Black History Music Pt. 17
In celebration of Black History Month, the Ear Candy Update intends to celebrate landmark recordings by black artists that have shaped the collective consciousness, mentality, and sense of cool the world over. Next, Robert Johnson's "King of the Delta Blues Singers."
This is not privileged information, but this shit is not for everybody.
As Hank Williams is to country, as Duke Ellington is to jazz, Robert Johnson is to the blues. If the blues did indeed have a baby and they called it rock and roll, Robert Johnson is the great-granddaddy of it all.
"Come On in My Kitchen," "Walking Blues," the magnificent "Sweet Home Chicago," "Me and the Devil Blues," the ethereal "Ramblin' on My Mind," "Hellhound on my Trail," and the Mount Rushmore demon of "Cross Road Blues," all are here and all are essential texts in the blues and rock canon, but it takes a different lens to view this in the proper context.
Robert Johnson precedes the proverbial square one. He arrives fully formed from the swamp of American slave chants, sharecropper laments, and juke joint jams. There is no redemption here, no escape, and certainly no packed arenas of fans chanting your name, but anyone who ever rose to fame with a guitar strapped to their body knows Robert Johnson’s name. They speak it with the same reverence Catholics reserve for St. Peter or Mother Mary.
Robert Johnson is the old god - the altar at which Muddy Waters, Lightin' Hopkins, Elmore James, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page worshipped. If you ever listened to a rock record from the 1960s, and you probably have, you have heard Robert Johnson's influence.
If you're a nice person or a casual music fan, you want nothing to do with this. This ain't for you. But if you've confronted your own mortality, are at peace with the ugliness that sometimes occupies the human soul, and you appreciate history, then, by all means, let this rip. Otherwise, keep your ass at home.
As Hank Williams is to country, as Duke Ellington is to jazz, Robert Johnson is to the blues. If the blues did indeed have a baby and they called it rock and roll, Robert Johnson is the great-granddaddy of it all.
"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." - The Man Who Shot Liberty ValanceRobert Johnson died in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1938. He was 27. As the legend goes, he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Old U.S. Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and thus launched the mythology. He was a relatively mediocre talent until that night. After, he was the greatest blues guitar-slinger in all the land. Everything about the man swirls in a mystery of Southern gospel and mystique, whiskey, and the looming spectre of death.
"You want to know how good the blues can get? Well, this is it". – Keith RichardsAny guitar player, even the novices, will tell you it takes extraordinary skill to play lead and rhythm at the same time. Robert did. On every song. The man sat in a room and played lead and rhythm simultaneously over 17 songs that serve as the bedrock for the blues as we know it, and consequently rock and roll.
"Come On in My Kitchen," "Walking Blues," the magnificent "Sweet Home Chicago," "Me and the Devil Blues," the ethereal "Ramblin' on My Mind," "Hellhound on my Trail," and the Mount Rushmore demon of "Cross Road Blues," all are here and all are essential texts in the blues and rock canon, but it takes a different lens to view this in the proper context.
Robert Johnson precedes the proverbial square one. He arrives fully formed from the swamp of American slave chants, sharecropper laments, and juke joint jams. There is no redemption here, no escape, and certainly no packed arenas of fans chanting your name, but anyone who ever rose to fame with a guitar strapped to their body knows Robert Johnson’s name. They speak it with the same reverence Catholics reserve for St. Peter or Mother Mary.
Robert Johnson is the old god - the altar at which Muddy Waters, Lightin' Hopkins, Elmore James, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page worshipped. If you ever listened to a rock record from the 1960s, and you probably have, you have heard Robert Johnson's influence.
If you're a nice person or a casual music fan, you want nothing to do with this. This ain't for you. But if you've confronted your own mortality, are at peace with the ugliness that sometimes occupies the human soul, and you appreciate history, then, by all means, let this rip. Otherwise, keep your ass at home.
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