Robert Johnson

[scotman]

Not a question

Just heard on Cerys Matthew's radio prog that today is the 100th anniversary of RJ's birthday. Apparently Huey Morgan's prog(13:00-16:00) on BBC 6 Music will be featuring him a lot.

[Milvus]

What more to say than Trim, who has it in one

[Cowtipper]

They have a little festival for his birthday and open the tiny museum in his home town. Hazlehurst, Mississippi is a little bitty town cut in half by the railroad tracks. It has a fair sized promenade (where people used to meet and walk in the evenings) with almost the entire street being empty store fronts. In its heyday it must have been a very lively town. Its a primarly black town with brightly colored small ramshackle houses(almost every town down there alternates between white and black). Walking around the downtown you can almost sense what it was when he was growing up because most of the buildings are from around that era.

[andy-hughes]

I heard the legend of RJ and thought a lot about him for a long time before i ever heard him - but I saw the picture(if it is him,no-one is certain) and was amazed. In my mind he wore a white shift with wide sleeves, and had long hair and a suntan, and then I see his pic., and he's black!

Just goes to show how you can build an image of someone that is utterly wrong.

[Cowtipper]

"and he's black! " !!!1
That's pretty hilarious. I guess I don't understand how you could miss it.

[mike11111]

I suppose if I were to venture to ask who the **** is RJ I would be displaying my ignorance.

[Cowtipper]

Sultry!
That's not a white accent.

[Cowtipper]

Robert Johnson

[Cowtipper]

To my sweet home... Chicago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkftesK2dck

[dr b]

Robert Johnson also recorded Crossroad Blues (covered by Cream as Crossroads) and Love in Vain and Stop Breaking Down Blues (both covered by the Stones), and Dust my Broom (made more famous by Elmore James). One of the original Delta bluesmen (though heavily influenced by Son House and Skip James who are at least as deserving of "immortal" status! It pays to die young, I guess.)

[dr b]

powerful stuff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jN5vqEyV7g

[Cowtipper]

And then check out this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZvXjCxXT3M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It-tJ8DOjIk

[dr b]

And then there is the original delta bluesman who inspired them all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuICVsaxJxc

[bellabee]

i think those white english blokes of my generation and straitened circumstances [where could you get a croissant in 60's england!] did a pretty fine job.

[dr b]

In the immortal words of Sonny Boy Williamson. "those boys want to play the blues so bad—and they play the blues SO BAD!"

[bellabee]

and what has 'bad' come to mean in modern parlance dr b? - we turned it right round [like a record baby right round right....]