I STARTED TO UNDERSTAND

I was trying to find an American singer but since I am Peruvian, I really do not know where to start. I have always listened to American music but I am not related with it in the sense how to analyze lyrics or the trend of the singer. Actually, I started investigating everything related to music in this course. Thus, I asked a neighbor who is a passionate of rock and roll and told me about this singer: Robert Leroy Johnson. To be honest, I have never heard about this singer before, but as soon as he was talking about him, I was more interested in him. I investigated about his life and I learned that he was born on May 8, 1911 and died on August 16, 1938. He was an American blues singer and musician. His productions show a combination of several factors, among them his talent that was an influence for later generations of musicians. This musician while he was alive did not enjoy the fame from his work, not even earned much money through music. But it was in 1961 when the public recognized his talent as a master of the blues, after its recordings were reissue. That is when the musicians of that time realized the talent that was wasted all those years.

Many rock musicians like Eric Clapton, Keith Richards (Rolling Stones), have catalogued him as a very important influence that ever lived, since in his music they found the ingredient that was missing from blue music.

His father had to leave his hometown because of a danger of lynching by a white problem he had with Landowners. He started singing secular songs in That Time That Were Known as something suspicious, which makes it easier to devote a full-time blues musician and leave the life of farmer.

The song "Crossroads" by British psychedelic blues rock band Cream is a cover version of Johnson's "Cross Road Blues", about the legend of Johnson selling his soul to the Devil at the crossroads, although Johnson's original lyrics  suggest he was merely hitchhiking rather than signing away his soul to Lucifer in exchange for being a great blues musician.

Robert Johnson is today considered a master of the blues, particularly of the Delta blues style. His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues," a difference of the Delta style mentioned, it had a varied musical arrangement. Unusual for a Delta player of the time, a recording exhibits what Johnson could do entirely outside of a blues style. At that time, Johnson was respected for his skills in playing the guitar, since raw country to jazz and pop licks.

Johnson had a great voice through which he conveyed emotional verses that impact people nowadays. He had a great talent playing the guitar, being considered nowadays one of the best playing that instrument. He influenced and impacted contemporary musicians. He was one of the performers who used to play on street corners that helped the evolution on black music and the blending of white music with it.