Robert Johnson: Best Of: King of the Delta Blues [NOT NOW MUSIC]

Why you'll love it

This collection gathers the heart of the Delta blues master's two recording sessions onto one record. Eric Clapton called him the most important blues singer that ever lived, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as perhaps the first ever rock star.

About the album

Robert Johnson's whole recording career fits inside seven months. A travelling performer who played street corners, juke joints and Saturday night dances across the Mississippi Delta, he cut 29 songs over two sessions with producer Don Law, one in San Antonio in 1936 and one in Dallas in 1937, alone with his guitar in improvised studios. Most came out on 78s, he died in 1938 at 27, and the legend of a deal struck with the devil at a crossroads grew to fill the gaps in his story.

This set leans into the songs that built that myth. "Cross Road Blues" and "Me and the Devil Blues" feed it directly, and "Hellhound on My Trail" still sends a shiver. "Come On in My Kitchen" and "Kindhearted Woman Blues" show his tender side, while "Ramblin' on My Mind," "Walking Blues" and "Traveling Riverside Blues" carry the restless spirit of the road. Plenty of these became hits for other artists, and his licks and lines run all through the blues and rock that followed.

When John Hammond went looking for him in late 1938 to play Carnegie Hall's From Spirituals to Swing concert, Johnson had already died. Columbia's 1961 King of the Delta Blues Singers finally carried his music to a wider audience, the British blues boom took it from there, and Keith Richards and Robert Plant have both named him as a key influence. Twenty-nine songs, and the rest of the twentieth century spent learning them.

Also at Kops: more Robert Johnson on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On Not Now Music (cat# CATLP109).