Words Are Enough: Robert Johnson

Some say that Robert Johnson is the father of rock music. Nobody knows — and nobody should know — exactly when rock 'n roll started. It could just as easily have staggered out of the delta, wafted through the New Orleans jazz clubs in the roaring twenties, hip-swung out of Memphis or cascaded out of Liverpool in the early Sixties. Some birthdays are best kept a secret.

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What might be more useful is a quick comparison. Robert Johnson may or may not deserve credit for rock's inception, but he definitely set the mold. Johnson has a similar relationship to 20th-century music as Kurosawa does to film. He's your favorite musician's favorite musician. Their work is also connected by mutual preoccupations with violence, travel, sex, the nature of evil and the fleeting possibilites of love and redemption. Jack White, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan and Jimmy Page have all paid their tributes to this mercurial wandering poet. There's something inevitable about his voice as a songwriter, that burning through the scratches and pops, which can grab you by the throat and hang on tight if you're not careful. We're talking, after all, about a guy who allegedly sold his soul to the devil. More on this later.

Johnson's lyrics sometimes have a Rashomon-like quality. Shades of new experience, introspection, philosophy and seduction revolve through his narratives one after another. Keith Richards remarked, after hearing the guitar licks, that Johnson must have had three brains to play that well. There are alternate voices at work in the lyrics, too. It's almost like Johnson has invisible accompaniment. He has plenty of songs about misery (this is the blues, after all) — "Stones in My Passway," "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and so on. But every now and again there's a sneaking sketch of fragile tenderness and beauty:

I can tell the wind is rising/ leaves trembling on the tree

or

I went to the mountain/ lookin' far as my eyes could see ... Some other man got my woman and/ the lonesome blues got me

or

you better come on/ in my kitchen/ 'cause its going to be raining outdoors

These snapshots are worth mentioning because they are the luminous exception to the rule. A lot of blues music falls into the "my cat died/ my dog died/ gee whiz life sucks" variety. Sometimes it needs a shot of poetry to make it more compelling. Johnson's lyrics never lack the strong stuff, and are always filled to overflowing. Johnson's got the classic bluesman troubles, but he has a little something more:

from "Drunken Hearted Man (Take 1)":

I'm a drunken hearted man/ my life seems so misery/ If I could change my way of livin'/ it would mean so much to me.

and "Hellhound On My Trail":

I gotta keep movin/ I gotta keep movin/ blues fallin' down like hail

Part of the story of many a genius is the kind of legend that builds around them. The Faustus myth has been around since long before Christopher Marlowe, and musicians have been messing around with the devil from Paganini to Charlie Daniels. The actual reality of Robert Johnson's Faustian bargain is anybody's guess. A legend like this, usually spread by fellow musicians and taken up by fans, is more a sign of respect than damnnation. The blues is a religion all its own. Only the beginners are innocent. Emperical evidence for the skeptical is availiable, I think. Just listen to "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)," which haunts me even with the sound off:

I'm up in the mornin'/ blues walkin' like a man ... Worried Blues/ give me your right hand ... And the blues fell mama's child/ tore me all upside down ... yes ... I'm preachin' now ... the blues/ is a low-down shakin' chill/ If you ain't never had 'em, I/ hope you never will.

In the midst of the keening clamor and pentecostal fury, he utters this small cry. An aside, a vocal ejaculation, a small call and response stolen and appropriated from the church comes out. It's that one word — "yes." Or more like "yesh," incorporating the Delta accent and the raw ecastic fury of the phrasing. It's chilled me more times than I can count. I've replayed the moment over and over again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. If the devil was indeed in Robert Johnson, that small wail would be the telltale sound. Johnson recorded his entire output in two trips to the studio, face to the wall, and died (according to Sonny Boy Williamson) on his hands and knees, barking like a dog and foaming at the mouth. Poisoned by a jealous husband. As the old saying goes, nobody wants to go to hell, but it must have quite a band.

— Matt Hanson (junglegroove@gmail.com)