Blind Willie Johnson

"Blind" Willie Johnson (1897 - 1945), was an African-American singer and guitarist whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals. While the lyrics of most of his songs were religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions. Among musicians, he is considered one of the greatest slide or bottleneck guitar artists who ever lived, as well as one of the most revered figures of depression-era gospel music. Although he is called a bottleneck guitarist, he actually played with a pocket knife. His music is distinguishable by his powerful bass strumming and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.

"Blind Willie" Johnson was born in Texas about 1897. Some reports say it was in Marlin, others say near Temple and the family then moved to Marlin.
Johnson's father remarried following the death of young Johnson's mother. He caught Johnson's stepmother cheating and beat her up. Her response was to throw lye into 7 year old Willie Johnson's face to deliberately blind him.
Willie taught himself to play the guitar and accompanied himself using a pocketknife for a slide to mimic his voice. Johnson's father would take him into the town of Hearne and leave him to play on the corner every Saturday with a tin cup tied around his neck.

At age twenty-five he married a young singer named Angelina, sister of blues guitarist L. C. "Good Rockin'" Robinson (1915-76). Angelina accompanied Johnson on some of his recordings for Columbia Records between 1927 and 1930.

Although some blues singers tussled with the pull between the blues and religious music, Blind Willie came down firmly on the side of the religious -- in a way. He had the power to make a religious song sound like the blues and a blues song sound holy.
He sang in a "rasping false bass," and played bottleneck guitar with "uncanny left-handed strength, accuracy and agility." So forceful was his voice that legend has it he was once arrested for inciting a riot simply by standing in front of the New Orleans Customs House singing "If I Had My Way I'd Tear This Building Down."

Ry Cooder once called Johnson's "Dark Was The Night Cold Was the Ground" the most "transcendent piece in all American music." Additionally, his "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed" is another masterpiece of slide work.

Ironically, Johnson died of pneumonia following a fire that burned down his home: he slept on wet bedding his wife had prepared for him and became terminally ill.

Dark Was the Night cold was the ground written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson is on the golden records attached to the voyager satellites. They are the man made objects that is the farthest away from earth. In 40 000 years they will approach the closest planetary system.