Blind Willie Johnson

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"Blind" Willie Johnson (c. 1902-1945), was an African-American singer and guitarist whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals. While the lyrics of most of his songs were religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions. Among musicians, he is considered one of the greatest slide or bottleneck guitar artists who ever lived, as well as one of the most revered figures of depression-era gospel music. Although he is called a bottleneck guitarist, he actually played with a pocket knife. His music is distinguishable by his powerful bass strumming and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.

Contents

1 Life

1.1 Childhood
1.2 Musical Career

2 Recordings
3 External links

Life

Childhood

It is unclear when Blind Willie Johnson was born. While 1902 is most frequently given as his year of birth, earlier dates or estimates are also given; he may have been born as early as 1897. According to different sources, Johnson was either born in Marlin, Texas or was born in Temple, Texas, and then moved to Marlin later in his childhood. When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher, and then fashioned himself a cigar box guitar. His mother died when he was little, and his father remarried soon after her death.

Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not specifically known how his condition came about, there is one way most people believe he lost his vision. Apparently, when he was seven, his father caught his stepmother going out with another man, and deliberately beat her. In self defense, she picked up a handful of lye, and threw it at the father's eyes. Unfortunately, she missed, and the lye landed in Willie's eyes. Another way of hearing it was that it was her deliberate desire to blind Willie, who might have been an easier target for her revenge's culmination.

Musical Career

Like many destitute people with physical disabilities at the time, Blind Willie Johnson earned his living from music. He quickly picked up the twelve-string guitar, and his father would often leave him on street corners to sing for money, where his newfound powerful voice left an indelible impression on passersby (legend has it that he was arrested for nearly starting a riot at a New Orleans courthouse with a powerful rendition of "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down", a song about Samson and Delilah). This song was performed hundreds of times by the Grateful Dead, and the live recordings of their version of the song have helped preserve it for decades. However, it is also stated by Samuel Charters that he was simply arrested for the misconstruction of the title lyric that he sang for tips (coincidentally in front of a Government Office Building). They thought he was trying to start a riot, he never actually did. Also, previously it was mentioned that he played with a pocket knife. This is may, however, be false according to reputed one-time acquaintance Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959), who recalled that he played with a brass ring. His recordings lend me to believe this, not to stay that he wasn't capable and at one time didn't play with a pocket knife or a number of other fretting instruments. Even the only known photograph of Johnson shows him to be without a pocket knife.

At age 25, Willie married a young singer named Angelina, who was the sister of blues guitarist L.C. Robinson. His wife sang with him on some of his 30 recordings with Columbia Records from 1927-1930. Some examples of songs on which Angelina Johnson sang with him are "Church I'm Fully Saved Today", "When the War Was On", "John the Revelator", "You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond," and "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning". John the Revelator would eventually be recorded by delta blues musician Son House, and his other song, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, was recorded by another delta blues musician, Fred McDowell.

Johnson remained poor until the end, preaching and singing in the streets of Beaumont, Texas to anyone who would listen. In 1945, his home inexplicably burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed his wife had prepared for him. He lived like this until, two weeks later, he contracted pneumonia and died. In a later interview with his wife she said she tried to take him to a hospital but they refused to admit him because he was black. Although there is some dispute as to where his actual gravesite is, concerned members of the Beaumont community have committed to finding the site, and preserving it.

Recordings

He made some 30 commercial recording studio record sides for Columbia Records from 1927 through 1930. His records have kept his music tremendously influential and his songs have been covered by several popular artists, including Led Zeppelin, The 77s, Beck, Phil Keaggy and The White Stripes who have covered 'John the Revelator'. Some of his most famous recordings include his rendition of the famous gospel song "Let Your Light Shine On Me", as well as the raw, powerful "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground", about the crucifixion of Jesus. "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down," retitled as "Samson and Delilah," was most famously covered by the Grateful Dead over the course of hundreds of performances. "Nobody's Fault But Mine" has also been covered by Mason Jennings on several occasions.

Johnson's recording of "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" was included on the Voyager Golden Record, sent into space with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977, and for this reason was used in the widely seen science show by Carl Sagan in 1980. This recording also got Johnson mentioned on an episode of the fictional television series The West Wing (see "The Warfare of Genghis Khan"); the fictional Deputy White House Chief of Staff Josh Lyman using Johnson's recording to show the depth and soul behind the space program. The song is also used in Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Walk the Line, a biopic of country singer Johnny Cash; and The Devil's Rejects, a serial killer film by rocker Rob Zombie. Ry Cooder, who based his desolate soundtrack to Paris, Texas on "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground," described it as "the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music." In the liner notes of a 2002 record by Derek Bailey, Marc Ribot compared "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" to the music of Django Reinhardt and the avantgarde-guitarist Bailey. The song, however, within Johnson's culture was another "moaning" piece that marks a place similar to the Bentonia school of blues that was practiced by such "eerie voiced" artists as Skip James and Robert Johnson.

External links

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