his guitar proficiency, it ‘s politely reedy but ambitiously eclectic—moving effortlessly from hen-picking and constriction slides to a full moon deck of chucka-chucka rhythm figures. ” [ 73 ]
Lyrics [edit ]
In The Story with Dick Gordon, Bill Ferris, of american english Public Media, said, “ Robert Johnson I think of in the same room I think of the british Romantic poets, Keats and Shelley, who burned out early, who were geniuses at wordsmithing poetry … The Blues, if anything, are profoundly intimate. You know, ‘my car does n’t run, I ‘m gon na check my vegetable oil … ‘if you do n’t like my apples, do n’t shake my tree ‘. Every verse has sex associated with it. ” [ 64 ]
Influences [edit ]
Johnson fused approaches specific to Delta blues to those from the broader music worldly concern. The slide guitar work on “ Ramblin ‘ on My Mind “ is pure Delta and Johnson ‘s song there has “ a partake of … Son House incompleteness ”, but the string fake on the bridge is not at all typical of Delta blues—it is more like something out of minstrel show 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 has been questioned by Guralnick ). As with the foremost take of “ Come On in My Kitchen “, the influence of Skip James is discernible in James ‘s “ Devil Got My Woman ”, but the lyrics rise to the flat of first-rate poetry, and Johnson sings with a labored voice found nowhere else in his record output. The sad, amatory “ Love in Vain “ successfully blends several of Johnson ‘s disparate influences. The shape, including the mute last verse, follows Leroy Carr ‘s last hit “ When the Sun Goes Down ” ; the words of the last whistle verse come directly from a song Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded in 1926. Johnson ‘s last recording, “ Milkcow ‘s Calf Blues “ is his most direct protection to Kokomo Arnold, who wrote “ Milkcow Blues ” and influenced Johnson ‘s outspoken style. “ From Four Until Late “ shows Johnson ‘s domination of a blues vogue not normally associated with the Delta. He croons the lyrics in a manner evocative of Lonnie Johnson, and his guitar vogue is more that of a ragtime -influenced player like Blind Blake. Lonnie Johnson ‘s influence is even clearer in two other departures from the usual Delta stylus : “ Malted Milk ” and “ Drunken Hearted Man ”. Both copy the agreement of Lonnie Johnson ‘s “ Life Saver Blues ”. The two takes of “ Me and the Devil Blues ” show the influence of Peetie Wheatstraw, calling into interview the interpretation of this while as “ the spontaneous heart-cry of a demon-driven folk artist ” .
bequest [edit ]
early recognition and reviews [edit ]
Famed producer John Hammond was an early advocate of Johnson ‘s music. Using the pen-name Henry Johnson, he wrote his first article on Robert Johnson for the New Masses cartridge holder in March 1937, around the meter of the release of Johnson ‘s first commemorate. In it, he described Johnson as “ the greatest Negro blues singer who has cropped up in recent years … Johnson makes ledbetter sound like an accomplished poseur. ” The following year, Hammond hoped to get Johnson to perform at a December 1938 From Spirituals to Swing concert in New York City, as he was unaware that Johnson had died in August. rather, Hammond played two of his recordings, “ Walkin ‘ Blues ” and “ Preachin ‘ Blues ( Up Jumped the Devil ) ”, for the audience and “ praise Johnson lavishly from the stage ”. Music historian Ted Gioia noted “ here, if only through the medium of recordings, Hammond used his considerable influence at this historic event to advocate a placement of eminence for the deep Delta bluesman ”. Music educator James Perone besides saw that the consequence “ underline Robert Johnson ‘s specific importance as a recording artist ”. In 1939, Columbia issued a final single, pairing “ Preachin ‘ Blues ” with “ Love in Vain ”. In 1942, comment on Johnson ‘s “ Terraplane Blues ” and “ last Fair Deal Gone Down ” was included in The Jazz Record Book, edited by Charles Edward Smith. The authors described Johnson ‘s vocals as “ imaginative ” and “ shudder ” and his guitar play as “ exciting as about anything in the folk blues field ”. Music writer Rudi Blesh included a review of Johnson ‘s “ Hellhound on My Trail “ in his 1946 book Shining Trumpets: a History of Jazz. He noted the “ personal and creative room ” Johnson approached the song ‘s harmony. Jim Wilson, then a writer for the Detroit Free Press, besides mentioned his unconventional use of harmony. In a 1949 review, he compared elements of John Lee Hooker ‘s recent debut “ Boogie Chillen “ : “ His [ Hooker ‘s ] moral force rhythm and elusive nuances on the guitar and his startling disregard for familiar scale and harmony patterns show similarity to the work of Robert Johnson, who made many fine records in this vein. ” Samuel Charters drew far attention to Johnson in a five-page section in his 1959 book, The Country Blues. He focused on the two Johnson recordings that referred to images of the annoy or hell – “ Hellhound on My Trail ” and “ Me and the Devil Blues ” – to suggest that Johnson was a profoundly disturb individual. Charters besides included Johnson ‘s “ Preachin ‘ Blues ” on the album published alongside his book. Columbia Records ‘ first album of Johnson ‘s recordings, King of the Delta Blues Singers, was issued two years former .
musicianship [edit ]
Johnson is mentioned as one of the Delta artists who was a potent influence on blues singers in post-war styles. however, it is Johnson ‘s guitar proficiency that is often identified as his greatest contribution. Blues historian Edward Komara wrote :
The performance of a drive bass beat on a pick instrument like the guitar ( rather of the piano ) is Johnson ‘s most influential accomplishment … This is the aspect of his music that most changed the Delta blues rehearse and is most retained in the blues guitar tradition .
This technique has been called a “ boogie bass radiation pattern ” or “ boogie shamble ” and is described as a “ fifth–sixth [ degrees of a major scale ] oscillation above the root chord “. sometimes, it has been attributed to Johnnie Temple, because he was the first to record a song in 1935 using it. however, Temple confirmed that he had learned the technique from Johnson : “ He was the foremost one I ever learn use it … It was exchangeable to a piano boogie bass [ which ] I learned from R. L. [ Johnson ] in ’32 or ’33. ” Johnny Shines added : “ Some of the things that Robert did with the guitar affected the means everybody played. In the early thirties, boogie was rare on the guitar, something to be heard. ” Conforth and Wardlow call it “ one of the most significant riffs in blues music ” and music historian Peter Guralnick believes Johnson “ popularized a modality [ walking freshwater bass manner on guitar ] which would quickly become the accept practice ”. Although writer Elijah Wald recognizes Johnson ‘s contribution in popularizing the invention, he discounts its importance and adds, “ a far as the development of black music goes, Robert Johnson was an extremely minor trope, and very little that happened in the decades following his death would have been affected if he had never played a note ” .
Contemporaries [edit ]
Johnson ‘s contemporaries, including Johnny Shines, Johnnie Temple, Henry Townsend, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Calvin Frazier, and David “ Honeyboy ” Edwards were among those who kept his music alive through performing his songs and using his guitar techniques. Fellow Mississippi native Elmore James is the best know and is responsible for popularizing Johnson ‘s “ Dust My Broom ”. In 1951, he recast the birdcall as a Chicago-style blues, with electric chute guitar and a back ring. According to blues historian Gerard Herhaft :
Johnson ‘s influence upon Elmore James ‘s music always remained potent : his falsetto voice, about shrill, and the intensive manipulation of the “ walk ” bass notes of the boogie, several pieces of James ‘ repertory were borrowed from Johnson ( e.g, “ Dust My Broom ”, “ Rambling on My Mind ”, and “ Crossroads ” ) .
James ‘ translation is identified as “ one of the first recorded examples of what was to become the classic Chicago shuffle beat ”. The vogue often associated with Chicago blues was used extensively by Jimmy Reed beginning with his first record “ High and Lonesome ” in 1953. sometimes called “ the brand Reed shuffle ” ( although besides associated his second guitarist, Eddie Taylor ), it is the human body Johnson used updated for electric guitar .
Blues standards [edit ]
several of Johnson ‘s songs became blue sky standards, which is used to describe blues songs that have been widely performed and recorded over a period of time and are seen as having a durable quality. Perone notes “ That such a relatively high percentage of the songs attributed to him became blues standards besides keeps the bequest of Robert Johnson alive. ” Those most much identified are “ Sweet Home Chicago ” and “ Dust My Broom ”, but besides include “ Crossroads ” and “ Stop Breaking Down “. As with many blues songs, there are melodious and lyrical precedents. While “ Sweet Home Chicago ” borrows from Kokomo Arnold ‘s 1933 “ Old Original Kokomo Blues ”, “ Johnson ‘s lyrics made the song a lifelike for Chicago bluesmen, and it ‘s his translation that survived in the repertoires of performers like Magic Sam, Robert Lockwood, and Junior Parker “. In the first decades after Johnsons ‘ death, these songs were recorded by Sonny Boy Williamson I ( 1945 ), Arthur Crudup ( 1949 ), [ 116 ] Elmore James ( 1951–1959 ), Baby Boy Warren ( 1954 ), [ 117 ] Roosevelt Sykes ( 1955 ), [ 118 ] Junior Parker ( 1958 ), and Forest City Joe ( 1959 ). [ 119 ] Pearson and McCulloch believe that “ Sweet Home Chicago ” and “ Dust My Broom ” in particular connect Johnson to “ the rightful inheritors of his musical ideas—big-city african american artists whose high-powered, electrically amplify blues remain solidly in affect with Johnson ‘s melodious bequest ” at the time of Columbia ‘s first exhaust of a entire album of his songs in 1961. In Jim O’Neal ‘s argument when Johnson was inducted into the Blues Foundation Blues Hall of Fame, he identified “ Hell Hound on My Trail ”, “ Sweet Home Chicago ”, “ Dust My Broom ”, “ Love in Vain ”, and “ Crossroads ” as Johnson ‘s authoritative recordings. [ 121 ] Over the years, these songs have been individually inducted into the Blues Hall ‘s “ Classic of Blues Recording – Single or Album Track ” class. [ 122 ]
Rock music [edit ]
In the mid-1950s, rock and wheel pioneer Chuck Berry adapted the boogie pattern on guitar for his songs “ Roll Over Beethoven “ and “ Johnny B. Goode “. author Dave Rubin commented :
his [ Berry ‘s ] use of the bass-string cut-boogie patterns popularized by Robert Johnson on songs like “ Sweet Home Chicago ” … subtly altered the swing feel of the boogie blues into a more drive, straight 4/4 meter while still maintaining a limber lilt that is much missing in the countless imitations that followed .
The traffic pattern “ became one of the signature figures in early electric guitar-based rock candy and scroll, such as that of Chuck Berry and the numerous rock musicians of the 1960s who were influenced by Berry ”, according to Perone. Although music historian Larry Birnbaum besides sees the connection, he wrote that Johnson ‘s “ contributions to the origins of rock ‘n’ roll ‘n ‘ roll out are negligible ”. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Johnson as an early influence in its first induction ceremony, in 1986, about a half hundred after his death. It besides included four of his songs it deemed to have shaped the writing style : “ Sweet Home Chicago ”, “ Cross Road Blues ”, “ hellhound on My Trail ”, and “ Love in Vain ”. [ 125 ] Marc Meyers, of the Wall Street Journal, commented, “ His ‘Stop Breakin ‘ Down Blues ‘ from 1937 is therefore far ahead of its time that the song could well have been a rock demonstration cut in 1954. ” [ 73 ] several rock candy artists describe Johnson as an influence :
Problems of biography [edit ]
The thing about Robert Johnson was that he alone existed on his records. He was pure caption .
– Martin Scorsese, Love in Vain: A Vision of Robert Johnson
Until the 2019 publication of Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow ‘s biography, Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson, little of Johnson ‘s early life was known. Two marriage licenses for Johnson have been located in county records offices. The ages given in these certificates point to unlike birth dates, but Conforth and Wardlow suggest that Johnson lied about his senesce in ordain to obtain a marriage license. Carrie Thompson claimed that her mother, who was besides Robert ‘s mother, remembered his parturition date as May 8, 1911. He was not listed among his mother ‘s children in the 1910 census giving far credence to a 1911 birthdate. Although the 1920 census gives his age as 7, suggesting he was born in 1912 or 1913, the introduction showing his attendance at indian Creek School, in Tunica, Mississippi [ when? ] listed him as being 14 years old. [ citation needed ] Five significant dates from his career are documented : Monday, Thursday and Friday, November 23, 26, and 27, 1936, at a recording school term in San Antonio, Texas ; and Saturday and Sunday, June 19 and 20, 1937, at a recording school term in Dallas. His death certificate, discovered in 1968, lists the date and location of his death. Johnson ‘s records were admired by commemorate collectors from the prison term of their first dismissal, and efforts were made to discover his biography, with about no success. A relatively wax 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 identical young and inordinately shy. The blues researcher Mack McCormick began researching his family background in 1972, but died in 2015 without ever publishing his findings. McCormick ‘s research finally became angstrom much a legend as Johnson himself. In 1982, McCormick permitted Peter Guralnick to publish a compendious in Living Blues ( 1982 ), late reprinted in book form as Searching for Robert Johnson. Later inquiry has sought to confirm this history or to add minor details. A revise drumhead acknowledging major informants was written by Stephen LaVere for the booklet accompanying Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings box set ( 1990 ). The documentary film The Search for Robert Johnson contains accounts by McCormick and Wardlow of what informants have told them : long interviews of David “ Honeyboy ” Edwards and Johnny Shines and shortstop interviews of surviving friends and family. Another film, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl: The Life and Music of Robert Johnson, [ 137 ] combines objective segments with cheer scenes featuring Keb ‘ Mo ‘ as Johnson with narrative by Danny Glover. Shines, Edwards and Robert Lockwood put up interviews. These published biographic sketches achieve coherent narratives, partially by ignoring reminiscences and rumor accounts which contradict or conflict with other accounts .
photograph [edit ]
Until the 1980s, it was believed that no images of Johnson had survived. however, three images of Johnson were located in 1972 and 1973, in the self-control of his half sister Carrie Thompson. Two of these, known as the “ dime-store photograph ” ( December 1937 or January 1938 ) and the “ studio portrayal ” ( summer 1936 ), were copyrighted by Stephen LaVere ( who had obtained them from the Thompson class ) in 1986 and 1989, respectively, with an agreement to parcel any ensuing royalties 50 % with the Johnson estate, at that fourth dimension administered by Thompson. The “ dime-store photograph ” was first published, about in excrete, in an issue of Rolling Stone cartridge holder in 1986, and the studio apartment portrait in a 1989 article by Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow in 78 Quarterly. Both were subsequently featured prominently in the print materials associated with the 1990 CBS box jell of the “ complete ” Johnson recordings, arsenic well as being wide republished since that fourth dimension. Because Mississippi courts in 1998 determined that Robert Johnson ‘s successor was Claud Johnson, a son born out of marriage, the “ estate share ” of all monies paid to LaVere by CBS and others ended up going to Claud Johnson, and attempts by the heirs of Carrie Thompson to obtain a rule that the photograph were her personal property and not separate of the estate of the realm were dismissed. [ 139 ] [ 140 ] In his book Searching for Robert Johnson, Peter Guralnick stated that the blues archivist Mack McCormick showed him a photograph of Johnson with his nephew Louis, taken at the lapp fourth dimension as the celebrated “ pinstripe suit ” photograph, showing Louis dressed in his United States Navy uniform ; this movie, along with the “ studio portrait ”, were both lend by Carrie Thompson to McCormick in 1972. [ 139 ] This photograph has never been made public. Another photograph, purporting to show Johnson posing with the blues musician Johnny Shines, was published in the November 2008 exit of Vanity Fair magazine. [ 141 ] Its authenticity was claimed by the forensic artist Lois Gibson and by Johnson ‘s estate in 2013, [ 142 ] but has been disputed by some music historians, including Elijah Wald, Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow, who considered that the dress suggests a date after Johnson ‘s death and that the photograph may have been reversed and retouched. Further, both David “ Honeyboy ” Edwards and Robert Lockwood failed to identify either man in the photograph. facial recognition software concluded that neither homo was Johnson or Shines. ultimately, Gibson claimed the photograph was from 1933 to 1934 while it is now known that Johnson did not meet Shines until early 1937. [ 143 ] In December 2015, a fourth photograph was published, purportedly showing Johnson, his wife Calletta Craft, Estella Coleman, and Robert Lockwood Jr. [ 144 ] This photograph was besides declared authentic by Lois Gibson, but her identification of Johnson has been dismissed by other facial recognition experts and blues historians. There are a number of glaring errors in this photograph : it has been proven that Craft died before Johnson met Coleman, the clothe could not be anterior to the late 1940s, the furniture is from the 1950s, the Coca-Cola bottle can not be from prior to 1950, etc. [ 145 ] A third photograph of Johnson, this time smiling, was published in 2020. It is believed to have been taken in Memphis on the like occasion as the affirm photograph of him with a guitar and cigarette ( share of the “ dime-store ” stage set ), and is in the possession of Annye Anderson, Johnson ‘s step-sister ( Anderson is the daughter of Charles Dodds, late Spencer, who was married to Robert ‘s mother but was not his father ). As a child, Anderson grew up in the same family as Johnson and has claimed to have been present, aged 10 or 11, on the occasion the photograph was taken. This photograph was published in Vanity Fair in May 2020, as the cover image for a book, Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson, written by Anderson in collaboration with author Preston Lauterbach, [ 146 ] and is considered to be authentic by Johnson scholar Elijah Wald .
Descendants [edit ]
Johnson left no will. In 1998, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that Claud Johnson, a retire hand truck driver living in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, was the son of Robert Johnson and his only heir. The woo heard that he had been born to Virgie Jane Smith ( by and by Virgie Jane Cain ), who had a kinship with Robert Johnson in 1931. The relationship was attested to by a supporter, Eula Mae Williams, but other relatives descended from Robert Johnson ‘s half sister, Carrie Harris Thompson, contested Claud Johnson ‘s claim. The effect of the judgment was to allow Claud Johnson to receive over $ 1 million in royalties. [ 147 ] Claud Johnson died, aged 83, on June 30, 2015, leaving six children. [ 148 ]
discography [edit ]
football team 78-rpm records by Johnson were released by Vocalion Records in 1937 and 1938, with extra pressings by ARC budget labels. In 1939, a twelfth was issued posthumously. Johnson ‘s estate holds the copyrights to his songs. [ 150 ] In 1961, Columbia Records released King of the Delta Blues Singers, an album representing the first modern-era release of Johnson ‘s performances, which started the “ re-discovery ” of Johnson as blues artist. In 1970, Columbia issued a second bulk, King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. II. The Complete Recordings, a two-disc set, released on August 28, 1990, contains about everything Johnson recorded, with all 29 recordings, and 12 alternate takes. Another alternate return of “ Traveling Riverside Blues ” was released by Sony on the CD reprint of King of the Delta Blues Singers. To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Johnson ‘s birth, May 8, 2011, Sony Legacy released Robert Johnson: The Centennial Collection, a re-mastered 2-CD fructify of all 42 of his recordings and two abbreviated fragments, one of Johnson practicing a guitar human body and the early of Johnson saying, presumably to engineer Don Law, “ I wan sodium go on with our future one myself. ” Reviewers commented that the legal quality of the 2011 dismissal was a solid improvement on the 1990 release. [ 152 ]