"I mean, I immediately identified with that, because I was paralyzed with shyness as a kid."īut there may be another reason why Johnson recorded facing the wall.
![we are at the crossroads song we are at the crossroads song](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/f/fa/Inn_at_the_Crossroads.jpg)
"It was on Columbia and it had, like, some pretty interesting sleeve notes on it about the fact that these were the only sides he had cut, and that they'd done it in a hotel room, and when he was auditioning for the sessions that he was so shy, he had to play facing into the corner of the room," Clapton says. That LP, King of the Delta Blues Singers, introduced Johnson's music to a new generation of young, mainly white blues fans, including Eric Clapton, as the rock legend told NPR in 2004. Because there really was very little known about the guy." 'Cause I just created a thing out of whole cloth when I wrote the notes. "If you read the liner notes," Driggs says, "you see next to nothing. The LP was produced by Frank Driggs, who also wrote the liner notes. At the time, Johnson was so obscure that Columbia didn't even have a picture of him to put on the cover. Hammond was also the driving force behind the first LP reissue of Johnson's music in 1961. Legendary Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond wanted to book Johnson at Carnegie Hall for the landmark "Spirituals to Swing" concert in 1938. Some think he was poisoned, although a note on the back of his death certificate says the cause was syphilis. Johnson died a year later at age 27, under mysterious circumstances. "Terraplane Blues" was a minor hit, and he was invited back for a second recording session. And in 1936, he got a chance to record in Texas. After that, Johnson worked as a traveling musician, playing on street corners and in juke joints, mostly in Mississippi. That's where the rumors about his deal with the devil came from, but Johnson acknowledged studying with a human teacher while he was gone. When Johnson came back from Arkansas six months later, he'd mastered the guitar. He run off from his mother and father, and went over in Arkansas some place or other." "Folks they come and say, 'Why don't you go out and make that boy put that thing down? He running us crazy,' " House said. In an interview included in the 1997 documentary Can't You Hear the Wind Howl, Son House recalls that the young Johnson would annoy audiences with his lousy guitar playing. As a young man, he was more interested in music than farming: He'd hound the older blues musicians for a chance to play. He said he was born in Mississippi on May 8, 1911, and grew up on a plantation in the Delta. Here is what we do know about Robert Johnson. In the absence of any real biographical information, Pearson says early blues writers got a little carried away.Īll Songs Considered Blog You've Never Heard Robert Johnson's 'Complete Recordings'?! Pearson, a professor at the University of Maryland and the co-author of the book Robert Johnson: Lost and Found, says none of it is true. "The popular mythology has him as a total loner," Pearson says, "and kind of lived this life in regret as a repayment for his alleged sin of making a contract with Old Scratch."
#WE ARE AT THE CROSSROADS SONG MOVIE#
That legend reached a mainstream audience with the 1986 movie Crossroads, starring Joe Seneca and Ralph Macchio.īut according to folklorist Barry Lee Pearson, it didn't happen.
![we are at the crossroads song we are at the crossroads song](https://cdn.glidemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/20062726/crossroads4.jpg)
If you know anything about Johnson, chances are it's the story that he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for his musical talent. But the mythology surrounding his life just won't go away. Johnson is one of the most studied of all country blues musicians, and he's been the subject of many books, films and essays. Although he recorded just 29 songs, the bluesman had a huge influence on guitarists such as Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert Johnson. Photography Company in Memphis, Tenn., circa 1935. This portrait was taken by the Hooks Bros. One of the two known photos of Robert Johnson.