Robert Johnson

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Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911-August 16, 1938) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

His seminal recordings, released in 1936 and 1937, display a blend of singing, guitar playing, and songwriting abilities that have influenced subsequent generations of musicians.

Johnson's inadequately documented life and death have lent to a lot of rumors.

He sold his soul to the devil at a local crossroads to find musical fame, according to the one most closely connected with his life.

He is now regarded as a master of the blues, particularly as a progenitor of the Delta blues style. Johnson, a prolific entertainer who appeared mostly on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances, had no commercial success or public attention in his lifetime.

He appeared in only two recording sessions, one in San Antonio in 1936 and another in Dallas that produced 29 different songs (including 13 survive alternate takes) recorded by famed Country Music Hall of Fame producer Don Law.

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Life and career

Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, possibly on May 8, 1911, to Julia Major Dodds (born October 1874) and Noah Johnson (born December 1884). Julia was married to Charles Dodds (born February 1865), a wealthy landowner and furniture maker with whom she had ten children. Following a conflict with white landowners, Charles Doddds had been coerced to leave Hazlehurst by a lynch mob. Julia left Hazlehurst with baby Robert, but in fewer than two years, she and her husband moved the child to Memphis to live with her husband, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer. Robert spent the next 8–9 years in Memphis and attending the Carnes Avenue Colored School, where he received lessons in arithmetic, reading, writing, music, geography, and physical fitness. He discovered his passion for, and knowledge of, the blues and popular music in Memphis. His education and urban environment set him apart from the majority of his contemporary blues musicians.

Robert returned to his mother around 1919-19220 after she married Will "Dusty" Willis, an illiterate sharecropper. They began with a plantation in Crittenden County, Arkansas, but quickly migrated across the Mississippi River to Commerce in the Mississippi Delta, near Tunica and Robinsonville. They lived on the Abbay & Leatherman Plantation. Julia's new husband was 24 years old when she was married. Robert was referred to by some locals as "Little Robert Dusty," but he was registered at Tunica's Indian Creek School as Robert Spencer. He is identified as Robert Spencer in the 1920 census, and he and Will and Julia Willis reside in Lucas, Arkansas. Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927. The quality of his marriage certificate reveals that he was relatively well prepared for a boy of his origins. Willie Coffee, a school friend who was interviewed and shot in later life, recalled that as a youth Robert was already known for playing the harmonica and jaw harp. Joe Bean's absence for lengthy stretches of time, which means he must have been living and studying in Memphis.

When Julia alerted Robert of his biological father, Robert adopted the surname Johnson, who used it on the certificate of his marriage to sixteen-year-old Virginia Travis in February 1929. She died of childbirth immediately after. Robert's decision to perform secular songs, which is described as "selling your soul to the Devil," was punished by surviving relatives of Virginia. McCormick said Johnson himself used the word to describe his decision to move from a husband and farmer's normal life to become a full-time blues musician.

Son House, the blues musician, moved to Robinsonville, where his musical partner Willie Brown lived. The House remembered Johnson as a "little boy" who was a solid harmonica player but a lousy guitarist, but an embarrassingly bad guitarist late in life. Johnson left Robinsonville, close to his birthplace, shortly after looking for his biological father. He perfected the House guitar style and discovered other styles from Isaiah "Ike" Zimmerman. Zimmerman was reported to have learned how to play guitar by visiting graveyards at midnight. When Johnson next appeared in Robinsonville, he seemed to have miraculously developed a guitar playing technique. House of Commons interviewed a time when Johnson's pact with the devil was well known among blues scholars. When asked whether he attributed Johnson's behaviour to this pact, he confirmed it, and his equivocal responses have been accepted as confirmation.

With Vergie Mae Smith, who was living in Martinsville, Johnson fathered a child. In May 1931, he married Caletta Craft. The couple lived in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the Delta, 1932, but Johnson left for a life as a "walking" or itinerant performer, and Caletta died in early 1933.

Johnson travelled frequently between Memphis and Helena, as well as the smaller towns of the Mississippi Delta and neighboring areas of Mississippi and Arkansas from 1932 to 1938. On occasion, he had travelled even farther. Johnny Shines, a blues musician, accompanied him to Chicago, Texas, New York, Kentucky, Kentucky, and Indiana. Henry Townsend performed a musical performance with him in St. Louis. In several countries, he remained with associates of his extended family or female acquaintances. He did not marry again, but he did have some long-term relationships with women with whom he would return frequently. In other countries, he stayed with whomever woman he was able to seduce at his appearance. Johnson's hosts were largely unaware of his current location. He used different names in different countries, employing at least eight distinct surnames.

Biographers have been looking for consistency among musicians who worked closely with him: Shines, who traveled extensively with him; Robert Lockwood Jr., who knew him as his mother's uncle; and David "Honeyboy" Edwards, whose cousin Willie Mae Powell had a close friendship with Johnson. Biographers have tried to sum up Johnson's life from a collection of partial, conflicting, and inconsistent eyewitness reports. "He was well mannered, he was soft spoken, and he was indecipherable." "Everybody seems to have agreed that although he was sociable and outgoing in public, he was secretly reserved and preferred to go his own way." "Musicians who knew Johnson testified that he was a nice guy and quite normal," his musical ability, his obsession with whiskey and women, and his dedication to the road were all valid points.

When Johnson first arrived in a new town, he would compete for tips on street corners or at the local barbershop or a restaurant. In live performances, musical associates said that Johnson did not necessarily concentrate on his obscure and complicated original compositions but rather thrilled audiences by achieving more popular pop standards of the day – not necessarily blues. He had no problem giving his audiences what they wanted at first hearing, and some of his contemporaries later expressed concern for jazz and country music. He had an uncannily ability to develop a rapport with his audience; in every town where he had stopped, he would crowbar connect to the local community that would benefit him well if he returned to the area a month or a year later.

Shines was 20 when he met Johnson in 1936. Johnson seemed to be at least a year older than himself (Johnson was actually four years older). In Samuel Charters' Robert Johnson, Shines is quoted describing Johnson.

During this period, Johnson, a woman about 15 years his senior and the mother of the blues musician Robert Lockwood Jr. Johnson, reportedly cultivated a woman to look after him in every town where he played in. He reportedly asked homeless young women living in the country with their families if he would go home with them, and in most cases, no one would have accepted until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was ready to move forward.

Alan Lomax discovered that Johnson had performed in the Clarksdale, Mississippi area. The historian Samuel Charters could only say Will Shade, of the Memphis Jug Band, remembered Johnson once briefly played with him in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1959. Johnson is reported to have traveled to St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and New York City in the last year of his life. In 1938, Columbia Records founder John H. Hammond, who owned some of Johnson's records, asked recording artist Don Law to book Johnson for the first "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. Hammond replaced him with Big Bill Broonzy after finding out about Johnson's death, but he performed two of Johnson's hits on stage.

Around 1936, Johnson, Mississippi, sought out H. C. Speir, who owned a general store and also served as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who, as a salesman for the ARC company of labels, invited Johnson to Don Law to record his first sessions in San Antonio, Texas. In room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio's room 414, the recording session was held on November 23-26, 1936. Johnson made 16 picks in the ensuing three-day session and recorded alternate takes for the majority of them. "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom," "Sweet Home Chicago," and "Cross Road Blues," were among Johnson's songs that later became blues standards. "Terraplane Blues," the first to be announced, was backed by "Last Fair Deal Gone Down," which sold up to 10,000 copies.

On June 19th–20, 1937, Johnson went to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session with Don Law in a makeshift studio at the Vitagraph (Warner Bros.) Building. Johnson released almost half of the 29 songs that make up his entire discography in Dallas, and ten of his earliest recordings from this session were released within the year. The bulk of Johnson's "somber and reflective" songs and performances appear from his second recording session. Johnson did two interpretations of the majority of these songs, and none of those takes survived. Because of this, it's easier to compare different interpretations of a single song by Johnson than for any other blues artist of his time. Johnson, unlike many Delta players, had the idea of inserting a composed song into the three minutes of a 78-rpm game.

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Awards and recognition

• 1980 – Blues Hall of Fame: performer
• 1986 – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: early influence
• 1990 – Spin magazine: first in its list of "35 Guitar Gods" on the 52nd anniversary of his death
• 1991 – Grammy Award: best historical album (The Complete Recordings)
• 1991 – Blues Music Award: reissue album (The Complete Recordings)
• 1994 – U.S. Postal Service: commemorative stamp
• 1995 – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll": "Sweet Home Chicago", "Cross Road Blues", "Hellhound on My Trail", "Love in Vain"
• 1998 – Grammy Hall of Fame: "Cross Road Blues"
• 2000 – Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame: Blues pioneer
• 2003 – National Recording Registry: The Complete Recordings
• 2003 – Rolling Stone's David Fricke: fifth on his list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"
• 2006 – Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: performer
• 2008 – Marker No. 29 on the Mississippi Blues Trail at his birthplace in Hazlehurst; also, at his presumed gravesite in Greenwood
• 2010 – Gibson.com: ninth on its list of "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time"
• 2014 – Grammy Hall of Fame: "Sweet Home Chicago
• 2015 – Rolling Stone No. 71 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" (down from No. 5 on its 2003 list chosen by David Fricke)