I first listened to Rock music when I watched “Beat Club” on the television. I was about ten at the time and my first record was a bootleg copy of Black Sabbath’s Volume 4 when I was about twelve…
I can vividly remember that it was the back-cover photo of the guitarist with his long hair and big moustache that attracted my attention to the album… I really could not figure out the figure on the front cover until very much later…
Anyway, I just bought it and went home and listened with my brothers… Every song on the record just blew our minds… We were just a bunch of kids and of course, we turned up the volume to a near maximum level… A week later it was the discovery of the great Led Zeppelin and the road to discovery of classic rock and blues just went on and on… and it still hasn’t stopped…
…but as a start I want to pay tribute to a great blues man… Blind Willie Johnson
An early influential blues singer and guitarist was Blind Willie Johnson and his haunting Dark was the night, cold was the ground…
An important aspect of Johnson’s recordings was his mastering of the bottleneck guitar technique, which was immediately influential on Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf.
Blind Willie Johnson, as a guitarist and evangelist was well known for his gospel blues-styled genre. Making landmark recordings between 1927 and 1930, he displayed a combination of a powerful “chest voice”, singing and slide guitar skills. Although during his time, he did not earn much fame and fortune, over the years especially after his death in September 1945, he became one of the biggest influencers in both the 60’s/70’s blues and some modern-day blues guitarists.
Born on January 25th, 1897 in Pendleton, Texas he got his first instrument – a cigar guitar box at the age of five from his father. Johnson was not born blind but however, had his vision impaired at 7 years of age when his stepmother had splashed him with a caustic solution that made him permanently blind.
The pinnacle of his career was during the years 1927-1930 as he had spent this time recording his famous hits initially with Biliken Johnson and Coley Jones. It was in his first recording did he produce hits such as “Dark was the night, cold was the ground”, “Jesus make up my dying bed” and “It’s nobody’s fault but mine”. Initially, he was compensated $50 per usable side which was considered a substantial amount at that time plus bonuses and royalties. He had sold around 9,400 copies with an additional 6,000 copies pressed during his first recording session.
By the time Johnson had begun his recording career, he was already a well-known evangelist with a “remarkable technique and a wide range of songs”, as noted by the blues historian Paul Oliver. “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” became one of the hits for one of the greatest classic rock bands during the 70’s, Led Zeppelin in their album “Presence”. Lyrics from Johnson’s song was used and the line “Jesus make up my dying bed” was also used in Zeppelin’s version of the song.
In 1945, Johnson had suffered a terrible fate when his house was destroyed by a fire and with nowhere else to go, he had continued to stay in the ruins of his home. Struck by more bad luck, he had contracted malarial fever due to the humidity he was exposed to, and with his visual impairment condition, no hospital would admit him. Other sources had stated that it was his race that was the reason to why he had to no access to healthcare. Over the course of the year, his health condition had only deteriorated, and he passed on September 18, 1945. Syphilis and blindness were written as contributing factors in his death certificate.
His song Dark was the night, Cold was the Ground has been included as one of the songs that is loaded on Voyager 2… Voyager 2 reached interstellar space on November 5, 2018. Each Voyager space probe carries a gold-plated audio-visual disc in the event that either spacecraft is ever found by intelligent life-forms from other planetary systems.
His song is included under “Sounds of Earth”, that includes the sounds of whales, a baby crying, waves breaking on a shore, and a collection of music, including works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johnson, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”, Valya Balkanska and other Eastern and Western classics and ethnic performers.
