2019 Record Store Day release - This special 2019 Record Store Day offering is reproduced using the original label and sleeve artwork. It is a 10-inch microgroove 78 RPM single and can be played with a standard turntable needle.
The impact of “The King Of The Delta Blues Singers” Robert Johnson's combined intense vocals, outstanding guitar skills and songwriting talent introduced a musical and lyrical vocabulary that formed the foundation of modern blues and blues rock that influenced generations of musicians including Muddy Waters, Elmore James, The Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton who is quoted as saying: “Robert Johnson to me is the most important blues musician who ever lived.”
Born in Hazlehurt, Mississippi in 1911, Robert Johnson’s major ambition as a youth was to master the guitar, idolizing contemporaries such as Son House and Willie Brown. His abilities were deemed inadequate at the time, and he was discouraged from continuing to perform. Driven by the negative response, Johnson disappeared for a year or two, only to return a master of the Mississippi Delta blues style, surpassing his peers in craft, technique, and vocal expression. (The legend goes that Johnson received this skill via a Faustian crossroads pact with Satan to sell his soul for guitar acumen.)
Robert Johnson quickly acquired a growing reputation, earning him a recording contract with ARC/Vocalion. On November 23, 1936 Johnson recorded his first session that included his only popular release “Terraplane Blues” which took cues from popular, and similarly risqué works by Blind Boy Fuller and Bo Carter. It sold only 5,000 copies, enough to encourage ARC to release 11 additional 78s with limited impact. “Terraplane Blues” backed with “Kind Hearted Woman Blues” was released in March of 1937. After various other recording sessions for Vocalion, Johnson would spend the last year of his life on the road traveling and performing with contemporaries like Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James, before his untimely death in 1939, due to strychnine poisoning.
| A | Terraplane Blues |
| B | Kind Hearted Woman Blues |
