An Introduction to America’s Music

CHAPTER 14 | COUNTRY BLUES 333

now music retailers throughout the South began acting as paid talent scouts

for record companies. The most successful of these men was Henry C. Speir of

Jackson, Mississippi—the same dealer who boasted of selling fi fty records to black

customers for every one sold to a white customer (see chapter 11). The list of musi-

cians “discovered” by Speir reads like a who’s who of Delta blues: Charlie Patton,

Son House, Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Skip James, and the most legendary

of all Delta bluesmen, Robert Johnson.

Many tales have surrounded Robert Johnson’s short life—he died in 1938 at the

age of twenty-six. In the decades since his death, researchers have combed the

South seeking out birth and death certifi cates, retracing Johnson’s travels, and

interviewing anyone who knew or claimed to have known the elusive bluesman.

The contradictory stories they have unearthed only add to the mystery of Robert

Johnson. For starters, it is not easy to collect accurate data for a poor, southern

African American of the early twenti-

eth century with such a common name.

Adding to the diffi culty is Johnson’s

penchant for using assumed names and

never staying long in one place. As his

fellow blues musician Johnny Shines

attested, sheer wanderlust may have kept

Johnson on the move.

Johnson himself may have originated

or at least encouraged the most famous

legend about his life. As the story goes,

Johnson was an inept would-be guitarist

until one fateful midnight when he met

Satan at a crossroads and sold his soul in exchange for musical prowess. Those

who had once derided him were now amazed by his abilities, and for a few years

Johnson traveled widely, displaying phenomenal creative powers, until the

moment in August 1938 when he suddenly and dramatically took ill, crawling on

the fl oor and howling like a dog until the devil claimed his soul. By hinting that

his music had otherworldly overtones, Johnson ascribed to himself the mystery

and power of the supernatural. But a more mundane explanation of Johnson’s

early death is no less colorful: he was poisoned by the husband of a woman to

whom Johnson was paying too much attention.

As for his attainment of musical abilities, the music offers proof of Johnson’s

self-teaching method: he developed his techniques by listening to race records

and imitating them. His wide stylistic palette shows the infl uence of not only

local Mississippi bluesmen but also other, more distant artists that Johnson was

likely to have heard only through recordings. In other words, Robert John-

son was part of the audience for race records before he was a recording artist

himself.

“Walking Blues” (LG 14.1) displays Johnson’s dexterity as a singer and gui-

tarist. His voice croons, growls, moans, and yodels, with the occasional spoken

aside. The vocal line exercises great rhythmic freedom, now rushing ahead, now

pulling back, always against the steady backdrop of the guitar’s lower strings,

which lay a rock-steady rhythmic foundation while the upper strings provide

melodic fi ll, Johnson plays slide or bottleneck guitar, gliding a metal or glass

object along the strings, thus allowing the guitar to imitate the swooping vocal

Johnny Shines on Robert Johnson

R

obert was a guy, you could wake him up anytime and he

was ready to go.... You say, “Robert, I hear a train, let’s

catch it.” He wouldn’t exchange no words with you; he’s just

ready to go.... It didn’t make him no difference, just so he

was going. He just wanted to go.

In their own words

Robert Johnson

LG 14.1

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