King of the blues

Robert Johnson died in 1938. But his genius status has grown with time, observes Tony Nielsen
In 1968, when I first heard the music of Robert Johnson, I quickly recognised it as an epiphany. Having been immersed in the pop revolution and on a diet of the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Yardbirds, Animals and Kinks, somehow I knew that this was the real thing, the mother lode.
And so, over the 40-something years since, Johnson's music hasn't ever been far away from me. Sure, I now play only the vinyl version of that initial mind-blowing album, King of the Delta Blues Singers, but I've wanted to listen to his music on a regular basis. No other musician, with the possible exception of Miles Davis, has resonated with me as Johnson has.
Of course, as my rudimentary research showed back then, no Google or Wikipedia to rely on, in 1968 Johnson had already been dead for 30 years. And he'd recorded only two sessions of 29 songs, along with some alternate takes, a total of 42 tracks inall.
For me, and thousands of blues devotees worldwide, the magic of Johnson was in the rawness of his music, along with sensational guitar work, often sounding like there was more than one guitarist at play.
And then there are the songs.
Although it's not possible to claim that Johnson was a totally original blues stylist, it is his interpretation and enhancing of blues themes that makes him unique.
It appears that he was a bit of a musical magpie, as well as a traveller (he was known to have gone as far afield as St Louis, Detroit and New York, from his native Mississippi), which provided the backdrop for him to personalise and further develop songs he heard.
His first recording session took place in a San Antonio hotel room in November 1936.
The first song he ever recorded was Kind Hearted Woman Blues, and the session also produced a series of gems like Terraplane Blues, Sweet Home Chicago, Ramblin' On My Mind, and perhaps his most covered track, Crossroads Blues.
The following year, recording engineer Vincent Liebler and producer Don Law caught up with Johnson in Dallas for his second - and what was to be his final - recording session.
This yielded 13 more stunning sides and demonstrated an even greater talent than what had been captured the previous year, From Four until Late, Stop Breakin Down Blues, Love in Vain and Travelling Riverside Blues among them.
In 1938, record producer John Hammond started recruiting talent for a show called From Spirituals to Swing, to be staged at Carnegie Hall. When he got in touch with Law in Dallas to find out where he could get hold of Johnson for a country blues showcase, he was devastated to find that Johnson had died in July, after an apparent poisoning of his drinks at a Greenwood, Mississippi juke joint.
Johnson's records didn't make much of a mark when they were released in the late 30s, selling as few as 5000 copies.
However, when King of the Delta Blues Singers was first issued in 1961 it led to a significant underground following by burgeoning rock musicians, especially in Britain.
Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page all recognised the extraordinary talents that the album showed, and Johnson became a key influence on groups such as the Stones and Cream, and later Led Zeppelin.
Volume Two of the album, containing the remaining tracks from Johnson's small but impressive repertoire came out in 1970, and subsequently there has been a stream of repackaging of his material.
Although he may not have attained star status in his lifetime, Johnson's music has sold in the millions over the past four decades.
Last month was the centenary of Johnson's birth in Hazlehurst, Mississippi and a new edition of all of his recordings was issued to recognise this milestone, with two CDs, each one aligned to the two sessions in San Antonio and Dallas.
Some of Johnson's descendants have recently been identified and now his son Claud and his children administer the Robert Johnson Foundation.
For a man who supposedly sold his soul to the devil at a Mississippi crossroads in return for unparalleled virtuosity on the guitar, most of the mysteries surrounding him have been uncovered.
I'm sure he would, however, revel in the legendary status that his life and music have attained.