Robert Johnson

Why do I keep coming back to Robert Johnson?

The other day I found myself standing in front of my quite extensive CD collection having decided that instant to listen to some music. There was a time once when would I always have something playing from my collection of recorded music, whatever the format, providing a soundtrack to just about everything I did. Lately, however, listening to music hasn’t been a regular occurrence. I now find I prefer to read words rather than listen to lyrics.

Once again I found myself drawn to the CD, “Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings”

No matter how many times I listen to the music of Robert Johnson, I find it to be just as haunting as it was the first time I heard it on the vinyl record: “Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues Singers”

which was first released 1961. It’s hard to believe the recordings you are listening to were made by one man nearly eighty years ago accompanying himself on guitar.

But when I listen to Robert Johnson I hear more than just blues music. I sense that same expression of intensity I feel when listening to the music of artists that would not typically be associated with Robert Johnson and his Mississippi Delta blues.  I hear the a same power and resolve in the driving beat of the British R&B bands of the Sixties, like The Rolling Stones or The Pretty Things; in the rage of punk rock artists like The Clash; and in tormented-soul sound of the Joy Division.

Robert Johnson was born in 8^th May, 1911 and died of pneumonia on 16 August 1938 after lying sick for several days from being given a jug of poisoned moonshine whiskey.  He recorded only 29 songs made over two recording sessions in 1936 and 1937.

Suggested reading “Escaping the Delta”, Elijah Wald, Armistad Paperback, 2005

Paul H