Blind Willie Johnson
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"Blind" Willie Johnson (1897-1945) 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. His music is distinguished by his powerful bass thumb-picking and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.
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[edit] Life
Blind Willie Johnson was born in 1897 near Brenham, Texas (before the discovery of his death certificate Temple, Texas had been suggested). When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher, and then made himself a cigar box guitar. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried soon after her death.[1]
It is thought that Johnson was married twice, first to a woman with the same first name as himself, Willie B Harris, and later to a young singer named Angeline, who was the sister of blues guitarist L.C. Robinson. (It may be noted that no marriage certificates have yet been discovered.) As Angeline Johnson often sang and performed with him the first person to attempt to research his biography, Samuel Charters, made the mistake of assuming it was Angeline who had sung on several of Johnson's records. Later research showed that it was Johnson's first wife.
Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not known how he lost his sight, Angeline Johson provided this account to Samuel Charters: She said when Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man. The stepmother then picked up a handful of lye and threw it, not at Willie's father, but into the face of young Willie.[2]
Johnson remained poor until the end, preaching and singing in the streets of Beaumont, Texas to anyone who would listen. A city directory shows that in 1944, a Rev. W.J. Johnson, undoubtedly Blind Willie, operated the House of Prayer at 1440 Forest St., Beaumont, Texas.[citation needed] In 1945, his home burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed. He lived like this until he contracted pneumonia two weeks later, and died. (The death certificate reports the cause of death as malarial fever, with syphilis as a contributing factor.) In a later interview his wife said she tried to take him to a hospital but they refused to admit him because he was blind. Although there is some dispute as to where his grave site is, members of the Beaumont community have committed to finding the site and preserving it.
[edit] Musical career
He quickly picked up the twelve-string guitar, and his father would often leave him on street corners to sing for money, where his 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. According to Charters, however, he was simply arrested while singing for tips in front of a Custom House, by a police officer who misconstrued the title lyric and mistook it for incitement.[3]
Johnson made 30 commercial recording studio record sides in five separate sessions for Columbia Records from 1927 through 1930. On some of these recordings Johnson uses a fast rhythmic picking style, while on others he plays slide guitar. According to reputed one-time acquaintance Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959), Johnson played with a brass ring, although other sources cite him using a knife. The only known photograph of Johnson does not reveal any fretting instrument.
Some of Johnson's 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", where he renders with wordless vocal a hymn about the crucifixion of Jesus. Within Johnson's culture, however, this song was a "moaning" piece related to the Bentonia school of blues practiced by such "eerie voiced" artists as Skip James and Robert Johnson.
On fourteen of his recordings he is accompanied by Willie B Harris or an as-yet-unidentified female singer. This group of recordings includes "Church I'm Fully Saved Today", "John the Revelator", "You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond," and "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning".
[edit] Legacy
His records have kept his music tremendously influential and his songs have been covered by several popular artists, including Led Zeppelin (who included his photo on their second album), Bob Dylan, The 77s, Beck, Phil Keaggy and The White Stripes who have covered "John the Revelator". The latter song was also recorded by delta blues musician Son House, while the song "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning" was recorded by another delta blues musician, Fred McDowell. Both Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin covered "In My Time of Dying."
"If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down," was recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary; retitled as "Samson and Delilah," it was frequently performed by the Grateful Dead at their concerts; Gary Davis also has recorded a version of the song. "Nobody's Fault But Mine" has also been covered by Mason Jennings on several occasions and was modified by Led Zeppelin. 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 avant garde-guitarist Bailey.
In 2003 Deep Sea Records issued a CD tribute called "Dark was the Night," featuring artists such as Martin Simpson, Gary Lucas, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Jody Stecher.
Johnson's recordings and legacy have crossed over into other media and cultural contexts. "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 Cosmos: A Personal Voyage 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 used 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."
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Charters, Samuel (1993). The Complete Blind Willie Johnson, CD booklet. Columbia/Legacy C2K 52835.
[edit] External links
- ChristianBlues.net
- Biographical sketch
- Illustrated Blind Willie Johnson discography
- MP3 Audio Files of Songs by Blind Willie Johnson on the Internet Archive
- Excerpt of the film The Soul of a Man (Quicktime, 15 MB) Blind Willie Johnson (played by Chris Thomas King) performs "Trouble (Will) Soon Be Over"
Blind Willie Johnson-The Biography at http://www.lulu.com/content/704585
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1945 deaths | People from Beaumont, Texas | African American musicians | Blues musicians | American blues singers | American male singers | American gospel singers | American guitarists | Blues guitarists | Guitarists | Slide guitarists | Blind musicians
