The Interstellar Bluesman
Blind Willie Johnson Interstellar Bluesman
Famous Key West Blues musician Larry Baeder once said, “A musician needs the understanding of musical history.” The history of the Blues is closely related to gospel and in the 1920s, one of the original Blues artists was Blind Willie Johnson. I have to admit not knowing much about him until recently. His unique bluesy style was matched by his very unique and mostly tragic life.
Willie Johnson was born January 25, 1897 in a small town of Pendleton, Texas. His mother passed away when he was only four years old. When he was five, his father gave him a cigar box guitar. He loved playing music and quickly learned on his new guitar. The Johnson family attended church every Sunday. This had a lifelong impact on Willie who would go on to become an ordained Baptist minister. He was not born blind but he was blinded by his step mother when he was only seven.
Over the years, he became a well-known gospel blues singer. Many referred to him as a street corner evangelist because of his lyrical content, which mostly dealt with religious topics. Blind Willie Johnson who praised the lord and sang like the devil. His deep, gravelly vocals were unique to his style of the Blues. In 1927, he recorded six songs, playing exquisite slide guitar style, for Columbia Records at small studio in Dallas.
One of the songs was “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”. Nothing can quite prepare a listener, even the most seasoned Blues aficionado, for this song. Johnson used his signature, mournful slide guitar and unearthly moans to convey the depths of blues, sorrow, and tribulation. He didn’t so much sing as he hummed and moaned along with the note progression in passionate, wordless lyrical skill. He went on to four additional recording sessions, leaving a wealth of musical legacy to influence others like Robert Johnson and Howlin Wolf.
Upscaled with Gigapixel v1.3.1. 640×816 => 3840×4896 (6x) Model: Standard V2, denoise: 0.9, sharpen: 0.49, decompression: 0.48
The Great Depression took its toll on the fortunes of Blind Willie. His sad life came to a tragic ending. His home burned down and with nowhere to go, he stayed in the ruins. He died of pneumonia and his body was found in the burned ruins of his home.
Blind Willie Johnson’s legacy will be the inclusion of one of his songs on the golden record attached to NASA planetary exploration satellites Voyager 1 & 2. The two spacecraft were launched in 1977 and after touring the planets left the Solar System in 2012. if they ever encounter extra-terrestrials, they carried photos of life on Earth, greetings in 55 languages, a collection of music from Gregorian chants to Chuck Berry, including a very special blues song, “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground” by Blind Willie Johnson.
In 1977, astronomer and planetary scientist, Carl Sagan and other researchers collected sounds and images from planet Earth to send along on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. The Voyager Golden Records included recordings of frogs, crickets, volcanoes, a human heartbeat, laughter, greetings in 55 languages, and 27 pieces of music (a 90-minute selection of global music).
Carl Sagan selected “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” according to NASA consultant Timothy Ferris, because Blind Willie Johnson’s song concerns a situation he faced many times: nightfall with no place to sleep. Carl Sagan wanted to capture a broad range of human emotion. He included Johnson’s song because it hauntingly portrays a very human, timeless struggle: facing nightfall with nowhere to sleep.
Because of its emotional resonance, the track was placed alongside masterpieces by Mozart and Beethoven, ensuring the legacy of the pioneering bluesman travels indefinitely through the cosmos.
Blind Willie Johnson’s 48 years was a life full of struggles. He was a significant blues artist who died penniless, of pneumonia sleeping bundled in wet newspapers in the ruins of his house. But his music left the solar system traveling at over 38,000 mph at a distance of 15.7 billion miles from earth.
God bless, Blind Willie Johnson. You’re amongst the stars now.
There are no comments yet, add one below.
Leave a Reply