Instrument(s): guitar, vocals
Lifespan:
Style synopsis: Powerful, passionate gospel blues accompanied by his own guitar, sometimes with a female singer. Absolutely one of the greatest slide players ever.
Representative Recordings:
Praise God, I'm Satisfied
Sweeter As The Years Go By
(both on Yazoo)
Or if you're into boxed sets, Columbia (I think) has The Complete Works out now on tape and CD.
Contributor:Rob Hutten (rob@hutten.org)
Contributor's Comments: Ry Cooder summed it up well when he said "It's something you can't really talk about" - Johnson's music is almost trancendent and really has to be heard. He had two distinct vocal styles and two distinct playing styles. His gruff false bass voice is heard more frequently than his incredible natural tenor, yet both convey the amazing emotional intensity of his singing. He usually tuned his guitar to open D (D A D F# A D) and strummed a heavy alternating bass figure with his thumb while picking out a single-note melody with the bottleneck (or rather a jackknife) on the first and second or sometimes third and fourth strings. Some of his gospel tunes are performed without the bottleneck in standard tuning, generally based around the open G chord.