King of the Delta Blues Singers
Robert Johnson
1961
Pam wanted to watch the Billy Joel doc, so that's what we're doing. It's almost five hours long. The music is SHIT. If my wife ever says something like "it feels like I never get to pick what we watch" again after this, I'm going to serve her divorce papers in the vast tract of land between Billy Joel's eyes on the cover of The Piano Man. ANYWAY, I'm not hating the actual documentary. The music is fucking terrible, but I'll always love a bunch of musicians sitting around talking about music. That's cool shit. I love the idea of music, even though there are some specific pieces of music that I hate. Like Billy Joel's.
I am so sorry for starting off a write-up about King of the Delta Blues Singers, point-blank one of the most important albums in music history, with a mention of Billy Joel. It's funny because, when examined at a molecular level, I probably like "Piano Man" a little better than most of the songs on this album. But examined broadly, and considering the vast scope of music history, Robert Johnson towers over most. And that's because of the story. Music works best when the myth behind that music is humming. There are few figures in music history more mythical than Robert Johnson.
But you know that already. You've heard at least one of his stories. It is said that he met the devil, and the devil exchanged the blues for Johnson's soul. This is not true. It's not true because the devil doesn't exist. It's also not true because the original reason it came to be known was for racist reasons (i.e. "how could a Black man be so good at music, it must have been the DEVIL). It's not true but it's what we remember, and so, the telling of the tale itself becomes the true part. Robert Johnson was so important that we want to be believe these outlandish stories about him, since that adds to the legend, and makes him seem even more important.
It's bizarre publishing this blog post the day after our Doors reviews, because I feel tempted to contextualize the idea of "myth" in the same way, with similar circumstances. For instance, did you know that Robert Johnson was also 27 when he died, ostensibly becoming the first musician to join the 27 Club? I had a similar reaction to thinking about each artist's respective deaths: "Wow, that is way younger than I would've suspected." Johnson especially. Not knowing really anything (besides the devil story) about him before this week, I might have assumed that he was a lot older. Even just based on that coarse, wisened vocals of his. I was picturing Buddy Guy at the end of Sinners, basically. But no! 27 fucking years old when he died!
Like Morrison, Johnson died under mysterious circumstances. Johnson's story is a lot more preposterous. People knew Morrison was dead but they didn't know how. Most people didn't even know Robert Johnson was dead at all! He died on August 16, 1938 (oh shit, today is August 16th!!!!). In late 1938, John Hammond went down to try to hire him for a concert performance, only to find out he was dead. Musicologist Alan Lomax, in fucking 1941, did the same thing, attempting to visit him to record some music, and didn't even know at that point that he was dead. I knew that Ozzy Osbourne was dead like seven minutes after he took his final breath; imagine not knowing for three years that a famous musician died.
There is an urban legend about his death. It's not actually known, but the legend goes that he was poisoned by the husband of a woman he was flirting with at a dance. There are a surprising number of details attached to the legend, but let's assume still that it's mostly bullshit, that he probably just died of health problems (some speculate he had Marfan syndrome). But let's also acknowledge that the myth of being murdered with poison by a spurned husband adds to the music in tangible ways.
Probably the thing that contributed the most to the music was... releasing said music. During Johnson's 27-year life, he recorded exactly 29 songs. That's not to say that these were all the songs he knew or played regularly, it's just what made it onto the tapes in the '30s. Eventually, they would all be released, but it was in 1961 that Columbia released this album, King of the Delta Blues Singers. It might make sense for even someone as plugged-in as Alan Lomax to not know the details of Robert Johnson in 1941, but it wouldn't make sense after 1961. Basically every classic rock artist who has anything to do with blues rock or anything even tangential to the blues would name this album as an influence. Its influence looms incredibly large.
Probably the thing that contributed the most to the music was... releasing said music. During Johnson's 27-year life, he recorded exactly 29 songs. That's not to say that these were all the songs he knew or played regularly, it's just what made it onto the tapes in the '30s. Eventually, they would all be released, but it was in 1961 that Columbia released this album, King of the Delta Blues Singers. It might make sense for even someone as plugged-in as Alan Lomax to not know the details of Robert Johnson in 1941, but it wouldn't make sense after 1961. Basically every classic rock artist who has anything to do with blues rock or anything even tangential to the blues would name this album as an influence. Its influence looms incredibly large.
To obsess over I like the music on the album or not would puncture the myth, and I'm not trying to do that. I'm just a grain of sand on the beach of the universe, whereas Johnson is a beached whale. I will say (again, as many times as I am forced to) that music this sparse is not typically my thing, and certainly not music recorded this early in music history. I rarely capital-letters LOVE music released before, say, 1962, but I need to listen to this music anyway and I need to acknowledge the fact that most of the post-1962 music I love would not even exist without the music that Robert Johnson created. It's just a guy singing the blues. Nothing I haven't heard before. And yet... with Robert Johnson, it's different.
And I've avoided it for a long time, I think because I needed to get to a place where I would appreciate the story, even if the music wasn't particularly the type of music I can usually get invested in. This is the highest-ranked album of the RS 500 (original 2003 version) that I've managed to avoid the longest (it's at #27), but I figured it was finally time. I know that it's high on that list because of the legend, because of how IMPORTANT it is, and that Rolling Stone isn't literally saying that the music here is better than, say, Led Zeppelin I (at #29), but it is most certainly saying that Led Zeppelin I literally only exists because of King of the Delta Blues Singers. I can appreciate the importance! I can! Something can be really basic but important because many people used that basic original idea as a building block to something bigger and better. That's how this all works!
And I've avoided it for a long time, I think because I needed to get to a place where I would appreciate the story, even if the music wasn't particularly the type of music I can usually get invested in. This is the highest-ranked album of the RS 500 (original 2003 version) that I've managed to avoid the longest (it's at #27), but I figured it was finally time. I know that it's high on that list because of the legend, because of how IMPORTANT it is, and that Rolling Stone isn't literally saying that the music here is better than, say, Led Zeppelin I (at #29), but it is most certainly saying that Led Zeppelin I literally only exists because of King of the Delta Blues Singers. I can appreciate the importance! I can! Something can be really basic but important because many people used that basic original idea as a building block to something bigger and better. That's how this all works!
Music is story set to song. Bring a good story, and attain immortality. Robert Johnson is immortal.
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