Customer Reviews

King of the Delta Blues Singers

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I first got into Robert Johnson when I got the Complete Recordings Box Set on cassette about 20 years ago and I did so as I was at the time learning as much as I could about playing blues-based guitar as well as reading about my own personal influences such as early Clapton and Beck and I was amazed at how often Johnson's name kept coming up during their interviews and I subsequently found out that legends such as Led Zeppelin "Traveling Riverside Blues" and Eric Clapton "Ramblin' On My Mind" and "Cross Road Blues" would count him as a key influence in their music. There are of course other Johnson tunes that they covered but the ones I mentioned happen to be on this album.

Johnson was one who truly understood the blues and he made you feel the pain; whenever he sang for example my favourite track of his, "Love In Vain", it never fails to tug at my heart whenever I hear it as you can feel the despair as he sings about a lost love. He was also a brilliant guitarist sometimes sounding like two guitarists playing at the same time which some have attributed to his larger and longer than average hands and fingers. Truly a shame that he died so young as yet another artist that you'd expect even more great things from had he lived long enough.

Fans of the 17 tracks that make up this mlps (mini-lp replica sleeve) version are in for a treat; as far as mlps designs go this one ranks among the best being very well assembled and designed. Given the age of this recording (the 1930s) the sound quality has also been remastered well and I can tell you it sounds loads better than it did on my cassettes although the sound is not perfect but it was probably cleaned up as best as it could given the deteriorated master records. Also included is a foldout with all the lyrics in both English and Japanese.

The tracks which are all composed by Johnson are:

1. Cross Road Blues
2. Terraplane Blues
3. Come On In My Kitchen
4. Walkin' Blues
5. Last Fair Deal Gone Down
6. 32-20 Blues
7. Kind Hearted Woman Blues
8. If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day
9. Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)
10.When You Got A Good Friend
11.Ramblin' On My Mind
12.Stones In My Passway
13.Traveling Riverside Blues
14.Milkcow's Calf Blues
15.Me and the Devil Blues
16.Hellhound On My Trail
17.Traveling Riverside Blues

You probably recognise most the these tracks as blues standards now that have been covered countless of times by countless artists which is a testament to the brilliance of the man.

While not as good overall sound quality-wise and perhaps track selection-wise as compared with part two of this album series King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. 2 this is still a worthy addition to any sonic library.