how did blind willie johnson die

Columbia’s Walker set up a session in Dallas a week earlier, but Blind Willie chose to record in New Orleans, so he was probably living in the closer city of Beaumont as early as 1929, which is what Angeline had been saying. From December 1927, in less than two and a half years, he made a total of thirty recordings, all of a tremendously high standard. Listening to Johnson fretting strings and playing rhythm along with his slide, it seems unlikely he played with a knife in the studio, but it could’ve been a cool street corner trick. Did he stay with a relative? The couple proved to be vocal soulmates on four tracks recorded on December 5, 1928, including “Jesus Is Coming Soon” (about the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic) and “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning.” The Columbia recording logs also list two tracks, unnamed and unreleased, as being by “Blind Texas Marlin” and the speculation was that Blind Texas Marlin was Blind Willie Johnson, singing some blues on the side. And Johnson didn’t make the people dance like Blind Lemon did. It’s quite possible Blind Willie made money for a spell with his guitar in his lap, but his slide playing on record is more percussive, attacking, than the Island style. He died on September 18, 1945, after suffering from the disease for abo… Blind Willie didn’t even have to play any bottleneck guitar, which would become his signature on later reissues featuring “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” “Mother’s Children Have A Hard Time,” “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning,” “God Moves On The Water” and others. “Anybody who’s ever played the bottleneck guitar with some degree of accomplishment is quoting Blind Willie to this day,” said Austin slide guitarist Steve James. That makes sense because of what McCormick said in 2003: “(Blind Willie) left memories in Corpus Christi during WWII when there was a fear about Nazi submarines prowling the Gulf of Mexico. “It’s so of the earth, but still sounds modern to my ear,” Luther Dickinson says of Johnson’s gospel blues. The search goes on, but what we still don’t know about Blind Willie Johnson could sink the Titanic. Short Biography "Blind" Willie Johnson (January 22, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was a gospel blues singer and guitarist. “Dark was the night and cold was the ground/On which the Lord was laid/His sweat like drops of blood ran down/In agony He prayed,” wrote Thomas Haweis in 1792. The mystery has made him more spirit than mortal, a folk hero. Together and apart, these two black, blind icons from Central Texas led the way in the country blues guitar field (religion optional). By 1915, everything seemed patched up, as Willie Johnson was listed as living with Dock and Catherine at 316 W. Avenue D in Temple, just 100 yards from the train depot. And yet by the release of Harry Smith’s gateway drug, almost nothing was known of “the other Blind Willie” (not McTell) except that he recorded for Columbia Records from 1927 through1930. Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas (Big Sandy), Blind Lemon Jefferson (Wortham), Texas Alexander (Jewett), Lillian Glinn (Hillsboro), Lightnin’ Hopkins (Centerville), Frankie Lee Sims (Marshall) and Mance Lipscomb (Navasota) all came from that area, as did gospel acts The Soul Stirrers (Trinity), F.W. The card’s 21-year-old Willie Johnson lived in Houston’s Fourth Ward, in the red light district nicknamed “The Reservation,” which seemed strange for a gospel musician. THANKS: To all the searchers, especially Sam and Ann Charters, Dan Williams, Jeffrey Gaskill, Michael Hall, D.N. Whichever account, Blind Willie Johnson died on the 18 th of September, 1945. Zion Memorial Fund. But Angeline Johnson painted an even bleaker picture of Willie Johnson’s final days. But the Lomax name would be forever connected to Blind Willie Johnson in 1977, when John’s son Alan Lomax selected Willie’s wordless symphony of loneliness, “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground,” to be placed on the Voyager I flying time capsule that is now 13 billion miles away. Even though his playing, always on a Stella guitar, inspired a host of Delta blues men, Blind Willie refused to sing the blues, that style of music preferred by collectors and historians. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Help support true facts by becoming a member. For blues, you can go back to November 1923, when Louisville’s Sylvester Weaver was the first to record with slide guitar for OKeh. When Willie Johnson was booked for the December 1928 sessions for Columbia, he had already sold an average of 15,000 copies of his first three 78s (at 75 cents each) and so he was treated with an earner’s respect. Blind Willie Johnson covered Bye and Bye I'm Going to See the King, You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond, Let Your Light Shine on Me, Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave It There and other songs. It’s conceivable Blind Willie had hundreds of shows like this after making his final recordings in April 1930. The years match with the draft card if Willie became blind at age 13 (instead of 13 years earlier–there’s some ambiguity). This practice was used in the ‘30s and ‘40s, until penicillin was mass-produced in the late ‘40s. Johnson continued to sing and beg until, after his house burned down, he slept in its remains, contracted malaria, and died. That year, Lomax was living in Austin, where he would graduate from the University of Texas in June. They were the father, the son and the Holy Ghost of his music. Walker told Mike Seeger in 1962 that the acts auditioned in the morning, rehearsed in the afternoon and recorded in the evening. No doubt she’d dragged him with her with her, because Blind Willie has mainly been associated with the Baptist Church. He went on the air with new verses to one of his songs, probably ‘God Moves On The Water’ about the Titanic, offering grace to his audience, then followed with a dire warning to the crew of any listening U-boat with ‘Can’t Nobody Hide From God.’”. Unfortunately, in 1947, the Johnsons' home burned to the ground. The Charters-produced 1957 album Blind Willie Johnson: His Story (Folkways) reissued more of Johnson’s music, including “If I Had My Way, I’d Tear The Building Down,” which the Grateful Dead called “Samson And Delilah” when they recorded it on 1977’s Terrapin Station. “He just had people from here to the highway. “I learned that ‘Just Can’t Keep From Cryin’ from him but I learned to pick it ’cause I didn’t like the knife on it.”. He caught pneumonia shortly thereafter and died in the ashes of his former home approximately one week after it was destroyed. Johnson came to Shiner from San Antonio in October 1933 to play the 100-capacity church for 10 cents a ticket. Abandoned Cemeteries, Serious Research, & Blues Memorials since 1989. In just three years, Blind Willie Johnson produced a significant body of work that transports the listener from ancient Africa to modern times. With his soul-tortured delivery, there’s a depth to the material not often heard in the records Brunswick, Columbia, Paramount and Victor put out in the “race records” decade ushered in by Mamie Smith’s sensational 1920 hit “Crazy Blues.”. McTell was also an adept slide guitarist, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. “Harry James’ father Everett spoke very highly of Blind Willie Johnson,” said McCormick, who began his musicology career as a jazz fanatic. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues. Basing his soundtrack of Paris, Texas on “Dark,” Ry Cooder called it “the most soulful, transcendent piece in all of American music.”. Blind Willie’s first marriage took him to Houston in 1917, if later census numbers are correct. It’s a one-of-a-kind recording that’s set a mood in several films, first in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 Italian classic The Gospel According To St. Matthew. His title was A&R president, but he was really in the D&S business, with the discovery and signing of Hank Williams to MGM in 1947 putting Walker’s resume in bold. He was born in a field on June,17th... John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson By Dan Morris - 2012 On a hilltop, under an oak in southwest Madison County, a tombstone is... STORY BY KATHRYN EASTBURN  PHOTOS BY JOHNNY JENNINGS AND PAUL JEHASSE Most people, when they see me, think I've been playing bl... Mt. When Johnson was about seven yrs . In summer 1945 a fire burned his house to the ground. His second wife Angeline said that the hospital refused to treat him because he was blind, while other sources say it was because he was black. Reportedly, the house he was living in burned down, and after spending the night sleeping in its remains, he caught pneumonia and died soon afterwards. He wouldn’t stay long. An itinerant musician from Mississippi who was dead by the age of 27 – supposedly poisoned by the jealous husband of one of his sexual conquests – he is most often associated with the classic blues myth about selling his soul to the devil in a midnight pact at a Delta crossroads. Temple is named after Bernard Temple, who was chief engineer of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway when the town was formed in 1881 out of 200 acres of farmland the railroad had purchased. His left pinkie appears to be straightened by a glass or steel cylinder, which is how Angeline’s brother, Brenham-raised blues guitarist L.C. The “malarial fever” cause of death seemed strange for East Texas and led many to believe Angeline Johnson’s pneumonia story. Old colored folks and young ones as well. The New York Giants held spring training in Marlin from 1908 through 1918 and Conrad Hilton built the nine-story Falls Hotel there in 1929. Ram Prakash Pokharel (aka Prakash Slim) is an international artist/performer and educator of the blues. His death certificate incorrectly lists his place of birth as Independence, Texas. Blakey, Mack McCormick, Shane Ford and Anna Obek, whose hours saved me days. old, his father and stepmother fought as well as the stepmother threw lye drinking water, apparently at the daddy, however the lye got in Willie Johnson’s eye, blinding him. Rather than detail what was wrong in some of those eyewitness reports, let’s tell you what we now know to be certain about Blind Willie Johnson, who died in Beaumont at age 48 on September 18, 1945. That was most likely Madkin Butler. When you add up all the dates and testimony, it’s very possible that Johnson was “married” to both Angeline in Beaumont and Willie B. in Marlin at the same time. Blind Willie Johnson originally did You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond, Bye and Bye I'm Going to See the King, Church, I'm Fully Saved Today, God Don't Never Change and other songs. “Distinctive fingerprints” could be the title of a Blind Willie Johnson biography. Blind Willie’s songs were about the love of Jesus and the hope of salvation, with a touch of Old Testament vengeance. Musicians played all up and down the street, according to a 94-year-old James Truesdale in 2010. Because he was blind, he rode the train at reduced fare, if he had to pay at all. “Reserved seating for white people” it said in the newspaper. “He used to come stay with us, two, three nights, and he’d sit there and play that guitar, religious songs,” Robinson told Living Blues in 1975 about his brother-in-law. NOW 50% OFF! But how many of those songs did he write? We’ll never know. His raspy evangelical bark and dramatic guitar were designed to draw in milling, mulling masses on street corners, not to charm casual roots rock fans decades later. The town was also in cotton country, on the western border of the Black Waxy Prairie, so-nicknamed because of the dark and sticky soil. In 1945, a massive fire destroyed his house in Beaumont, Texas. The End of Johnson In 1945 Blind Willie Johnson’s house burned down. He was beaten to the studio by a year and a half by Pittsburgh preacher Edward W. Clayborn. How many were adapted from public domain sources such as religious hymns and old “Negro spirituals”? He first heard “Dark Was The Night” in 1960 as a freshman at Baylor University, with the hums and slurs from the library headphones haunting himwith a sadness and a strength he said he never really got over. Despite the fact that Johnson did not record after 1930, he continued to perform on the Texas streets during the '30s and '40s. As many have done before and since, Williams trekked to Marlin to find out whatever he could about that mysterious, intense, Blind Willie Johnson. Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was a Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. The Johnsons moved about 50 miles south, to Bell County, before Willie Johnson was born in January 1897 in Pendleton. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Patricia Bauer, Assistant Editor. Other acts who recorded at that first Dallas session, which went from December 2-6, 1927 were Washington Phillips (“Denomination Blues”), Lillian Glinn, backed by Willie Tyson on piano, mandolinist Coley Jones and the Dallas String Band, blues singers William McCoy, Hattie Hudson and Gertrude Perkins, plus Billiken Johnson, whose popular Deep Ellum act consisted of train impersonations (“Interurban Blues”) and other sound effects. The interstellar space probe left the solar system in 2012 and continues its mission to find intelligent life in other planetary systems. But while spending 2010 researching the life of Blind Willie Johnson, recent University of Texas graduate Shane Ford came upon an interesting bit of medical information. But the majority of Johnson’s 29 recorded songs (he cut “You’ll Need Somebody On Your Bond” twice) came from other sources. He was 18 and ready to make some money on the streets of Texas with a pocket knife, a tin cup and beat-up old guitar. In 1917, it was discovered that injecting malaria into patients with degenerative syphilis “could halt the progression of general paresis.” The fever could sometimes kill the syphilis bacteria. Johnson was not the first gospel singer to play slide guitar on record. “She told me they played music on the train together,” Williams recalled. Texas, music legend Blind Willie shines bright in ‘Dark Was the Night’ "Dark Was the Night" is a story of loneliness and a search for light during dark times. Blind Willie Johnson died on September 18, 1945, in Beaumont, Texas, USA of pneumonia. Willie's family didn't have much money, and so when he was a small boy and his parents noticed how Willie loved to sing, his father made a guitar for him from a cigar box and a wooden board. A singer and fiddle player who was never recorded that we know of, Madkin Butler was also probably the “blind singer from Hearne” who taught John A. Lomax “Boll Weevil” in 1909. 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