Johnson, Robert 1911–1938

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Robert Johnson 1911–1938

Singer, guitarist, composer

At a Glance…

Compositions Became Blues Standards

Rudimentary Recordings Captured Magic

Mysteries of His Life Have Made Johnson a Legend

Sold Soul to the Devil in Crossroads Bargain

Selected discography

Sources

More than half a century after his death, Robert Johnson, the legendary Mississippi Delta blues singer, remains an enigma. A provocative and influential figure in the blues field, Johnson revealed his remarkable musical skills around the age of 20 in 1931. He completed only two recording sessions—one in 1936 and the other in 1937—prior to his untimely death in 1938. Very little was known about Johnson when his first album was released in 1961. By the time Columbia Records released Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings in 1990, slightly more information had come to light, but the mystery endures.

Like that of other early Delta blues singers, the music of Robert Johnson arose from an oral tradition that began with a mixture of field hollers, chants, fiddle tunes, and religious music and ended up as the blues. The Mississippi Delta—two hundred miles of fertile lowlands stretching from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south—was one of the primary locales in which the blues originated and developed. Johnson’s sound is critically recognized as the culmination of the Delta blues tradition, as exemplified by other Delta blues artists such as Charley Patton, Son House, and Skip James. Typically, Delta blues are sung by a single artist playing an acoustic guitar, often using a bottleneck or similar instrument on the frets to achieve a distinctive sound. The next generation of musicians—and those who out-lived Johnson—may have grown up in the Delta, but most left it as adults to go north and sing the city blues of Chicago. Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, two prominent Chicago bluesmen, have their roots in the Delta: both knew Robert Johnson and were heavily influenced by him.

Knowledge of Johnson, like that of his music, has come largely through recollections of musicians and others who knew him. Two of the best sources of information have been legendary Delta singer Son House, himself Johnson’s elder, and Johnny Shines, a contemporary who met Johnson in 1935 and traveled with him for a while. Additional information has been uncovered by researchers, who have helped to establish Johnson’s birth date as May 8, 1911. Some of the circumstances of Johnson’s death remain particularly unclear; there is even a dispute over the true site of his unmarked grave.

Fortunately, the recordings remain, and the 1990 issuance

At a Glance…

Born May 8, 1911, near Hazlehurst, MS; son of Julia Majors Dodds and Noah Johnson (a plantation worker); died of probable poisoning, August 16, 1938, near Greenwood, MS; believed buried in an unmarked grave at Mt Zion Church, near Morgan City, MS; new evidence indicates burial site as Payne Chapel Memorial Baptist Church, near Quito, MS; married twice.

Itinerant blues singer and guitarist, recording artist, composer. Traveled throughout the South, and as far north as Detroit and Chicago, playing in small clubs—juke joints—and at informal gatherings. Disappeared in 1930 and is believed to have stayed in southern Mississippi for about two years; returned to the northern part of the state with a guitar and uncanny musical prowess. Recorded 16 songs, including “Kind Hearted Woman,” “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” “Sweet Home Chicago,” and “Terraplane Blues,” for the American Record Company (ARC), November, 1936; recorded 13 songs for ARC, June, 1937.

of Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings has refocused attention on the life and artistry of this legendary bluesman. Johnson’s posthumous fame and influence on younger musicians stems largely from the power of his recordings. He is said to have been heavily influenced by early blues artists like Skip James, who was recorded in 1931, around the same time that Johnson amazed his elders with his mastery of the guitar. James’s eerie, distinctive style is reflected throughout Johnson’s recordings, most notably in “32-20 Blues,” which he adapted from James’s “22-20 Blues.”

Johnson first came to the attention of modern musicians, notably the rock generation of the 1960s, with the release of King of the Delta Blues Singers in 1961. Dueto the country blues revival of the time, older musicians who had sung as young men in the 1930s began to enjoy a second career and renewed popularity among hip, new audiences. Johnson’s album contained selections from his 1936 and 1937 recording sessions, some of which had not been previously released. Revealing the artist’s tremendous talent on vocals and guitar as well as his uncommon flair for lyrical composition, the album challenged younger rock musicians and showed them what the blues were all about. King of the Delta Blues Singers proved so popular that it was reissued in 1969; a second album followed in 1970. Bob Dylan has written that Johnson was one of two musicians—the other being Woodie Guthrie—who most influenced him. Among the Robert Johnson songs covered by rock musicians in the 1960s and later were “Love in Vain” and “Stop Breakin’ Down”—recorded by the Rolling Stones—and “Crossroad Blues”—recorded by Eric Clapton with Cream.

Compositions Became Blues Standards

Many of Johnson’s compositions had also become blues standards by the 1960s, thanks to Chicago blues artists Waters and Elmore James. In 1951 Elmore James recorded Johnson’s “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” making it a national hit “Sweet Home Chicago,” another Johnson composition, has been played and recorded by countless Chicago bluesmen. As a traveling musician who had crisscrossed the Delta region many times and gone as far north as Detroit and Chicago in the previous six years, Johnson had ample opportunity to refine his lyrics, judging their popularity and impact by his audiences’ reactions. Johnson played to a variety of gatherings, from Saturday night juke joint crowds to friendly groups gathered for outdoor picnics. As Johnny Shines recalled, Robert Johnson was a rambling man who was ready to hop a freight at the drop of a hat “He was a natural rambler,” Shines told Pete Welding, as recorded in the Down Beat Music Yearbook. “His home was where his hat was, and even then lots of times he didn’t know where that was. We used to travel all over … used to catch freights everywhere. Played for dances, in taverns, on sidewalks.”

While these types of playing conditions provided Johnson with a means of refining his songs, it was the discipline of the three-minute 78 rpm record that drove him to hone them into a more commercial form. He crafted his songs with a self-conscious artistry; he sang of women, drinking, traveling, and the devil. His lyrics contain haunting metaphors and vivid personifications. Rather than joining interchangeable “floating verses,” as many other Delta blues men did, Johnson made each song a statement, with intentionally developed themes. As Greil Marcus noted in the New York Times, Johnson’s songs have “an immediacy which is unmatched in the blues, and an impulse toward drama.” Johnson recorded 29 songs for the American Record Company (ARC), which eventually became part of the Columbia Broadcasting System. His complete canon of recordings includes 29 masters, plus 12 surviving alternate takes, all recorded at two ARC sessions held in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas.

Johnson got started in the business the way many other Delta musicians did—by auditioning. H. C. Speir was a white ARC talent scout who ran a music store in Jackson, Mississippi. He had been acting as a talent scout for seven years and was responsible for getting blues artists Patton, House, Skip James, Tommy Johnson, and others into the recording studio. Speir passed Robert Johnson on to Ernie Oertle, another ARC talent scout and salesman in the mid-South, who offered to take him to San Antonio to record in November of 1936.

Rudimentary Recordings Captured Magic

Johnson’s first session in San Antonio lasted three days. Sixteen songs were recorded in the Gunter Hotel, where ARC had set up equipment to record a number of musical acts, ranging from the Chuck Wagon Gang to groups of Mexican musicians. “Kind Hearted Woman” was the first song recorded. Also captured in San Antonio were “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” and “Sweet Home Chicago,” both of which became post-war blues standards. “Terraplane Blues,” known for its metaphoric lyrics, became a regional hit and Johnson’s signature song. Most of the selections were released on Vocalion 78s, but three songs and several interesting alternate takes remained unissued until they appeared on the Columbia albums. About six months later, in June of 1937, Johnson was called back to record. The two-day session took place in a Dallas warehouse where, once again, ARC had set up its recording equipment to capture many different acts. This time 13 songs were recorded and 10 were released during the following year.

While Johnson’s professional recording career can be measured in months, his musical legacy has survived more than 50 years. Critics have written a great deal about his genius, his unusual vocal style, his innovative guitar work, and the sensibility of his lyrics. As Peter Guralnick wrote in Searching for Robert Johnson, “There is no end of quoting and no end of reading into the lyrics, but unlike other equally eloquent blues, this is not random folk art, hit or miss, but rather carefully selected and honed detail, carefully considered and achieved effect.”

Mysteries of His Life Have Made Johnson a Legend

Robert Johnson’s life and music have had a “carefully considered and achieved effect” on his contemporaries, as well as on subsequent generations of musicians. During his life, Johnson was the subject of considerable controversy and inspired frequent conjecture; when he was murdered in 1938, at least three versions of the tragedy were given credibility—that he was stabbed to death by a jealous husband, stabbed by a woman, or poisoned by parties unknown. Subsequent research, based on eyewitness accounts, indicates that he was poisoned by a jealous husband.

In August of 1938 Johnson and Honeyboy Edwards were playing at a house party in Three Forks, near Greenwood, Mississippi. Johnson had apparently become too familiar with the companion of the man who had hired him to play. The outraged man allegedly laced Johnson’s whiskey with poison. Johnson died three days later. Welding, quoting Shines’s account in the Down Beat Music Yearbook, related that the story had changed by the time it reached Shines, who had left Johnson to live with his own family in Memphis: he had heard that Johnson was “poisoned by one of those women who really didn’t care for him at all. And Robert was almost always surrounded by that kind.… Seems like they just sought him out.… And I heard that it was something to do with the black arts. Before he died, it was said, Robert was crawling along the ground on all fours, barking and snapping like a mad beast. That’s what the poison done to him.”

Sold Soul to the Devil in Crossroads Bargain

Shines’s reference to “the black arts” evokes another myth about Johnson: namely, that he sold his soul to the devil in order to achieve mastery over the guitar. The myth grew in response to an absence of solid information about how he had learned to play the guitar so well. As a teenager Johnson had a reputation among older musicians, like House and Willie Brown, for being a pest who would grab their instruments and try to play them. House had to tell him, “You shouldn’t do that, Robert. You’re worrying the people.… You can’t play, and you’re just keeping up a lot of noise with it.” As House recalled for Welding in the Down Beat Music Yearbook, Johnson ran away from home for about two years when his stepfather wanted him to work in the fields with him. More reliable sources attribute Johnson’s 1930 departure and extended absence from northern Mississippi to the death of his first wife and his subsequent remarriage. At any rate, upon his return, Johnson had his own guitar. Robert Jr. Lockwood and a subsequently discovered photograph confirm that Johnson’s guitar of choice was a Gibson Kalamazoo. Johnson demonstrated such a great ability after returning home that House believed he had “sold his soul to the devil in exchange for learning to play like that.” More likely, the guitarist’s prowess was the fruit of guitar teacher Ike Zinnerman’s labor.

Although Johnson never confirmed the otherworldly story, another Delta blues musician, Tommy Johnson, once told his brother the same tale about going down to the crossroads to meet the devil at midnight. Folk researchers draw a parallel between the devil in the story and the African Yoruba god, Legba, the trickster, whose favorite haunt was a crossroads. It seems Johnson knew the life he sang about: his songs are rife with devil imagery, and some of his actions while performing were apparently a bit peculiar. It has been said, for instance, that he would often turn his back when he felt the eyes of another musician were watching him too closely—as if he needed to hide the secret to his extraordinary talent. All of which adds to the myth, but takes nothing away from the music of the shadowy blues artist who came to be known as the “King of the Delta Blues Singers.”