Let’s now turn to the blues.
I’ve chosen it as the focal point of this chapter, because for many music historians it represents the rise of secular themes in African-American music. It’s the last place you would look for transcendence.
Even the clichéd opening of so many blues songs (I woke up this morning…), focuses on the day-to-day, however depressing, instead of otherworldly experiences. And the subject matter of the blues, much like hip-hop a half-century later, is a litany of sins and vices, with every one of the Ten Commandments getting trampled upon, sooner or later, with scandalous persistence. This wasn’t just an abandonment of the sacred music tradition, but its total renunciation—or so it seems.
The worldview of blues music was the exact opposite of the spiritual. That’s how the story is usually told—and for a good reason. Blues records sold well because they offered a strident alternative to sanctimony and religiosity. They told about real life, and with all the gritty details.
But as soon as we peer into the inner life of the blues, its apparent secularism and modern ways start to disappear. In so many instances, its earliest exponents in rural America performed spiritual music as well, and not just any kind of religious music—rather, fervent and quasi-apocalyptic songs that repeatedly describe spiritual quests to another world. (...)
This story—the best known tale in the entire history of blues music—tells how Johnson obtained his legendary skills as a guitarist by making a deal with the Devil at a crossroads at midnight. I’ve found that even people who know little or nothing about the blues, are still aware of this story. It has been commemorated in books, documentaries, Hollywood movies, and tourist attractions.
No one knows where the crossroads are located, but that hasn’t stopped people from promoting various locations as the place where Johnson made his infamous deal. Visitors to Clarksdale, Mississippi can even see a pole at the intersection of Highway 61 and Highway 49 where the transaction took place. It’s a shame that this intersection didn’t exist at the time Johnson was learning guitar, although that hasn’t prevented the Clarksdale crossroads from generating significant tourism dollars for the city. (...)
According to the revisionist narrative, this embarrassing tale about the crossroads gained credence because of a 1966 interview with Robert Johnson’s mentor Son House—who told journalist Pete Welding that Robert Johnson “sold his soul to the devil to play like that.” This passing comment has caused much discomfort among blues writers, and I’ve even heard grumbling that Welding never shared a tape recording of the interview, implying that he might just have made the whole thing up.
But around that same time, Harvard-trained blues researcher Dr. David Evans encountered an even more detailed crossroads story while researching Tommy Johnson, a blues guitarist of that same era—unrelated to Robert Johnson, but apparently another Delta musician who had made a deal with the Devil.
by Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker | Read more:
Image: YouTube
[ed. From the excellent book (currently being serialized on Ted's Substack site): Music to Raise the Dead.]
