Hellhound on my trail

Reviving my guitar hero series, today's post is about a young drifter from the Mississippi Delta, Robert Johnson. By the fall of 1938 he was dead, rumored to have been murdered during the summer, maybe stabbed to death or poisoned by a jealous lover, or a victim of black magic. He was perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four when he died. A somewhat mythological figure, little else is known about him. According to legend, Johnson sold his soul to the devil in a Faustian deal at the crossroads in return for his musical talent. He played the guitar with a distinctive bottleneck slide style and sang with an intensity that was personal and chilling in its candor. No one remembers what he used for a bottleneck but his bottleneck playing was in an open E chord with the lower strings used as a drone-like accompaniment. He was the prime influence on Muddy Waters who told Alan Lomax that he was completely dominated by Johnson's recordings as a young plantation field hand in the Mississippi delta. One of his most famous songs is Hellhound On My Trail which I reproduce for you here. Note that the first line of each couplet is meant to repeat in traditional blues form, but he departs from that on the first verse.

I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail

Mmm, blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail

And the day keeps on remindin' me, there's a hellhound on my trail

Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail

If today was Christmas eve, if today was Christmas eve and tomorrow was Christmas day
All I would need is my little sweet rider just to pass the time away, to pass the time away

You sprinkled hot foot powder, mmm, around my door, all around my door
It keeps me with ramblin' mind rider every old place I go, every old place I go

I can tell the wind is risin', the leaves tremblin' on the tree, tremblin' on the tree
All I need is my little sweet woman and to keep my company, hey, hey, hey, hey, my company

As a bonus here's Robert Johnson's death certificate. Cause of death? No Doctor. LOL!

And that pretty much sums up my feeling today.

I have a date tonight with a dentist. Hopefully she won't knock my teeth out. BTW I have a new favorite band of the week (courtesey of said dentist). Check out Breaking Benjamin. Good!~