It is sometimes said that a huge amount of rock music from the 1960s onwards would never have existed without this recording. robert johnson. Indeed, the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant and Bob Dylan have not hesitated to acknowledge his influence. “From the first note, the vibrations from the speakers made my hair stand on end,” Dylan wrote in his autobiography of his first encounter with Johnson’s music. “The piercing sound from the guitar could have broken a window. When Johnson started singing, he looked like a man who had stepped out of the head of Zeus in armor. I immediately distinguished him from everyone else I’d ever heard.” Not bad for a recording older than Dylan himself.
In the early 1960s, the blues Johnson played seemed to have sounded like a shocking revelation to a generation of young musicians at the time who somehow managed to hear it, regardless of their origins. These recordings all date back to 1936 or 1937 and are the result of just two sessions in a makeshift Texas studio overseen by producer Don Lowe.
The “King of the Delta Blues Singers” left behind a small body of work after his still-unexplained death at the age of 27, but it has been endlessly scrutinized by enthusiasts of the genre. I’m sure all of them will consider this a godsend. Newly discovered shellac master test pressing on “Cross Road Blues”, This song plays a big part in the legend of Robert Johnson, and some say he sold his soul to the devil in just such a place in exchange for his formidable guitar skills.
Although the song contains no such references to unholy pacts or denizens of the underworld, “Cross Road Blues” has a haunting sound that matches the shadowy atmosphere of this man’s short life story. Part of that has to do with the less-than-ideal quality of the recordings that have been in circulation for so long, but this test pressing of Johnson’s second take sounds different. Uploaded by sound restorer Nick Derow, the song was originally created in 1940 by Columbia Records producers directly from the metal masters. George Avakian would go on to work with everyone from Miles Davis to Edith Piaf to John Cage. Most of Robert Johnson’s releases to date have had a muddy sound, preventing modern listeners from fully appreciating his important parts. But perhaps the unprecedented clarity of this recording will make the hairs of young musicians and mature enthusiasts alike stand on end.
via Ted Gioia
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Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages ​​and cultures. he is the author of the newsletter books about cities books as well Home page (I won’t summarize Korea) and korean newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter. @Colinbemust.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
