One of the only two pictures of Robert Leroy Johnson (1911 – 1938). He’s an American blues musician. He is considered one of the most famous guitarists, singers and songwriters in the history of blues. Alluding to the Mississippi Delta, he is also known as the King of the Delta Blues.
Netflix has a microscopic but nice RJ documentary. The father of rock and roll and pretty much everything blues.
chiliees
Club27?
HagenWest
Was he lynched?
Thenenwithin
Legend says he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for a mastery of the guitar
Bank_Gothic
It’s crazy how many artists live in obscurity and poverty, but end up influencing the entire artform.
I know Johnson isn’t the first or most important blues musician, but he is up there. And he was just some poor young black dude travelling around the rural south.
Hugh-jASSman
Have the same birthday as this legend. My 21st birthday was his 100th, I was toasting to him the whole night..
atomicmarc
Unfortunately, all my Robert Johnson records were on 33 1/3 vinyl. I kept them dry and dark in a box all these years but they still warped badly 🙁
PaulsRedditUsername
It’s always a fun day when I get to introduce my young guitar students to Robert Johnson. Here’s a fun trick you can try, even if you’re not a musician:
Listen to a little bit of this recording of Love in Vain, and ask yourself how many guitars you can hear. Everybody always hears two guitars. There’s one guitar playing some high notes and another guitar playing some rhythmic "chunka-chunka" low chords. The playing styles of the two guitars are totally different, the rhythms don’t always match up, and the two guitars sound like different instruments. But, no, it’s only one guy on one guitar. And he’s singing at the same time.
It may not sound too earth-shattering, but just try to play like that yourself. You have to do a lot of work to play like that. (Oh, and don’t forget to write a really good song while you’re at it.) Robert never went to music school, he may not have ever gone to school at all, he just got a guitar and taught himself to play.
Maybe it’s not as impressive as you expect, but it’s almost a century ago. I remember watching a Marx Brothers movie with my dad when I was a kid. I said it wasn’t funny because all the jokes were old. My dad pointed out that those were the guys who wrote the old jokes that people still tell today. Watching the Marx Brothers was watching the first time those "old" jokes had ever been heard. Then I got it. Amazing moments of history can seem unimpressive now because they seemed so inevitable, you can’t imagine a life without them. But somebody had to come up with those things in the first place.
The_Cure8r
Love this man, a legendary musician that led to a majority of the music that people love
808trades
he got caught with another mans girl, and died from poisoned moonshine in revenge. At least that’s what I’ve read. Papa was in deed a rolling stone
Bixmen
I know him from the Blues Brothers. Sweet Home Chicago.
raaabs
he also died at 27 like all the other greats
Unindoctrinated
Strange… he doesn’t look anything like Ralph Machio. /s
marsglow
Calling him “an American blues musician” is like calling Little Richard a “singer.”
dirtbum
There was a new picture recently released that his Step-Sister had held onto her entire life. Check it out https://www.musicradar.com/news/new-photograph-of-blues-guitar-legend-robert-johnson-discovered
fenix-the-cat
Netflix has a microscopic but nice RJ documentary. The father of rock and roll and pretty much everything blues.
chiliees
Club27?
HagenWest
Was he lynched?
Thenenwithin
Legend says he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for a mastery of the guitar
Bank_Gothic
It’s crazy how many artists live in obscurity and poverty, but end up influencing the entire artform.
I know Johnson isn’t the first or most important blues musician, but he is up there. And he was just some poor young black dude travelling around the rural south.
Hugh-jASSman
Have the same birthday as this legend. My 21st birthday was his 100th, I was toasting to him the whole night..
atomicmarc
Unfortunately, all my Robert Johnson records were on 33 1/3 vinyl. I kept them dry and dark in a box all these years but they still warped badly 🙁
PaulsRedditUsername
It’s always a fun day when I get to introduce my young guitar students to Robert Johnson. Here’s a fun trick you can try, even if you’re not a musician:
Listen to a little bit of this recording of Love in Vain, and ask yourself how many guitars you can hear. Everybody always hears two guitars. There’s one guitar playing some high notes and another guitar playing some rhythmic "chunka-chunka" low chords. The playing styles of the two guitars are totally different, the rhythms don’t always match up, and the two guitars sound like different instruments. But, no, it’s only one guy on one guitar. And he’s singing at the same time.
It may not sound too earth-shattering, but just try to play like that yourself. You have to do a lot of work to play like that. (Oh, and don’t forget to write a really good song while you’re at it.) Robert never went to music school, he may not have ever gone to school at all, he just got a guitar and taught himself to play.
Maybe it’s not as impressive as you expect, but it’s almost a century ago. I remember watching a Marx Brothers movie with my dad when I was a kid. I said it wasn’t funny because all the jokes were old. My dad pointed out that those were the guys who wrote the old jokes that people still tell today. Watching the Marx Brothers was watching the first time those "old" jokes had ever been heard. Then I got it. Amazing moments of history can seem unimpressive now because they seemed so inevitable, you can’t imagine a life without them. But somebody had to come up with those things in the first place.
The_Cure8r
Love this man, a legendary musician that led to a majority of the music that people love
808trades
he got caught with another mans girl, and died from poisoned moonshine in revenge. At least that’s what I’ve read. Papa was in deed a rolling stone
Bixmen
I know him from the Blues Brothers. Sweet Home Chicago.
raaabs
he also died at 27 like all the other greats
Unindoctrinated
Strange… he doesn’t look anything like Ralph Machio. /s
marsglow
Calling him “an American blues musician” is like calling Little Richard a “singer.”
ZhouSchmo
Is that a glass eye on the right?