Thread for Robert Johnson's 100th

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[EasyAce]

Arguably, the first time a Robert Johnson number appeared on a best-selling album in the U.S. ("Rambling on My Mind," after all, turned up on Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, which was a best-seller in England . . . ) . . .

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1WZqt6pgLQ]Cream, "From Four Until Late" (Fresh Cream, late 1966)[/ame]

 

[LeftyF2003]

LeftyF2003, hope it's okay to bring some of the text and document you posted here

No problem - glad you found it interesting. One correction - according to the John Hammond documentary he got paid $15.00 a side for the recordings (a side being one song) so it was actually more than I recalled. At a time when farm workers were getting 50 cents a day that was not a small chunk of change, though I'm sure they did not retain the publishing. Given the chunk that Apple takes on I-Tunes that may not be far from what they are paying artists now!

 

[mudfinger]

Long live Robert Johnson. While I don't share the sense of some folks that he was the greatest bluesman ever, I can surely understand the reverence, particularly in how it served to inspire so many other musicians, especially the English guys.

Indeed, his influence extends far beyond any one genre thanks to the imprint that his disciples had on the sound of modern popular music, and that's quite a feat for a man who lived only 27 years, recorded only 29 tunes in his career, and probably made less money from start to end than most of us make in a month.

Thanks to this thread, I'll be adding Greenwood to my bucket list, and paying my respects to the man himself the next time I'm in Mississippi.

 

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Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mississippi Delta blues legend Robert Johnson, January 2011 will bring the "Blues At The Crossroads: The Robert Johnson Centennial Concerts" tour and an accompanying album. The project features performances by Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Delta bluesman (and friend of Johnson) David "Honeyboy" Edwards, former Howlin' Wolf guitarist and solo artist Hubert Sumlin, and the "Two Man Wrecking Crew" of Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fKMQlYN_TQ&feature=related]Honeyboy Edwards & Hubert Sumlin -- "Blues At The Crossroads: The Robert Johnson Centennial Concerts" tour , January 2011[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_nOIfdwwTs&feature=related]Hubert Sumlin plays "Sitting on Top of the World" -- "Blues At The Crossroads: The Robert Johnson Centennial Concerts" tour , January 2011[/ame]

 

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Coahoma the Blues
Robert Johnson's Grave

 

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNUm9vj65Jw&feature=related]Robert Johnson -- Traveling Riverside Blues (Take 1) , 1937 [Remastered][/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBIa-kYc1PI&feature=related]Robert Johnson -- If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day , 1936 [Remastered][/ame]

 

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_EIBES9yqk&feature=related]Eric Clapton and Doyle Bramhall II -- Sessions for Robert J , 2004 (excerpt)[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETELORdwmJA]Eric Clapton -- Sessions for Robert J , 2004 (excerpt)[/ame]

 

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May 7, 2011

(extract)

Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert Johnson. Although he recorded just 29 songs, the bluesman had a huge influence on guitarists such as Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. Johnson is one of the most studied of all country blues musicians, and he's been the subject of many books, films and essays.

"The popular mythology has him as a total loner," Pearson says, "and kind of lived this life in regret as a repayment for his alleged sin of making a contract with Old Scratch."

Here is what we do know about Robert Johnson. He said he was born in Mississippi on May 8, 1911, and grew up on a plantation in the Delta. As a young man, he was more interested in music than farming: He'd hound the older blues musicians for a chance to play. In an interview included in the 1997 documentary Can't You Hear the Wind Howl, Son House recalls that the young Johnson would annoy audiences with his lousy guitar playing.

"Folks they come and say, 'Why don't you go out and make that boy put that thing down? He running us crazy,' " House said. "Finally he left. He run off from his mother and father, and went over in Arkansas some place or other."

When Johnson came back from Arkansas six months later, he'd mastered the guitar. That's where the rumors about his deal with the devil came from, but Johnson acknowledged studying with a human teacher while he was gone. After that, Johnson worked as a traveling musician, playing on street corners and in juke joints, mostly in Mississippi. And in 1936, he got a chance to record in Texas.

"Terraplane Blues" was a minor hit, and he was invited back for a second recording session. Johnson died a year later at age 27, under mysterious circumstances. Some think he was poisoned, although a note on the back of his death certificate says the cause was syphilis.

In any case, the timing was tragic. Legendary Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond wanted to book Johnson at Carnegie Hall for the landmark "Spirituals to Swing" concert in 1938. Hammond was also the driving force behind the first LP reissue of Johnson's music in 1961. At the time, Johnson was so obscure that Columbia didn't even have a picture of him to put on the cover. The LP was produced by Frank Driggs, who also wrote the liner notes.

"If you read the liner notes," Driggs says, "you see next to nothing. 'Cause I just created a thing out of whole cloth when I wrote the notes. Because there really was very little known about the guy."


That LP, King of the Delta Blues Singers, introduced Johnson's music to a new generation of young, mainly white blues fans, including Eric Clapton, as the rock legend told NPR in 2004.

"It was on Columbia and it had, like, some pretty interesting sleeve notes on it about the fact that these were the only sides he had cut, and that they'd done it in a hotel room, and when he was auditioning for the sessions that he was so shy, he had to play facing into the corner of the room," Clapton says. "I mean, I immediately identified with that, because I was paralyzed with shyness as a kid."

But there may be another reason why Johnson recorded facing the wall. Elijah Wald is a musician and the author of the book Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. He says there were pre-war blues musicians who played guitar better than Johnson, as well as musicians who sang better. But Wald says that, unlike most of them, Johnson learned to play from listening to radio and records.

"Robert Johnson certainly was very conscious of what a hit record sounded like," Wald says. "If you listen to something like 'Come on in My Kitchen,' he's singing very quietly, and he actually has a moment when he says, 'Can't you hear the wind blowin'.' He whispers it and then plays this very quiet riff. That never would have worked on a street corner or a Mississippi juke joint, but it sounds great on records."

Sound is one of the main things that distinguishes Johnson's sides from other records of the time. By facing the wall, Wald says Johnson might have made his vocals sound better to a later generation accustomed to high fidelity. It doesn't hurt that the original masters of his recordings survived, too.

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One of the foremost authorities on Robert Johnson is his grandson, Steven Johnson, who works closely with the Robert Johnson Blues Foundation to preserve his grandfather’s legacy through the provision of art education, competitions and scholarships. Steven Johnson was kind enough to sit down with Gibson.com in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of Robert Johnson’s birth on May 8.

The Gibson Interview: Steven Johnson, Grandson of Robert Johnson (Part One)
The Gibson Interview: Steven Johnson, Grandson of Robert Johnson (Part Two)
http://www.robertjohnsonbluesfoundation.org/

 

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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtb5XeilH78&feature=related"]Cream -- Crossroads (Farewell Concert at the Royal Albert Hall , 1968)[/ame]

 

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DemZi9f44E4]Keb' Mo'and Danny Kortchmar -- Love in Vain[/ame]

 

[zontar]

Even the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Briatin has covered Robert Johnson
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwWrKHWXrLg]YouTube - Ukulele Orchestra Of Great "They're Red Hot (Hot Tamales)" by Robert Johnson...[/ame]

 

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[Thumpalumpacus]

I love that they have a "stop" sign at the crossroads.

Yeah, right, buddy. I got yer stop.

 

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHu24OK0-z4]Canned Heat -- "Dust My Broom" , 1967[/ame]

 

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EULwlH3V1uw]Peter Green Splinter Group -- "Malted Milk" , 2000[/ame]