Life and career
Johnson's life is not well documented, and the variety of legends that have surrounded him for decades have made scholarship difficult. Serious research was not undertaken until the late 1960s and early 1970s, most notably by researchers Mack McCormack and Stephen LaVere. Most of the information on his life has come from the decades-old recollections of surviving family and associates. The two known 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.
Five significant dates from his career are documented: Monday, Thursday and Friday, November 23, 26, and 27, 1936 he was in San Antonio, Texas, at a recording session. 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.[3] Two marriage licenses for Johnson have also been located in county records offices. Other facts about him are less well established. Director Martin Scorsese says in his foreword to Alan Greenberg's filmscript Love In Vain: A Vision of Robert Johnson, "The thing about Robert Johnson was that he only existed on his records. He was pure legend."
[edit] Beginnings
Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi sometime around May 8, 1911, the 11th child of Julia Major Dodds, who had previously borne 10 children to her husband Charles Dodds. Born out of wedlock, Johnson did not take the Dodds name.
Twenty two-year-old Charles Dodds had married Julia Major in Hazlehurst, Mississippi—about 35 miles south of Jackson—in 1889. Charles Dodds owned land and made wicker furniture; his family was well off until he was forced out of Hazlehurst around 1909 by a lynch mob following an argument with some of the more prosperous townsfolk. (There was a family legend that Dodds escaped from Hazlehurst dressed in women's clothing.) Over the next two years, Julia Dodds sent their children one at a time to live with their father in Memphis, where Charles Dodds had adopted the name of Charles Spencer. Julia stayed behind in Hazlehurst with two daughters, until she was evicted for nonpayment of taxes.
By that time she had given birth to a son, Robert, who was fathered by a field worker named Noah Johnson. Unwelcome in Charles Dodds' home, Julia Dodds became an itinerant field worker, picking cotton and living in camps as she moved among plantations. While she worked in the fields, her eight-year-old daughter took care of Johnson. Over the next ten years, Julia Dodds would make repeated attempts to reunite the family, but Charles Dodds never stopped resenting her infidelity. Although Charles Dodds would eventually accept Johnson, he never would forgive his wife for giving birth to him. While in his teens, Johnson learned who his father was, and it was at that time that he began calling himself Robert Johnson.
Around 1914, Robert Johnson moved in with Charles Dodds' family, which by that time included all of Dodds' children by Julia Dodds, as well as Dodds' mistress from Hazlehurst and their two children. Johnson would then spend the next several years in Memphis, and it was reportedly about this time that he began playing the guitar under his older half-brother's tutelage.
Johnson did not rejoin his mother until she had remarried several years later. By the end of the decade, he was back in the Mississippi Delta living with his mother and her new husband, Dusty Willis. Johnson and his stepfather, who had little tolerance for music, did not get along, and Johnson had to slip out of the house to join his musician friends.
It is not known whether Johnson attended school in the Delta during this time. Some later accounts say that he could neither read nor write, while others tell of his beautiful handwriting. In any case, everyone agrees that music was Johnson's first interest, and that he had his start playing the Jew's harp and harmonica in addition to guitar.
[edit] Bluesman
In February 1929, Johnson married Virginia Travis in Penton, Mississippi, and became serious about playing the guitar. While they were married, they lived with his half-sister and her husband. His wife died in childbirth at the age of 16 in April 1930. By some accounts, Johnson briefly moved back with his mother and stepfather, where he encountered the same problems that he had found intolerable when he was growing up and soon left. In May 1931, he married Calleta "Callie" Craft, an older woman with three children. By that time, his fellow musicians were beginning to take note of his precocity on the acoustic guitar. Robert Johnson has a son who currently lives in a town near Hazlehurst, Mississippi.
Johnson began traveling up and down the Delta, traveling by bus, hopping trains, and sometimes hitchhiking. According to Blues folklore, Robert Johnson was a young black man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi. Branded with a burning desire to become a great blues musician, he was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery’s plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar from Johnson, tuned it, and handed it back to him. Within less than a year’s time, in exchange for his everlasting soul, Robert Johnson became the king of the Delta blues singers, able to play, sing, and create the greatest blues anyone had ever heard. The source of this legend is unclear. Some of Johnson's associates, most notably Johnny Shines, say he fostered this story and image during his lifetime. It may have been the later invention of Son House, who related the tale (adapted from an autobiographical story told by Tommy Johnson) to awestruck fans during the 1960s blues revival. Regardless, the story certainly took on a resonant, mythic quality during this time. Other stories say that he was taught by a mysterious figure named Ike Zinnerman.
When Johnson arrived in a new town, he would play on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. Anything he earned was based on tips, not salary. He played what his audience asked for—not necessarily his own compositions, 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, most notably Johnny Shines, later remarked on Johnson's interest in jazz and country. (Many giants of the blues, including Muddy Waters, were not averse to playing the hit songs of the day.) 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. Sometime during his travels he moved Callie and the children from Copiah County north to the Delta country of Clarksdale, Mississippi, but abandoned them soon thereafter.
Fellow musician Johnny Shines was 17 when he met Johnson in 1933. He estimated that Johnson was maybe a year older than himself. In Samuel Charters' Robert Johnson, the author quotes Shines as saying:
Robert was a very friendly person, even though he was sulky at times, you know. And I hung around Robert for quite a while. One evening he disappeared. He was kind of peculiar fellow. Robert'd be standing up playing some place, playing like nobody's business. At about that time it was a hustle with him as well as a pleasure. And money'd be coming from all directions. But Robert'd just pick up and walk off and leave you standing there playing. And you wouldn't see Robert no more maybe in two or three weeks.... So Robert and I, we began journeying off. I was just, matter of fact, tagging along.
During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-term relationship with Estella Coleman, a woman who was about 15 years older than himself and the mother of future musician Robert Jr. Lockwood. But Johnson reportedly also cultivated a woman to look after him each town he played in. Johnson would reportedly ask 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.
[edit] Recording sessions
Around 1936, Johnson sought out H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir, who helped the careers of many blues players, put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas. At the recording session, held on November 23, 1936 in rooms at the landmark Gunter Hotel 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. Johnson probably was nervous and intimidated at his first time in a makeshift recording studio (a new and alien environment for the musician), but in truth he was probably focusing on the demands of his emotive performances. In addition, playing into the corner of a wall was a sound-enhancing technique that simulated the acoustical booths of better-equipped studios. In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played 16 selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these. When the recording session was over, Johnson presumably returned home with cash in his pocket; probably more money than he'd ever had at one time in his life.
Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On In My Kitchen," "Kind Hearted Woman," "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Cross Roads Blues." "Come On In My Kitchen" included the lines: "The woman I love took from my best friend/Some joker got lucky, stole her back again,/You better come on in my kitchen, it's going to be rainin' outdoors." In "Crossroad Blues," another of his songs, he sang: "I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees./I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees./I asked the Lord above, have mercy, save poor Bob if you please./Uumb, standing at the crossroads I tried to flag a ride./Standing at the crossroads I tried to flag a ride./Ain't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by."
When his records began appearing, Johnson made the rounds to his relatives and the various children he had fathered to bring them the records himself. 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.
In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session in a makeshift studio at the Brunswick Record Building, 508 Park Avenue[4]. Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Among them were the three songs that would largely contribute to Johnson's posthumous fame: "Stones In My Passway," "Me And The Devil," and "Hell Hound On My Trail." "Stones In My Passway" and "Me And The Devil" are both about betrayal, a recurrent theme in country blues. The terrifying "Hell Hound On My Trail" - utilising another common theme of fear of the Devil - is often considered to be the crowning achievement of blues-style music. Other themes in Johnson's music include impotence (Dead Shrimp Blues and Phonograph Blues) and infidelity (Terraplane Blues, If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day and Love in Vain).
Six of Johnson's blues songs mention the devil or some form of the supernatural. 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 get on a Greyhound bus and ride."
It has been suggested that the Devil in these songs does not solely refer to the Christian model of Satan, but equally to the African Trickster god, Legba. [1]
[edit] Death at the crossroads
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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. By the time he died, at least six of his records had been released in the South as so-called race records.
His death occurred on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27 at a little country crossroads near Greenwood, Mississippi. He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles from Greenwood.
There are a number of accounts and theories regarding the events preceding Johnson's death. One of these is that one evening Johnson began flirting with a woman at a dance. One version of this rumor says she was the wife of the juke joint owner, while another suggests she was a married woman he had been secretly seeing. Researcher Mack McCormick claims to have interviewed Johnson's alleged poisoner in the 1970s, and obtained a tacit admission of guilt from the man. When he was offered an open bottle of whiskey, his friend and fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson knocked the bottle out of his hand, informing him that he should never drink from an offered bottle that has already been opened. Robert Johnson allegedly said, "don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand". Soon after, he was offered another open bottle and accepted it. That bottle was laced with strychnine. Johnson is said to have survived the initial poisoning only to succumb to pneumonia three days later, in his weakened state. His life was short but his music would serve as the root source for an entire generation of blues and rock and roll musicians.
The precise location of his grave remains a source of ongoing controversy, and three different markers have been erected at supposed burial sites outside of Greenwood. Research in the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggests Johnson was buried in the graveyard of the Little Zion church near Morgan City, Mississippi, not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave. A marker was placed at this location in 2002. More recent research by Stephen LaVere (including statements from Rosie Eskridge, the wife of the supposed gravedigger) indicates than the actual gravesite 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.
Among the Mississippi Delta bluesmen believed to have exerted the strongest influences on Johnson's music are Charley Patton, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, and Son House. Peter Guralnick, in Searching for Robert Johnson, quotes Son House, "We'd all play for the Saturday night balls, and there'd be this little boy standing around. That was Robert Johnson. He was just a little boy then. He blew harmonica and he was pretty good with that, but he wanted to play guitar."
[edit] Posthumous releases
[edit] Primary compilations of Johnson's work
Johnson's recordings have remained continuously available since John Hammond convinced Columbia Records to compile the first Johnson LP, King of the Delta Blues Singers, in 1961. A sequel LP, assembling the rest of what could be found of Johnson's recordings at that time, was issued in 1970. An omnibus two-CD set (The Complete Recordings) was released in 1990 [Sony/Columbia Legacy 46222], containing all 41 known recordings of his 29 compositions.
A 1996 plastic jewel-case remaster of the "Complete" set [Sony/Columbia Legacy 64916] corrected fidelity and pitch problems from the cardboard-packaged box. The more recent CD re-releases of "King of the Delta Blues Singers" Volumes 1 & 2 improve the sound quality far more dramatically, but don't include 10 alternate takes (and two accidental introductions) found on "Complete." Volume 1 includes a recently discovered alternate take of "Traveling Riverside Blues" which is not included on the "Complete" collection. This now brings the number of known Johnson recordings to 42.
[edit] Recording pitch question
Johnson's recorded work has become more widely heard since the Columbia double CD release. Some musicians have opined that the recordings run too fast. Johnson mainly used open tunings like open G and open D tuning, and often used a capo to change the pitch of the song. This means that some passages would be played very high upon the neck of the guitar, which would make them very difficult to execute, or in some cases impossible to play at all (for example, the intro of "Walkin' Blues, which should be played on the 16th fret of a 12-fret-to-the-body-guitar). Some passages of Johnson's guitar playing sound constrained and not natural to the modern ear (as modern music would sound when it is sped up), and some of his vocals sound out of tune and robotic. When Johnson's music is slowed down (one article [2] even suggests slowing it down as much as 20%), Johnson's music sounds more natural, his guitar sounds warmer and fuller and more in line with other recordings from the late 1930s. His voice becomes more expressive although it loses some of Johnson's trademark emotional "whine". Speeding up recorded music is common in popular music, as it makes music sound fresher and it adds punch and energy. A slowed-down collection of Johnson's songs is available on the CD 'Steady Rollin' Man'.
There are arguments against this theory. Don Law, who recorded Johnson at both sessions, gave numerous interviews on the recordings up until his death in the 1980's, and never commented on them being sped up. A snippet of Johnson speaking was also caught on one master disk for Love in Vain, and its qualities do not suggest the recording was sped up.
[edit] Influence
Blues musician and historian Elijah Wald feels that Johnson's major influence is on rock -- particularly on white rock. He has made the controversial appraisal that As far as the evolution of black music goes, Robert Johnson was an extremely minor figure, and very little that happened in the decades following his death would have been affected if he had never played a note.[5] Assessments such as Eric Clapton's of Johnson as "the most important blues musician who ever lived," says Wald, attempt to expand Johnson's reputation. Wald argues that Johnson, although well traveled and always admired in his performances, was little heard by the standards of his time and place, and his records even less so. ("Terraplane Blues," sometimes described as Johnson's only hit record, outsold his others but was still a minor success.) If one had asked black blues fans about Robert Johnson in the first twenty years after his death, writes Wald, "the response in the vast majority of cases would have been a puzzled 'Robert who?'" Musical associates such as Johnny Shines also stated that 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.
After decades of obscurity, Johnson's influence was kick-started in 1961, when Columbia Records compiled the album King of the Delta Blues Singers from Johnson's recordings. This and bootleg recordings brought his work wide distribution, and a fan base grew around them which included future rock stars such as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. When Keith Richards 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 all Johnson playing on one guitar. Clapton described Johnson's music as "the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice". The song "Crossroads" by British blues rock/psychedelic 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.
An important aspect of Johnson's singing, and indeed of all Delta Blues singing styles, and also of Chicago blues guitar playing, is the use of microtonality -- his subtle inflections of pitch are part of the reason why his singing conveys such powerful emotion.
John P. Hammond (the son of the aforementioned John Hammond) produced a documentary in the early 1990s about Johnson's life in the Delta area.
In the summer of 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed Johnson at number five in their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time [3]
[edit] Major artists influenced by Johnson
Many artists have recorded Johnson's songs. The following musicians have been heavily influenced by him, as evidenced by recording several of his songs:
- The Allman Brothers Band have covered in live performances "Drunken Hearted Boy" and others. Their guitarist, Dickey Betts, has covered "Come On In My Kitchen" on his most recent live album.
- The Blues Brothers covered "Sweet Home Chicago" in their eponymous 1978 film The Blues Brothers.
- Rory Block released in 2006 an album consisting solely of covers of Johnson's songs, The Lady and Mr. Johnson. In addition, she had previously performed or recorded "Come On In My Kitchen", "Hellhound On My Trail", "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day", "Rambling On My Mind", "Walking Blues", "Cross Road Blues", "Kindhearted Man" (a reworking of "Kind Hearted Woman Blues"), "Terraplane Blues", "When You Got a Good Friend", "Me and the Devil Blues", "Stones in my Passway", "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Traveling Riverside Blues"
- Eric Clapton released in 2004 an album consisting solely of covers of Johnson's songs, Me and Mr. Johnson, and in the following year released a DVD and CD combo entitled 'Sessions For Robert J'. In addition, he had previously performed or recorded "I'm a Steady Rolling Man", "Malted Milk", "Walkin' Blues", "From Four Until Late", "Crossroads", "If I had Possession over Judgment Day", and "Ramblin' On My Mind". While playing with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, he recorded "Ramblin' on My Mind". With Cream he recorded "Cross Road Blues" (reworked as "Crossroads") and "Four Until Late".
- Bob Dylan ("Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "Milkcow's Calf Blues", "Rambling On My Mind", "I'm A Steady Rolling Man")
- Fleetwood Mac ("Hellhound On My Trail", "Kind Hearted Woman", "Preachin' Blues", "Dust My Broom", "Sweet Home Chicago")
- The Grateful Dead ("Walkin' Blues")
- Peter Green Splinter Group (all 29 songs)
- John Hammond Jr. ("32-20 Blues", "Milkcow's Calf Blues", "Traveling Riverside Blues", "Stones In My Passway", "Crossroads Blues", "Hellbound Blues" ("Hellhound On My Trail"), "Me And The Devil Blues", "Walking Blues", "Come On In My Kitchen", "Preaching Blues", "Sweet Home Chicago", "When You Got A Good Friend", "Judgment Day", "Rambling Blues")
- Keb' Mo ("Come On In My Kitchen", "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", "Kindhearted Woman Blues", "Love In Vain")
- Led Zeppelin ("Traveling Riverside Blues", "The Lemon Song") Zeppelin's version of Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues" consisted of an amalgamation of several Johnson songs (such as "Cross Road Blues" and "Kind Hearted Woman") as well as new material by the band. Furthermore, lyrics from Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues" were used by Zeppelin in "The Lemon Song".
- Robert "Junior" Lockwood ("32-20 Blues", "Stop Breakin’ Down Blues", "Little Queen Of Spades", "I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom", "Ramblin’ On My Mind", "Love In Vain Blues", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "Walking Blues", "I’m A Steady Rollin’ Man", "Sweet Home Chicago")
- Phish "Alumni Blues", an early Phish original, was influenced by Johnson's "Walking Blues" and both songs share opening lyrics. "Crossroads Blues" was included in Phish's live repertoire from 1993-98.
- The Radiators (US) have covered many songs in their 4200 known live performances. "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Stop Breakin' Down Blues" are staples of their live shows (having been performed over 100 times each). Other songs that have been covered approximately a dozen times or less include "Come On In My Kitchen", "Cross Roads Blues", "Dead Shrimp Blues", "From Four Till Late", "Hellhound On My Trail", "I'm A Steady Rollin' Man", "Love In Vain", "Me And The Devil Blues", "Ramblin' On My Mind", "Sweet Home Chicago', "Walkin' Blues", "When You Got A Good Friend".
- The Rolling Stones ("Love in Vain", "Stop Breaking Down")
- The White Stripes covered "Stop Breaking Down Blues," dropping "Blues" in the title, on their self-titled debut album. They have also recorded "Stop Breaking Down Blues" as the b-side to their 2002 single, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground". They have covered many Robert Johnson songs on stage, including "Stones In My Passway" and "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day".
- Widespread Panic played "Me and The Devil" on their 1988 debut album Space Wrangler; "Stop Breakin' Down Blues" appeared on the 2005 Live at Myrtle Beach release. They have also played "Crossroads" live.
- Lucinda Williams covered "Stop Breaking Down Blues" on her debut album Ramblin', also dropping the word "Blues" from the title.
- Johnny Winter ("Kind Hearted Woman", "Me And The Devil", "When You Got A Good Friend")
- Red Hot Chili Peppers ("They're Red Hot" appeared on Blood Sugar Sex Magic)
- Gov't Mule("32/20 Blues" and "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day" )
[edit] Songs
The entire collection, minus one song, is available on The Complete Recordings (1990, 1996)
- "32-20 Blues" (.32-.20 is a revolver or rifle cartridge)
- "Come on in My Kitchen" [two versions]
- "Cross Roads Blues" [two versions]
- "Dead Shrimp Blues"
- "Drunken Hearted Man" [two versions]
- "From Four Till Late"
- "Hellhound on My Trail"; see also Hellhound
- "Honeymoon Blues"
- "I'm a Steady Rollin' Man"
- "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" (sometimes called "I Believe My Time Ain't Long")
- "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day"
- "Kind Hearted Woman Blues"
- "Last Fair Deal Gone Down"
- "Little Queen of Spades" [two versions]
- "Love in Vain" [two versions]
- "Malted Milk"; malted milk is a sweet beverage
- "Me and the Devil Blues" [two versions]
- "Milk Cow's Calf Blues" [two versions]
- "Phonograph Blues" [two versions]
- "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)"
- "Rambling on My Mind" [two versions]
- "Stones in My Passway"
- "Stop Breakin' Down Blues" [two versions]
- "Sweet Home Chicago"
- "Terraplane Blues"
- "They're Red Hot"
- "Traveling Riverside Blues" [two versions--only one appears on "Complete" collection]
- "Walkin' Blues"
- "When You Got a Good Friend" [two versions]
[edit] Films about Robert Johnson
- Crossroads, 1986 which is loosely based on the theme of a blues artist selling his soul to the devil and, more specifically, about a young white blues guitarist's search for Johnson's 'missing' thirtieth song (there are only 29 individual songs in Johnson's recorded repertoire). Johnson is played by Tim Russ, while Joe Seneca plays Willie Brown (a contemporary of Johnson's mentioned in the song "Cross Road Blues"). Some scenes in the movie are meant to portray moments in Johnson's career as flashbacks, e.g. a recording session at the very start of the movie, and a portrayal of the "selling his soul to the devil" - events which are part of the legend about him.
- The Search for Robert Johnson, 1992
- 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 Mugge.
- Eric Clapton - Sessions for Robert Johnson, 2004 documentary
