The Blues

When you think of the blues, you think about misfortune, betrayal and regret. You lose your job, you get the blues. Your mate falls out of love with you, you get the blues. Your dog dies, you get the blues.
While blues lyrics often deal with personal adversity, the music itself goes far beyond self-pity. The blues is also about overcoming hard luck, saying what you feel, ridding yourself of frustration, letting your hair down, and simply having fun. The best blues is visceral, cathartic, and starkly emotional. From unbridled joy to deep sadness, no form of music communicates more genuine emotion.

The blues has deep roots in American history, particularly African-American history. The origins of blues is not unlike the origins of life. For many years it was recorded only by memory, and relayed only live, and in person. The Blues were born in the North Mississippi Delta following the Civil War. Influenced by African roots. Its inventors were slaves, ex-slaves and the descendants of slaves - African-American sharecroppers who sang as they toiled in the cotton and vegetable fields. Field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups evolved into a music for a singer who would engage in call-and-response with his guitar. He would sing a line, and the guitar would answer.

From the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, and the platform of the Clarksdale Railway Station, the blues headed north to Beale Street in Memphis. The blues have strongly influenced almost all popular music including jazz, country, and rock and roll and continues to help shape music worldwide.

The Blues... it's 12-bar, bent-note melody is the anthem of a race, bonding itself together with cries of shared self victimization. Bad luck and trouble are always present in the Blues, and always the result of others, pressing upon unfortunate and down trodden poor souls, yearning to be free from life's' troubles. Relentless rhythms repeat the chants of sorrow, and the pity of a lost soul many times over. This is the Blues.

The blues form was first popularized about 1911-14 by the black composer W.C. Handy (1873-1958). However, the poetic and musical form of the blues first crystallized around 1910 and gained popularity through the publication of Handy's "Memphis Blues" (1912) and "St. Louis Blues" (1914). Instrumental blues had been recorded as early as 1913. During the twenties, the blues became a national craze. Mamie Smith recorded the first vocal blues song, 'Crazy Blues' in 1920. The Blues influence on jazz brought it into the mainstream and made possible the records of blues singers like Bessie Smith and later, in the thirties, Billie Holiday.

The Blues are the essence of the African American laborer, whose spirit is wed to these songs, reflecting his inner soul to all who will listen. Rhythm and Blues, is the cornerstone of all forms of African American music.

Many of Memphis' best Blues artists left the city at the time, when Mayor "Boss" Crump shut down Beale Street to stop the prostitution, gambling, and cocaine trades, effectively eliminating the musicians, and entertainers' jobs, as these businesses closed their doors. The Blues migrated to Chicago, where it became electrified, and Detroit.

In northern cities like Chicago and Detroit, during the later forties and early fifties, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James among others, played what was basically Mississippi Delta blues, backed by bass, drums, piano and occasionally harmonica, and began scoring national hits with blues songs. At about the same time, T-Bone Walker in Houston and B.B. King in Memphis were pioneering a style of guitar playing that combined jazz technique with the blues tonality and repertoire.

Meanwhile, back in Memphis, B.B. King invented the concept of lead guitar, now standard in today's Rock bands. Bukka White (cousin to B.B. King), Leadbelly, and Son House, left Country Blues to create the sounds most of us think of today as traditional unamplified Blues.

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Wyonnie Harris, and Big Mama Thorton wrote and preformed the songs that would make a young Elvis Presley world renown.

In the early nineteen-sixties, the urban bluesmen were "discovered" by young white American and European musicians. Many of these blues-based bands like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Canned Heat, and Fleetwood Mac, brought the blues to young white audiences, something the black blues artists had been unable to do in America except through the purloined white cross-over covers of black rhythm and blues songs. Since the sixties, rock has undergone several blues revivals. Some rock guitarists, such as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, and Eddie Van Halen have used the blues as a foundation for offshoot styles. While the originators like John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins and B.B. King--and their heirs Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and later Eric Clapton and the late Roy Buchanan, among many others, continued to make fantastic music in the blues tradition. The latest generation of blues players like Robert Cray and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, among others, as well as gracing the blues tradition with their incredible technicality, have drawn a new generation listeners to the blues.

W.C. Handy the Father of the Blues wasn't an ordinary Delta bluesman. Handy studied music as a youth, playing the cornet and traveling the South with dance bands playing minstrel and tent shows. Later in life he became a songwriter, bandleader and publisher. Legend is that while waiting for an overdue train in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1903 that he heard an itinerant bluesman playing slide guitar and singing about "going' where the Southern cross the Dog," referring to the junction of the Southern and Yazoo and Mississippi Valley railroads farther south near Moorhead. Handy called it "the weirdest music I had ever heard."

In the delta of the Mississippi River, where Robert Johnson was born, they said that if an aspiring bluesman waited by the side of a deserted country crossroads in the dark of a moonless night, then Satan himself might come and tune his guitar, sealing a pact for the bluesman's soul and guaranteeing a lifetime of easy money, women, and fame. They said that Robert Johnson must have waited by the crossroads and gotten his guitar fine-tuned. Not much is known about Johnson other then after the death of his wife in 1930 he decided to become a bluesman. Wandering around the Delta in 1933, he met Son House and Willie Brown. When they heard him play on the guitar startled them. In an amazingly short time, Johnson had turned into a blues guitar master, hence the myth that he made a deal with the Devil.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was indeed blind, unlike other Delta musicians who merely claimed the limitation. He died penniless in Chicago in December 1929, possibly suffering a heart attack when he became disoriented during a snowstorm.

Leadbelly was a large man, and given to fits of rage. In 1917, he was convicted in Texas for killing a man and in 1930 was convicted of attempted murder in Louisiana. Both sentences were commuted, however, based solely on his musicianship. His "discovery" came, in fact, at Louisiana's Angola Prison Farm .

Willie Dixon was certainly the single most important presence on the postwar Chicago scene. What distinguished Willie Dixon from most other Delta bluesmen of his day was his ability to read, write, compose, and arrange music -- talents that were to destine him for legendary status among the bluesmakers. However, it was boxing, not music, that brought Dixon to Chicago in 1936. He was an upstart professional fighter who for a time sparred with the great Joe Louis.

Named after a 19th-century American president, young Chester Arthur Burnett earned the nickname that was to become synonymous with the power of his voice "Howlin' Wolf."

Robert Johnson: the Legend, the Devil, and the Crossroads.

The Dark of a Moonless Night...

Story of the bluesman, the Devil, and the deal at the crossroads, as retold in Stephen Davis's Hammer of the Gods.

In the delta of the Mississippi River, where Robert Johnson was born, they said that if an aspiring bluesman waited by the side of a deserted country crossroads in the dark of a moonless night, then Satan himself might come and tune his guitar, sealing a pact for the bluesman's soul and guaranteeing a lifetime of easy money, women, and fame. They said that Robert Johnson must have waited by the crossroads and gotten his guitar fine-tuned.

Highway 61 intersects with Highway 49 aka the Crossroads

"I went down to the crossroads and fell down on my knees, asked the Lord up above for mercy, save poor Bob if you please." --Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson

"You may bury my body down by the highway side so my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride." --Me And The Devil Blues by Robert Johnson

"If you want to learn to play anything you want to play and learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar and you go to where a crossroads is. A big black man will walk up there at the stroke of midnight and take your guitar, and he'll tune it..." --LeDell Johnson

Robert Johnson’s life is a blend of folklore and mystery. His life is engulfed in myth and legend; adding the myth is his haunting lyrics. And his impressive, innovative country guitar style; you can quickly see why he is known by many as the father of the Delta Bues. Robert Johnson’s guitar playing was the beginning of the his legend. Robert was heavily influenced originally by Son House and Charley Patton, but Johnson quickly found his own style with unique chord movements and note progressions. Robert traveled throughout the Deep South in the 1930’s playing anywhere the train happened to take him. Son House had known Robert when he began to learn to play. House went on the road and did not see Robert for three or four years, and when Son and Johnson finally did meet again, House was astounded by Robert’s impressive guitar playing.

Just how did Robert learn to play so well so fast?

Robert Johnson was a Mississippi blues singer and songwriter, who according to legend, sold his soul to Satan "at the crossroads" in exchange for his remarkable talent on the guitar.

Born and raised in Mississippi, Robert Johnson started playing blues guitar in the late 1920s. His wife and child died in childbirth around 1930 and he is said to have devoted himself to the guitar. Part of the crossroads story comes from a report that he dropped out of sight for a while in the early 1930s and returned a much-improved guitarist.

In 1936-37 he recorded at least 29 songs in Texas (San Antonio and Dallas), then returned to Mississippi to play and sing in clubs and bars. His mysterious death at the age of 27 added to the legend: He died in 1938, falling ill after playing a party and dying four days later.

Some people said that Robert’s deal with the devil came due and as evidence gave the fact that they had seen him on all fours, howling at the moon the night he died.

...Or that he was shot by a jealous husband ( Robert was not shy with the ladies, and often stayed in strange towns with women he found at the places he played at. ). Or stabbed by a woman.

The truth is that Robert was poisoned, either by the barkeeper at the saloon he played that night, who was angry because Robert had been talking to his wife, or by a jealous girlfriend.

Whatever the reason, Johnson died at the young age of twenty-seven, and left a legacy of Delta Blues music that has influenced guitar players like Muddy Waters, and his songs have been covered by several rock stars, including Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones.

In 1986 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His songs include "Crossroad Blues," "Me and the Devil Blues" and "Terraplane Blues."

Adding To Robert's Mystic and Folklore...

Those who saw Robert Johnson play, may have also heard the rumors. Just like anyone who possesses an extraordinary talent and skill... Jealous counterparts circulated vicious rumors about Johnson.

In fact, it was Robert's one time friend and mentor, the great Son House who stated "He sold his soul to play like that". Johnson's peculiarities added to the rumors.

Some fans thought that he had the "evil eye". Actually, he suffered from a small cataract. Also, it has been reported that Johnson would turn his back to the audience while playing. Robert would also leave suddenly from a performance, and sometimes even during breaks in his set. While today such actions are not considered odd, In those days they were. Many people took it to mean that he was a man with something to hide. Actually, Johnson was doing some things that many musicians still do today. It's not uncommon to leave right after a performance in order to avoid mob scenes and the company that maybe around after a show. Eddie Van Halen, for example, also would turn from the crowd during club shows; to hide his technique from other guitarists.

Johnson's choice of teacher did nothing to slow the Legend from spreading His instructor, Ike Zinnerman, was alleged to have learned to play the guitar at night sitting atop tombstones in old country churchyards.

In certain southern communities, it was a well-known notion that one could go to the crossroads and sell one's soul to the devil. The concept dates back to African Folklore. When diety Esu was believed to be the guardian of the crossroads, and was the laision between the gods and humans.

When Christianity was brought to African Culture, these pagan gods were labeled as being similar to the devil. Hence, the concept that one could find the devil at a crossroad.

In celtic tradition, the bodies of the unholy were buried outside of town near crossroads to preserve consecrated ground. Witchcraft and the devil are prominent topics in early blues....and Robert's music is no exception.

Me And Devil - Robert Johson

"Old 8": The True Crossroads

Highway 61 runs south, right through the middle of the delta. It intersects Highway 49 at Clarksdale, Mississippi. Clarksdale is the birth place pf many blues legends. It was the home to such people Muddy Waters, W.C. Handy, Junior Parker and John Lee Hooker, just to name a few.

Over the years, Clarksdale has become known as the home of the blues, so it was just assumed that this is where The Crossroads were. In later years, ''61/49 Clarksdale'' has been so heavily advertised as The Crossroads.

But, in Memphis a couple of different sources, claim that 61 and 49 are not The Crossroads. The legend supposedly began around the turn of the century from the originators of the blues ... at Dockery Farms. The location given by a couple of sources is ''WHERE DOCKERY ROAD CROSSES OLD HIGHWAY 8'' This would be between Cleveland and Ruleville.

The ''Old 8'' runs parallel to the current Highway 8, just south of it. The "Old 8" is still there - it's a dirt road.

The Crossroads...... could you just stand there... at the Crossroads on a dark moonless night?

Rumor Has It...

That Eric Clapton was the first to use the term, "the 27 Club." He himself has claimed to have narrowly escaped the spector of death at the age of 27 due mainly to heroin addiction. But many famous musicians have fallen prey to the imfamous club that was founded by Robert Johnson.

Some Others That The Devil Collected His Due... All at the age of 27



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