
	Where results make sense

Topic: Blind Willie Johnson

Related Topics

Blind Willie McTell

Leo Kottke

Voyager Golden Record

Leadbelly

George Harrison

Pete Seeger

Mike Rutherford

Melissa Etheridge

Friar Park

Queen of the Night

1969

In the News (Sun 6 Dec 09)

Northern Trust

Marvin Harrison

Peter Chernin

Gary Locke

Match Play

Penelope Cruz

Mickey Rourke

AR Rahman

Danny Boyle

Hugh Jackman

	Blind Willie Johnson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not specifically known how his condition came about, it is widely believed that his stepmother, in a fit of rage, blinded him when he was 7 years old by throwing lye in his face.
		Johnson remained poor until the end, preaching and singing in the streets of Beaumont, Texas to anyone who would listen.
		Johnson's recording of "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" was included on the Voyager Golden Record, sent into space with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977, and for this reason was used in the widely seen science show Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan in 1980.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Blind_Willie_Johnson (614 words)

	New Georgia Encyclopedia: Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959)
		His tombstone reads "Eddie McTier." He was blind either from birth or from early childhood, and he attended schools for the blind in Georgia, New York, and Michigan.
		Thus he was Blind Willie for Vocalion, Georgia Bill for OKeh, Red Hot Willie Glaze for Bluebird, Blind Sammie for Columbia, Barrel House Sammy for Atlantic, and Pig 'n' Whistle Red for Regal Records.
		In 1981 Blind Willie McTell was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame.
	www.georgiaencyclopedia.org /nge/Article.jsp?id=h-875 (935 words)

	Willie Johnson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Willie Johnson (1913–1980) was a guitarist born in Senatobia, Mississippi, USA.
		He should not be confused with Blind Willie Johnson.
		Johnson was the guitarist in the first band led by Howlin' Wolf.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Willie_Johnson (118 words)

	St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: Willie Johnson, Blind
		Blind Willie Johnson was an itinerant Texas street singer who made his last record in 1930 and died in poverty.
		Johnson dropped back into obscurity after his fifth and final recording session for Columbia Records in the spring of 1930 and for many years his strong, highly personal renditions of gospel songs could be heard only on bootleg records.
		Johnson was not born blind, but lost his sight as a child after his angry stepmother threw lye in his face.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_bio/ai_2419200602 (554 words)

	Blind Willie Johnson
		At age 5, Johnson announced to his father that he was going to become a preacher and fashioned his first guitar out of a cigar box.
		Willie taught himself to play the guitar and accompanied himself using a pocketknife for a slide to mimic his voice.
		Johnson's father would take him into the town of Hearne and leave him to play on the corner every Saturday with a tin cup tied around his neck.
	www.bigroadblues.com /features/blindwillie.shtml (296 words)

	State of the Blues: The Soul of Blind Willie Johnson
		Johnson's haunting masterpiece "Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)" was chosen for an album placed aboard Voyager 1 in 1977 on its journey to the ends of the universe.
		It doesn't verify the widespread legend that Willie was blinded when a stepmother threw lye in his face at age 7 to avenge a beating from his father.
		Blind Willie's music was revealed to a new generation of country blues enthusiasts (including Bob Dylan) with the 1952 release of the Harry Smith anthology "American Folk Music," which included Johnson's "John the Revelator." The "Blind Willie Johnson" album came out on Folkways in 1957, with a key detail wrong.
	www.austin360.com /music/content/music/blindwilliejohnson_092803.html (2347 words)

	Blind Willie Johnson - CONNECT, Powered By Sony
		Seminal gospel-blues artist Blind Willie Johnson is regarded as one of the greatest bottleneck slide guitarists.
		When Johnson was about seven years old, his father and stepmother fought and the stepmother threw lye water, apparently at the father, but the lye got in Willie Johnson's eyes, blinding him.
		Johnson's song "If I Had My Way" was even revived as a popular hit during the 1960s when it was covered by the contemporary folk band Peter, Paul and Mary.
	musicstore.connect.com /artist/bio/100/575/4/bio-1005754.html (690 words)

	emplive.org - Explore - Artifact Showcase - Blues Pioneers (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Blind Willie Johnson's coarse-throated vocals and fabulous slide guitar playing characterize some of the most impassioned American music of any style or era.
		While Blind Willie would almost certainly have been disconcerted at being called "a blues singer" because of the term's secular and carnal implications, stylistically his music is analogous to blues, though the message of his songs is strictly religious.
		Later, Johnson got married and in 1927 moved to Dallas, where he began to record for Columbia's 140000 Race series, one of the best-selling "race record" labels in the country.
	www.emplive.org /explore/show_feature1.asp?id=104 (289 words)

	The Authentic History Center (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Blind Willie Johnson was arguably the greatest and most popular "sanctified" singer to record in the pre-World War II era.
		His blindness has been attributed to many causes, the most likely being that his stepmother threw lye-water in his face during a jealous fit when he was about seven.
		Johnson lived his later years in Beaumont, Texas, and it was there that his house caught fire some time in the 40s.
	www.authentichistory.com /audio/1930s/music/1927-Dark_Was_The_Night_Cold_Was_The_Ground.html (551 words)

	Bessie Jones, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson profile on Rev. Rabia BLUES UP (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Johnson was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1980 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
		Robert Johnson lived and died for his blues, during his life, only "Terraplane Blues" was a hit in the South (Johnny Otis claims he heard it on the radio in Berkeley in 1936) but definitely Johnson didn't drive one Terraplane.
		Willie Johnson (here with his wife Willie Harris) street corner evangelist was born around 1902 and raised in Marlin in central cotton county of Texas where he attended Church of God in Christ.
	www.bluesup.com /CDreviewsJo.html (1458 words)

	Nobody's Fault But Mine - Led Zeppelin's Influences - Turn Me On, Dead Man (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		In Blind Willie Johnson's spiritual struggle, reading the Bible was the path to salvation, or, rather, the failure to do this led to damnation.
		Blinded as a young child, presumably Johnson was singing this song as a warning to those who had learned to read, but concerned themselves too much with earthly matters.
		Blind Willie Johnson and Led Zeppelin express a similar kind of personal guilt (after all, it is "Nobody's Fault But Mine"), but Blind Willie Johnson tries to point the way to salvation while Led Zeppelin give in to temptation.
	www.turnmeondeadman.net /Zep/NobodysFaultButMine.html (327 words)

	Blind Willie Johnson
		A coarse-throated, gruff gospel singer who occasionally used the blues idiom to carry his religious messages, Blind Willie Johnson was also a superb slide guitarist.
		Sometime between the ages of three and seven he was blinded, reputedly by a stepmother who threw lye into his eyes during a fight with his father.
		Johnson, like other blind bluesmen in the prewar period, earned his living by singing on Texas street corners.
	members.home.nl /zowieso/blues/blindwilliejohnson.html (247 words)

	African American Registry: Blind Willie Johnson, gospel singer with power
		When he was seven years old his stepmother, fighting with his father, threw lye in Johnson's face, permanently blinding him.
		Johnson recorded 30 songs in Dallas, Texas, and Atlanta, Ga., in 1927-30.
		He continued to sing and beg until, after his house burned down, Blind Willie Johnson caught pneumonia and died in 1947 in Beaumont, Texas.
	www.aaregistry.com /african_american_history/669/Blind_Willie_Johnson_gospel_singer_with_power (220 words)

	Common Ground: Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground
		Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night” moan is both gorgeous and eerie at the same time as the sliding notes on the guitar strings chase and match the singer’s haunting, wordless vocals.
		Johnson is said to have used a jackknife, which he slid across the metal guitar strings to get that wailing, shiny effect.
		In his velvety, crooning voice, Lipscomb said one of them was “coffee-colored, blind, and used a jackknife for a slide.” The description gave me a chill because I was sure that it must have been Blind Willie Johnson himself whom he had heard so many years ago.
	www.commongroundmag.com /2005/cg3204/journeys3204.html (1064 words)

	HM - Blind Willie Johnson &... Review
		Blind Willie Johnson and the Guitar Evangelists reveals soul gospel rawness that connects manifoild links in the history of American roots music.
		Titular artist Johnson, represented by 30 of four-CD set's 96 chronologically presented tracks, has a bassy beller that could easily have influenced the vocal mannerisms of Howlin' Wolf and Captain Beefheart.
		Johnson and Rev. Utah Smith (renowned for wearing angel wings as he played) will have you pondering whether the African-American church is the birthplace of godly, hard and heavy music.
	www.hmmagazine.com /reviews/album/b/blind_willie_johnson_0605.php (208 words)

	Dark Was The Night--Cold Was The Ground by Blind Willie Johnson \| MetaFilter
		Now, while almost all the biographies refer to Johnson playing slide in his lap with a jack knife, one will notice upon close examination of the one photograph of Blind Willie Johnson--scroll down and click on the thumbnail of it at this Imperial Crowns page for a bigger picture--otherwise.
		Of the interview with Angeline Johnson, his second wife, of which the sample provded is of her singing a bit of Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground.
		Willie Johnson's voice is unlike anything in twentieth century music: a hoarse, rough, brackish sound, shrouded in darkness and shot through with dazzling flashes of tenderness and love.
	www.metafilter.com /mefi/45137 (5477 words)

	The Complete Blind Willie Johnson
		At times I wonder why people think of Robert Johnson as the greatest of his generation; Blind Willie wouldn't have considered himself a blues singer but he was a greater composer, guitarist, and singer.
		I've been a Blind Willie Johnson fan for a while, but I was surprised one evening while watching an episode of West Wing.
		The character Josh muses about how there was a poor boy of the South, blinded when he was very young by his mother who was mad at his father's infidelity, or something of that sort, and who never had a nickle and died an unknown.
	www.allbestshops.com /Product.asp?asn=B0000028QB (482 words)

	New York's Premier Alternative Newspaper. Arts, Music, Food, Movies and Opinion (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		All those old-time singers with "Blind" in their names: Blind Willie McTell, Blind Joe Taggart, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson: Is that how they were known on the street?
		The one who’s stayed longest and deepest with me is Blind Willie Johnson, a fl preacher from Texas whose total output, recorded 1927-30, was gospel songs.
		Here, Johnson hums the tune without words, a low moan over a perfectly coordinated guitar that carries a depth of agony combined, somehow, with hope.
	www.nypress.com /16/40/music/dustbin.cfm (687 words)

	Blind Willie Johnson : The Complete Blind Willie Johnson - Listen, Review and Buy at ARTISTdirect
		If you've never heard Blind Willie Johnson, you are in for one of the great, bone-chilling treats in music.
		Johnson played slide guitar, and sang in a rasping, false bass that could freeze the blood.
		Though not related by bloodlines to Robert Johnson, comparisons in emotional commitment from both men cannot be helped.
	www.artistdirect.com /nad/store/artist/album/0,,110736,00.html (340 words)

	Various - Blind Willie Johnson And The Guitar Evangelists (£0.00 at Cross Rhythms Direct) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The real star of the set is, of course, the hugely influential Blind Willie Johnson who is featured on all four CDs.
		One of Blind Willie's best known songs is included here, "It's Nobody's Fault But Mine", which was later ripped of by Led Zep.
		The final disc presents the final cuts from Blind Willie Johnson including "John The Revelator" and takes us into the '40s and '50s to hear these guitarists go electric and anarchic.
	direct.crossrhythms.co.uk /cd.php?cd=12481 (433 words)

	Midheaven Mailorder \| Browse by Artist: JOHNSON, BLIND WILLIE (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		*BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON** (1902-1947) is one of the great gospel blues legends.
		Initially a preacher who gave sermons in the street, Johnson first became known for his powerful voice, but it was his masterful slide guitar playing that would soon write his name in the annals of blues history.
		He recorded around thirty songs between 1928-1931, many of which would be covered by the likes of Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Ry Cooder ("Dark Was The Night" inspired Cooder for the soundtrack of Paris, Texas).
	www.midheaven.com /artists/johnson.blind.willie.html (144 words)

	Tower Records - The Complete Recordings Of Blind Willie Johnson - Blind Willie Johnson (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		A bottleneck guitarist of consummate skill, Blind Willie Johnson was a traveling evangelist who preached the gospel by playing and singing such message-heavy tunes as "I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole," and "If It Had Not Been for Jesus." But there is not a whit of squeaky-clean, Sunday-morning sweetness to Johnson's music.
		Johnson also displays great variety, be it the stark, understated intensity of "Dark Was the Night - Cold Was the Ground" (where he wordlessly vocalizes in a hush over ghostly riffs) or the full-tilt prophetic perfection of "John the Revelator" (a duet with Willie Harris).
		THE COMPLETE BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON is an utterly essential set of the most hair-raising gospel blues ever put to tape.
	www.towerrecords.com /product.aspx?from1=PERF&pfid=1034177 (432 words)

	God Don't Never Change by Blind Willie Johnson: Reviews (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Blind Willie Johnson : Albums : The Soul of a Man - UNIVERSE : God Don't Never Change : Reviews
		Perhaps the greatest of all slide players (far more inventive even than Elmore James), and with the kind of voice that could be heard on Judgment Day, Blind Willie Johnson wasn't a blues musician, although his music had all the soul and anguish of the blues.
		Instead, he was possibly the most singular gospel singer, whose music could sound as vital on a Saturday night berating the sinners as it could on a Sunday morning in church.
	www.mp3.com /tracks/5090872/reviews.html (186 words)

	Handbook of Texas Online: JOHNSON, BLIND WILLIE
		"Blind Willie" Johnson, Texas blues man and virtuoso of the "bottleneck" or slide guitar, was born in Marlin, Texas, about 1902, and blinded at age seven.
		He taught himself to play the guitar and accompanied himself as he performed at Baptist Association meetings and churches around Hearne, Texas.
		Blind Willie made his professional debut as a Gospel artist; he was known to his followers as a performer "capable of making religious songs sound like the blues" and of endowing his secular songs with "religious feeling." Johnson's unique voice and his original compositions influenced musicians throughout the South, especially Texas bluesmen.
	www.tsha.utexas.edu /handbook/online/articles/view/JJ/fjoaw.html (293 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)