Robert Johnson is believed to have been born in Hazelhurst, Mississipi in 1911, and rumour has it was poisoned to death in Three Forks, Mississipi in 1938, by a jealous husband. Legend has it that when the young Johnson started playing he just wasn’t that good, he disappeared for a while and when he returned he amazed people by his soulful voice, great words and fantastic guitar playing. He told everybody that he had been down to the crossroads at midnight and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his blues genius. Despite dying at the early age of 27, he is thought to be by many, including me and Eric Clapton to be the greatest blues singer and player of all time. ( Pity, Eric had to make that dreadful CD “Me and Mr. Johnson” but I guess that’s another article…)

There was an article in the British press recently, were some cretin (Cretin..English dictionary def. stupid person..) described Johnson’s singing as, half swallowed, garbled or strangled, and his performance as fleeting, harried or fragmented, now I know a lot of you are not native English speakers who will need to look up these words in a dictionary, if you can’t be bothered or don’t have the time I will tell you, they are not complimentary, not nice and not true………Robert Johnson was a blues singer not a crooner, ( Crooner, singer in the style of Bing Crosby, Andy Williams or currently Michael Buble).

The main objection to these tracks being too fast are, why are other recordings made at a different time also too fast and why did his friends Johnny Shines or Robert Petway who is supposed to be his only student, never say anything ?? Anyway I have a sample of two of Robert’s tracks at the speed we know and the slowed down version….Play them on my media player and judge for yourselves. Crossroads and Hell hound on my trail.

Speak to you all soon.

Warren