![[IMAGE: Robert Johnson]](images/big-rj.jpg)
...where they say he struck a deal with the Devil. Fellow bluesman Tommy
Johnson (no relation) said, "If you want to learn how to play anything you
want to play and learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar and
you go to where a road crosses that way, where a crossroad is. Get there, be
sure to get there just a little 'fore 12:00 that night so you'll know you'll
be there. You have your guitar and be playing a piece there by yourself....
A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar, and he'll tune it.
And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you. That's the way I
learned to play anything I want." (As told by LeDell Johnson to David Evans
and quoted from Peter Guralnick's Searching for Robert Johnson,
copyright © 1982, 1989.)
In 1936 and 1937, Robert Johnson recorded such immortal blues classics as I Believe I'll Dust My Broom, Sweet Home Chicago, Come On In My Kitchen, Crossroad Blues, Traveling Riverside Blues, Love In Vain, Hellhound On My Trail, and Me And The Devil Blues. Johnson was born in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, in 1911 and died under still-mysterious circumstances in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1938. Crossroad Blues 108k, 10 sec.) is from Robert Johnson -- The Complete Recordings Copyright © CBS Records Inc., 1990.
For more information about Robert Johnson (1911-1938) you might want to visit the following pages:
The Crossroads by Daniel Leary
London Calling, blues - Robert Johnson
To those of you wishing to visit my webpage, it is currently in the process of being redesigned. Rather than leave you with nothing to look at, or even worse, in-progress HTML, I thought I'd present you with a brief music history lesson. I hope that you can forgive me for this ruse.
-rj