Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues, is one of the most significant and mythic figures in the blues.

Despite, or perhaps because of, his small amount of recorded material (29 total songs with a total of 42 recordings, if you count alternate takes), Johnson came to epitomize the sound of the Delta.

The tall tales of selling his soul to the devil to learn to play the guitar and more that swirled around him over the years came to epitomize classic blues myths as well.

Though Johnson was not widely known outside the Delta during his lifetime, a revival of interest in his music in the early ‘60s helped make songs like “Sweet Home Chicago,” “Cross Road Blues,” “Hellhound on My Trail,” “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” and “Love in Vain” not just staples for blues, but a major influence on rock for decades to come.

Key Albums

The 1961 album, King of the Delta Blues, helped kick off the Johnson revival.
The 1990 Complete Recordings brought everything, including alternate takes, into one boxed set.
Just out this month is a newly re-mastered version of The Complete Recordings

(Or, if you have $350 to spare, you can get one of the 1000 Centennial Edition boxed sets offered only online with 12 vinyl discs; the 2-CD Complete Recordings; and Rarities From The Vaults, a double-CD with a dozen rarely-collected 78s from the Victor archive by Frank Stokes, Tommy Johnson, Sleepy John Estes and others recorded between 1928 and 1932 on one disc, and 10 tracks featuring artists recorded during the same San Antonio and Dallas sessions as Robert Johnson on the other; and The Life And Music Of Robert Johnson: Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl DVD.)

Tribute albums include: the new Big Head Blues Club 100 Years of Robert Johnson, Eric Clapton’s Me and Mr. Johnson and Rory Block’s The Lady and Mr. Johnson, along with hundreds of covers of his songs.

Books

Virtually every blues reference book has a section on Robert Johnson.

Books specifically devoted to him include:
Crossroads : The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson by Tom Graves (Demers Books)
Robert Johnson: Mythmaking and Contemporary American Culture by Patricia Schroeder (University of Illinois Press)
Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of The Blues by Elijah Wald (Amistad)
Searching for Robert Johnson: The Life and Legend of the “King of the Delta Blues Singers” by Peter Guralnick (Plume)
Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta by Robert Palmer (Penguin)

Related to Robert Johnson’s story and significance is the Great Migration. Here are two recent, critically acclaimed books on the topic:

The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America by Nicholas Lemann (Vintage)
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House)

Videos

Several video productions devoted to Robert Johnson are available, including:

Hellhounds on My Trail
The Search for Robert Johnson
Deep Blues
Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl?

Alleged footage of Robert Johnson - proved not to be, but a fascinating story and film clips: