Release Date: 1961 (recorded November 1936 and June 1937)
Song Count: 17
Rating: 7.1/10
Description:
Today's destination is a defining album in one of the most overlooked genres in all of music, in spite of its extremely rich and complex history and it paving the way for modern music as we know it to be the way it is: blues. Robert Johnson is famously credited as one of the most influential figures within blues, specifically playing his own form of it coined "Delta blues" and recording countless classic songs in the mid-1930s during his two recording sessions. Though he didn't get to witness a lot of actual success and long-term pioneering during his lifetime, dying only a year later in 1938 at the age of 27 from unknown circumstances, he has shaped the musical landscape with the songs he left behind and the few tidbits about him and his life that we've since managed to rediscover and reconstruct.
King Of The Delta Blues Singers is as blues as it gets with what it offers: 17 recordings and 16 different songs (one was an alternative take of another song in the album, only published in a 1998 reissue of the album) featuring Johnson's strong vocals that dabble heavily in the microtonality signature to the style as well as the sounds of a guitar being played by Johnson himself, utilised to its fullest potential to the point where it wouldn't be unrealistic to think it were more than one guitar playing at once - and that is all that's needed to convey what the songs mean on every front.
While this one-man composition with tracks that, at their core, share a similar sound with one-another, may not sound all that impressive to an unattentive listener, the intricacies layered within Johnson's specific form of singing and guitar-playing as well as the fact that these songs stem from what is now 90 years in the past where musical norms and culture was wildly different gives King Of The Delta Blues Singers and Johnson's other work a quite special meaning. Listening to this collection of songs is like visiting an old time capsule and catching a glimpse of how things used to be and where the things we take for granted, such as today's music, really began and found their foot.
For sure a piece to be respected, and one showcasing the natural talents of what may have been one of the most mysterious yet capable musicians in history.