Robert’s fortune came when some how he ventured to a place where things were very different maybe he got a ride or hitched a train no matter he came to this place and the place was Chicago and he wound up on the south side of Chicago this is where the missing recollection of where Robert Johnson disappeared to came into history but no one can answer the question If it wasn’t a tap dance show or a few guys and gals hoofing around it was somebody playing on some instrument somewhere somehow someway no matter the expertise or the greatness. It doesn’t take much talent to make people want to go see somebody perform even if it is really good or notĪfter a while the decision is based on what else do these people have to doĪt that time not much was available to be offered So if what you see around you is all you have to go on then your ideas remain the same as what you see and what you get every time you see it nothing changes The thing about Robert Johnson is he had real talent but he was stifled by his contemporaries who he admired and at that time most of the talent in his area was based on how talented the one he viewed and admired had at that time Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Legendary Folklorist Alan Lomax: ‘The Land Where the Blues Began’ Keith Richards Waxes Philosophical, Plays Live with His Idol, the Great Muddy Waters King Explains in an Animated Video Whether You Need to Endure Hardship to Play the Blues In “Crossroad”‘s lyrics, Johnson is actually “pleading with God for mercy,” writes Frank DiGiacomo in Vanity Fair, “not bargaining with the devil.” Nonetheless-legendary or not-his evocation of devilish deals in “Me and the Devil Blues” and gritty, emotional account of self-destruction in “Crossroads” may on their own add sufficient weight to that far-reaching idea: “No Robert Johnson, No Rock and Roll.”ī.B. In the film above, “Hot Tamales,” animator Riccardo Maneglia adapts the myth, and quotes from “Crossroad Blues,” to tell the story of Bob, who journeys to the crossroads to meet sinister voodoo deity Papa Leg, replaying Johnson’s supposed rendezvous in a different religious context. Nor do fans of rock and blues and other artists who find the Robert Johnson legend tantalizing. Still, this picture has been pieced together from so many tattered and flimsy scraps that almost any one of them must to some extent be taken on faith.” Johnson’s “spiritual descendants,” as Rolling Stone’ s David Fricke calls his rock and roll progeny, have no trouble doing just that. Johnson scholar Elijah Wald describes his history like that of many founders of religious sects: “So much research has been done that I have to assume the overall picture is fairly accurate. One blues singer who claims she met him as a child remembers him near the end of his life as “ill” and “sickly,” reports the Austin Chronicle, “in a state of physical disrepair as though he’d been roughed up.” He may have been murdered, or-like so many later stars who died too young-he may have simply burned out. “Hello Satan,” says Johnson, “I believe it’s time to go.” Much of what we think about Johnson’s life comes from these songs, and from much rumor and innuendo. In the latter song, animated in a video above, Satan comes knocking on the singer’s door early in the morning. Most of the songs he recorded were in this vein-with at least two very notable exceptions: “ Cross Road Blues” (or just “Crossroads”) and “ Me and the Devil Blues,” both of which have contributed to the myth of Johnson’s pact with Lucifer, including the part about the dark angel coming to collect his debt. Johnson was a phenomenal innovator, and a singular voice, but his repertoire-like those of most blues players at the time-consisted of variations on older songs, or responses to other, very talented musicians. Other early bluesmen like Blind Willie Johnson and Robert’s hero Son House exerted similar influence on 60s blues revivalists, as of course did later electric players like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B. “Not all of this may be true,” says the short film’s title cards, “but one thing is for certain: No Robert Johnson, No Rock and Roll.” This too is another legend. The rest of the story-of Robert Johnson’s fatal encounter with the jealous husband of an admirer-is a more plausible development, though it too may be apocryphal.
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