Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson - Sweet Home Chicago

Birth name: Robert Leroy Johnson

Born: possibly May 8, 1911, Hazlehurst, Mississippi, U.S.

Sweet Home Chicago by Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter, Hubert Sumlin, Robert Cray

Died: August 16, 1938 (27), Greenwood, Mississippi

Genres: Deltablues

Occupation(s): musician, singer, songwriter

Instruments: Guitar, vocals, harmonica, jaw harp

Years active: 1929 - 1938

Robert Johnson - Crossroads

"Sweet Home Chicago" is a blues standerd first recorded by Robert Johnson 1936

Numerous artists have played the song in various styles.

"Cross Road Blues"(Crossroads) is also written and recorded bij Johnson in 1936, in his vocal and acoustic slide guitar in the Delta Blues-style.

Elmore James revived the song in 1954 and 1960. Eric Clapton made the song popular with the band Cream in the late 1960s.

"Cross Road Blues" (commonly known as "Crossroads") Robert Johnson performed it solo with his vocal and acoustic slide guitar in the Delta blues style. The song has become part of the Robert Johnson mythology as referring to the place where he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for musical genius. This is based largely on folklore of the American South.

Robert Johnson is now recognized as a master of the blues, the Delta Blues-style in particular. Not during his short life though. Johnson did only two recording sessions in 1936 and 1937 where 29 song have been produced by producer Don Law. He played at streetcorners and juke joints and saterdaynight dances.

Be that as it may Robert Johnson has influenced generations of musicians.

He spent most of his life in the Mississippi Delta. Little is known about his life that researchers reconstructed after his death.

He had a small but influential following during his life and two decades after his death. John Hammond sought him out in 1938 and in 1941 Alan Lomax, musicologist, also sought him out to record his music, also to find Johnson had already died.

Producer Don Law assembled a collection of Johnson's recordings, titled "King Of The Delta Blues Singers" that has been recorded by Colombia Records 1961.

Finally Johnson's audience grew, more people could listen to his music.

Eric Clapton called Johnson: The most important blues singer that ever lived.

Robert Johnson - Red Hot

Robert Johnson was a grandson of slaves. He was born to Julia Major Dodds and Noah Johnson. He never knew his father who was an itinerant farmhand who traveled to where the work was. His mother married Charles Dodds, a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker. They had ten children. Charles had been forced by a lynch mob to leave Hazlehurst because of a dispute with white landowners. Charles Dodds changed his name to Spencer. Julia followed with baby Robert to Memphis where he grew up. His mother had about three men. And how he taught himself to play slide guitar you can see in the video beneath.

1929 he (17) married VirginiaTravis(15) in February.

He disliked farming but took a job in the field.

Virginia got pregnant but she and the baby died in childbirth.