Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we’re sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, and Bob Dylan have never hesitated to acknowledge his influence. “From the first note the vibrations from the loudspeaker made my hair stand up,” Dylan writes in his autobiography of his first encounter with Johnson’s music. “The stabbing sounds from the guitar could almost break a window. When Johnson started singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor. I immediately differentiated between him and anyone else I had ever heard.” Not bad for a recording older than Dylan himself.
In the early nineteen-sixties, the blues as Johnson played it seems to have sounded electrifyingly revelatory to the generation of then-young musicians who managed to hear it, regardless of their own origins. All such recordings date from 1936 or 1937, the fruits of just two sessions in makeshift Texas studios overseen by producer Don Law.
Though the “king of the Delta blues singers” left behind only this small body of work after his still-unexplained death at the age of 27, it’s been endlessly scrutinized by the genre’s enthusiasts. All of them will surely regard as a godsend the newly discovered shellac master test pressing above of “Cross Road Blues,” a song that plays an outsized part in the legend of Robert Johnson, who some say sold his soul to the devil at just such a location in exchange for his formidable guitar skills.
Though it contains no reference to any such unholy pact, nor to any denizen of the underworld, “Cross Road Blues” does have a haunting sound that goes with the shadowy ambience of the man’s short life story. Some of that had to do with the less-than-ideal quality of the recordings that have long circulated, but this test pressing of Johnson’s second take sounds different. Uploaded by sound restorer Nick Dellow, it was originally made in 1940 straight from the metal master by Columbia Records producer George Avakian, who would go on to work with everyone from Miles Davis to Edith Piaf to John Cage. The sonic muddiness of most Robert Johnson releases thus far has done its part to prevent modern-day listeners from getting quite what the big deal was about him. But perhaps the unprecedented clarity of this recording will get the hair of young musicians and mature connoisseurs alike standing on end.
via Ted Gioia
Related content:
Keith Richards Shows Us How to Play the Blues, Inspired by Robert Johnson, on the Acoustic Guitar
Robert Johnson Finally Gets an Obituary in The New York Times 81 Years After His Death
The Legend of How Bluesman Robert Johnson Sold His Soul to the Devil at the Crossroads
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
A great article on a major find.
However, it references Robert Johnson’s “still-unexplained death at the age of 27.”
In fact, research done for the superb Johnson biography Up Jumped The Devil has probably revealed the tragic factors surrounding his early demise.
Interviews with neighbors and acquaintances of Johnson indicate that he was having a fling with a married woman. Discovering this, her husband decided om a clever plan. He mixed moth repellant crystals into Johnson’s whiskey. Drinking this mixture would make Johnson so sick that he’d realize the affair had been discovered and worse awaited him if he didn’t back off.
But unbeknownst to the husband — and Johnson himself — the musician had developed serious ulcers. The moth repellent so irritated Robert’s stomach and intestines that the ulcerations began bleeding profusely, causing major internal hemorrhaging that ended his life.
A good biopic with clean, new recordings would also do the trick!
Robert Johnson’s small body of work is important and impressive in the blues genre it seems a shame no one thus far has produced a modern cleaned up version of them. Any fan of the blues knows his work and you don’t start down that road very far without learning about him.
I wonder if Sir Paul or Keef or Eric or Jimmy might be interested in such a project for the ages.
Anyone have contacts to any of them to make this happen.
Just imagine hearing Robert clearly.
That’s a very good idea, but who would portray Robert Johnson?
Great that somebody has looked back with new technology to make such important music that was the precursor to the late 50’s & 60’s boom in music and everything else that follows.
Robert Johnson’s contribution to this is insurmountable. Well done and good luck finding sponsors.
SJB
There was a CD made of these recordings.
It was produced in the 1990s about the time they started redoing all of the Beatles albums.
If you have those CDs in their original packaging ITS WORTH A LOT OF MONEY
Miles Caton, who played Sammie the young guitarist in Sinners.
Total BS about this being a new discovery. It’s the exact same recording that was widely available 50 yrs ago…just digitally cleaned up.
WOW!!!! Fantastic article on Robert Johnson.
Robert johnson tort a lot of music difrent stills in
Claiming this to be a newly discovered recording is v misleading. It’s not. You can say it’s a newly discovered transfer from the original master.