Film footage of Robert Johnson

[Michael Messer]

Perce, I agree that anything is possible, but I am pretty sure that is not RJ in the film as it is more likely that he was dead.

You're right that another film a few years ago raised the same question and was eventually accepted as a hoax.

Musical taste is a very personal thing and we all have someone that is highly regarded that we don't get. Their music just doesn't touch us. There are people who don't like the Beatles music, but they cannot deny the influence and power of their music & lifestyle over a whole generation. Robert Johnson, whether one likes his music or not, was one of the most important and influential musicians of the twentieth century. Although his catalogue is a fraction of the size of the Beatles' catalogue of work, it is similar in the power & influence it has and will always have.

I love RJ's music and for me hearing it is like walking on holy ground. It is special.

There is nothing like a good healthy Robert Johnson discussion to get the week going!

Shine On
Michael

[ianz]

Following this thread has been fascinating and has lead me to seek out material i have never seen/heard before, especially the remastered RJ songs - using "technical wizardry".
I have to say they do nothing for me, whether its an engineers subjective settings or its that i'm so used to hearing the original RJ stuff with the attendant scratches and hiss etc, I really can't decide.
But I can liken it to buying CDs to gradually replace my vinyl collection. Over-engineering leaving a purer, cleaner sound sometimes just doesn't cut it with me (no pun intended). There's something evocative (in most cases) in hearing music with its limitations of the recording media available at the time....

[wolvoboy]

i thought i would carry this thread on by adding people who were(are) influenced by RJohnson
starting with Eric Clapton sessions for Robert Johnson with Eric telling how difficult it is for one man to copy RJ style and how difficult he finds it to sing and play RJ's music at the same time.

wolvoboy

[Deleted]

I saw Kevin Brown at the Two Pigs in Corsham in the late '80s. Now there was a man who could copy RJ. Playing and singing at the same time. He didn't seem to find it difficult.

[Michael Messer]

Earlier in this thread there was a question about the 'missing RJ song'. This is a myth that was generated by the Crossroads film that used a missing RJ song as the storyline. RJ did write and play lots of other songs, other than the 29 recordings & their out-takes. Johnny Shines recorded a song called 'Tell Me Mama' that he claimed was one of RJ's own songs that he regularly performed in his set. If anyone had access to Johnson's material it was Johnny Shines.

I think what Eric Clapton is saying is that copying RJ's phrasing and timing is almost impossible, not that playing and singing at the same time is difficult.

Shine On
Michael.

[percythewonderant]

Well there's the thing - 'A man who could copy Robert Johnson' - Thats a bit like poking me with a stick to see if I'm awake.

"Mrs WonderAnt can you remember where I left me hobby horse? Its OK. I've found it ......."

I guess the exploitation annoys me but only slightly. Shortly after the RJ photo with him and his Gibson L-1 (?) was printed worldwide, I went into Matt Umanov's on Bleeker street and a clutch of beaten up old guitars, which probably wouldn't have got through the door a month before, had quadrupled in value and had taken pride of place. I wasn't in the market for one so I didn't mind too much. Never give a sucker an even break.........

Lets see if it can still get up to a gallup- With no reference to Kevin Brown - I do get annoyed when 'His' influence becomes over powering for some performers. I very much take exception to a performer from somewhere in the heart of England singing with a very fake american accent, (Didn't we hate Dick Van Dyke for his cockernee accent?), and banging out RJ numbers. I was in a pub not too long ago when a grey bearded white guy of a certain age performed If I had possession over judgement day with an accent not too far removed from something that 'The Black and White Minstrels' might have baulked at using for their rendition of 'Mammeee'.

We have our own experiences and influences and living through these modern times we can claim that we have access to a range of life far wider than a plantation worker or citizen of Clarksdale in the period between thye wars could ever have made their own. Surely we should be reflecting our lives though our playing. We are never going to be Fred McDowell or Mario Lanza for that matter. But we can learn from them. Just as we know that RJ did by hearing the influences of Scrapper Blackwell, Skip James, Son House and Charley Patton that shine through in his work.

As a musician and particularly as a street performer in the 30's RJ must have known about exploitation. He played the music that people wanted to hear. He would have known how to exploit his audience to gain fullest potential payment. The material that he recorded was very much down to the record producers and the market which they perceived for his music. It was about exploitation even at that point. I would like to have heard what it was that the man played for a white middle aged lady passing by on the street corner - 'The old folks at home' ? - A young beauty - 'Running Wild'? And maybe even Dixie if the night stick swinging sherif asked for it! How much do those influences show in his work?

I have spent a lot of time listening to and trying to play traditional English Dance tunes, Pre war jazz , and Manouche melodies, but if those influences don't show in what and how I play I would be disapointed.

As for RJ his influence on me is huge. I don't think that there can be a 'vertical' slide player (or finger picker), around today that hasn't been influenced by the man in one way or another. Despite my earlier speculation, (only a flight of fancy meant to amuse), I have to admit to having spent those hours slowing down Robert Johnson to 16 rpm to try to work out what he was doing. I didn't say I didn't get it. (I didn't say I got it right either). I wouldn't want to try to copy him - or anyone else. IMO its not about imitation. It is about creativity. I don't want to sound like anyone else but me. I just wish that I sounded better and to that end I listen and try other peoples suggestions. Its all I can do.

I will never be able to stop my influences from showing. Those who know me know that I once drove from Tuscon to Tucumcarri so that I could sing 'Willin'', but that was as much for my own amusement, even I thought that a little extreme. But as a nod to RJ and those unheard influences I do sometimes play a slide version of 'way down upon the swanee river' when the mood takes me.

Hot Tamales anyone?

[Michael Messer]

Excellent!

Imitation of a musician's style is a useful form of practice & study, but that is all.

Keep Shining
Michael.

[maxxengland]

I'm Robert Johnson! No, I'm Robert Jphnspn! No, etc.....

[honeyboy]

Feb 15, 2010 13:39:18 GMT @percythewonderant said:

Those who know me know that I once drove from Tuscon to Tucumcarri so that I could sing 'Willin'', but that was as much for my own amusement, even I thought that a little extreme.

What about from Tehachapi to Tonopah?

I think we should be told..

[garrysmith]

Feb 15, 2010 16:48:14 GMT honeyboy said:

Feb 15, 2010 13:39:18 GMT @percythewonderant said:

Those who know me know that I once drove from Tuscon to Tucumcarri so that I could sing 'Willin'', but that was as much for my own amusement, even I thought that a little extreme.

What about from Tehachapi to Tonopah?

I think we should be told..

What is more, exactly how warped were you by the wind, where did the snow drive you to and are there any after effects from having your head stove in?

[garrysmith]

"Escapng the Delta" by Elijah Wald is an interesting read and makes the point that at the the time, RJ was not a star, even in the context of the Blues. What was selling was the smoother urban stylings of the likes of Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that Johnson's popularity amongst white listeners in later years is partly because he was less frighteningly rough and raw than the likes of Son House or Charlie Patton and a more obvious guitar technician. He's in tune for one thing.

As for copying, well, Sammy Mitchell used to do a rendition on Crossroads that was scarily accurate. I can take a pretty good run at several RJ tunes but rarely do them on gigs or sessions because that's not what I want to be known for. However as MM said, dissecting them this a great learning experience with lessons that can be applied elsewhere so I DO have a song based on my own life experience that uses RJ type licks.

As for copying, when I first started playing, I wanted nothing more than to sound like a Black man in his fifties and after much time and effort I have partially succeeded. I sound like a White man in his fifties.

[percythewonderant]

I know that its drifting off topic but just in case any of you were holding your breath - deep down you knew I did do Tehachapi to Tonopah didn't you? Its not so far. So you can breath again though it was a year later!

That year a couple of friends and I took a month to drive from "song to song" Down the Appalachians and up the Rockies - Canada to Mexico across the bottom and Back up again stopping in places that appear only in songs. I even stopped over in the Cumberland Gap!

In the olden days folk clubs were full of the kind of people who got snotty about English folk singing non English ethnic songs. A friend and I thought it would be a wheeze to nip down 'the Blue Boar' and do a version of Route 66 with holiday slides to prove it..........

Before you ask - No I didn't.

[garrysmith]

Feb 15, 2010 22:43:13 GMT @percythewonderant said:

I know that its drifting off topic but just in case any of you were holding your breath - deep down you knew I did do Tehachapi to Tonopah didn't you? Its not so far. So you can breath again though it was a year later!

That year a couple of friends and I took a month to drive from "song to song" Down the Appalachians and up the Rockies - Canada to Mexico across the bottom and Back up again stopping in places that appear only in songs. I even stopped over in the Cumberland Gap!

In the olden days folk clubs were full of the kind of people who got snotty about English folk singing non English ethnic songs. A friend and I thought it would be a wheeze to nip down 'the Blue Boar' and do a version of Route 66 with holiday slides to prove it..........

Before you ask - No I didn't.

Interesting exercise. I hope the places you went to weren't too disappointing. I liked Flagstaff (Route66), nice University town.
Phoenix (By the Time I Get to...) was a bloody awful characterless sprawl. Mendocino (Sir Douglas Quintet and McGarrigles) was lovely. Other examples escape me.

[Deleted]

been to Amarillo! Entirely average American town, but there was a block party when I was there so it was quite fun

[Michael Messer]

Greenwood, East Monroe, West Helena, Vicksburg, - anybody?

Shine on
Michael.