I’m lucky I have a copy. I was so jaded by the time this set came out that I was not looking to add another Robert Johnson set to my collection. Had it not been a vinyl-only re-issue I might have passed. But then I thought, “I’ll give it one more shot, just for Keith’s sake”. I’m glad I did!
The set contains 3 LPs, all exquisitely remastered and packaged in a limited edition deluxe gatefold jacket (said to be limited to only 2,500 copies worldwide, although I think it’s actually more) including extensive liner notes and a really cool poster featuring the original labels of all of Johnson’s 78 RPM singles, released more than 85 years ago on labels like Vocalion, Orion, Conqueror and others.
This is also the first time his complete recorded works have been made available in one vinyl package, and as far as I’m concerned it's the first time they sound decent.
Listening to Johnson's music now is a different experience than listening to it when I was very young. The older I got the more I realized this is where rock and roll comes from. I became less dismissive of the music, although it still didn't sound very good.
The Centennial Collection includes 29 original songs (spread over 41 performances, including outtakes) that were recorded in five sessions: three in November of 1936 and two in June of 1937, many of which remained unissued until the LP era many years later. Johnson's actual recorded output consists of just a dozen 10" 78 RPM records that were not widely distributed, making the copies that have survived extremely collectible.
When Johnson was murdered he was 27-years-old - the inaugural member of The 27 Club. Columbia Records issued King of the Delta Blues in 1961, which contained 16 performances, some of which had not been previously issued. Volume II was issued in the early 70s and consisted of 16 more tracks, some repeated from the first volume but also including Love In Vain, I Believe I'll Dust My Broom and Sweet Home Chicago that would become classics the world over.
It wasn't until 1990 that Columbia issued the two CD set Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings, the first time all of Johnson's performances were assembled in a single package. It was also around this time the "deal with the devil" thing started and the Robert Johnson legend was born. The Complete Recordings has sold over 300,000 copies, and up until now it sounded better than anything that had been previously issued. But it pales in comparison to The Centennial Collection.
There was also a box set released in 2011 - when Johnson would have turned 100 - called The Complete Original Masters: Centennial Edition that replicated the 12 10" records Johnson produced. That set now fetches almost $1,000 on the secondary market.
Johnson's recordings stand out from other musicians' recordings made in Dallas and San Antonio, which were mostly hillbilly string bands or what was referred to as western string groups like Bob Wills' Texas Playboys. It's also interesting to note that of all the musicians recorded on these dates, there was only one other "race" performer who had been invited to the sessions.
Whoever he was.
If you want to hear where it all started, but with really great sound quality, this set is …
I’m lucky I have a copy. I was so jaded by the time this set came out that I was not looking to add another Robert Johnson set to my collection. Had it not been a vinyl-only re-issue I might have passed. But then I thought, “I’ll give it one more shot, just for Keith’s sake”. I’m glad I did!
The set contains 3 LPs, all exquisitely remastered and packaged in a limited edition deluxe gatefold jacket (said to be limited to only 2,500 copies worldwide, although I think it’s actually more) including extensive liner notes and a really cool poster featuring the original labels of all of Johnson’s 78 RPM singles, released more than 85 years ago on labels like Vocalion, Orion, Conqueror and others.
This is also the first time his complete recorded works have been made available in one vinyl package, and as far as I’m concerned it's the first time they sound decent.
Listening to Johnson's music now is a different experience than listening to it when I was very young. The older I got the more I realized this is where rock and roll comes from. I became less dismissive of the music, although it still didn't sound very good.
The Centennial Collection includes 29 original songs (spread over 41 performances, including outtakes) that were recorded in five sessions: three in November of 1936 and two in June of 1937, many of which remained unissued until the LP era many years later. Johnson's actual recorded output consists of just a dozen 10" 78 RPM records that were not widely distributed, making the copies that have survived extremely collectible.
When Johnson was murdered he was 27-years-old - the inaugural member of The 27 Club. Columbia Records issued King of the Delta Blues in 1961, which contained 16 performances, some of which had not been previously issued. Volume II was issued in the early 70s and consisted of 16 more tracks, some repeated from the first volume but also including Love In Vain, I Believe I'll Dust My Broom and Sweet Home Chicago that would become classics the world over.
It wasn't until 1990 that Columbia issued the two CD set Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings, the first time all of Johnson's performances were assembled in a single package. It was also around this time the "deal with the devil" thing started and the Robert Johnson legend was born. The Complete Recordings has sold over 300,000 copies, and up until now it sounded better than anything that had been previously issued. But it pales in comparison to The Centennial Collection.
There was also a box set released in 2011 - when Johnson would have turned 100 - called The Complete Original Masters: Centennial Edition that replicated the 12 10" records Johnson produced. That set now fetches almost $1,000 on the secondary market.
Johnson's recordings stand out from other musicians' recordings made in Dallas and San Antonio, which were mostly hillbilly string bands or what was referred to as western string groups like Bob Wills' Texas Playboys. It's also interesting to note that of all the musicians recorded on these dates, there was only one other "race" performer who had been invited to the sessions.
Whoever he was.
If you want to hear where it all started, but with really great sound quality, this set is …
In November, 1936, blues musician Robert Johnson began his first recording session, which was held in San Antonio, Texas, in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel. Brunswick Records had set the room up as a temporary recording studio, and the ensuing three-day session resulted in 16 songs being committed to shellac.
It's said that Johnson performed facing the wall. Guitarist Ry Cooder speculates Johnson did this in order to enhance the sound of his guitar and to keep his stylings secret. But in the original liner notes to King of the Delta Blues Singers, producer Don Law recalls Johnson as an extremely shy young man and how, when he asked him to play guitar for a group of Mexican musicians gathered in the hotel room where the recording equipment had been set up, Johnson - suffering from a bad case of stage fright - turned his face to the wall.
The most famous myth surrounding Johnson is the one about his purported deal with the Devil at a Mississippi crossroads, where he is said to have traded his soul for guitar lessons. But in 1997 I met Johnson's stepson, Robert Jr. Lockwood - the only person to have ever learned to play Johnson's songs from Johnson himself - backstage at Massey Hall, in Toronto. I asked him about his dad's alleged Devil deal. He looked me right in the eyes and said, "Son, it's all bullshit."
Decades later a new myth sprang up concerning Johnson's current whereabouts. No one seemed to know where he was buried. His death certificate, which was discovered in 1968, states he was buried at Zion Church in Leflore County, Mississippi. But was it Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Morgan City or Little Zion Church in Greenwood? Or maybe it was the other Mt. Zion Church, also in Greenwood.
In the 1980s blues researcher Mack McCormick located Johnson’s half-sister, Carrie Spencer Harris, who had been living in Memphis at the time of Johnson’s death. Harris told McCormick she'd heard Johnson had been hastily buried in a homemade casket and had hired the only black undertaker in the area to re-inter Johnson in a higher-quality coffin. And guess what? That undertaker kept records that clearly state Johnson was buried at Little Zion Baptist Church, in Greenwood. Further corroboration came in 2000 from a woman named Rosie Eskridge, who said her husband, Tom, had dug Johnson’s grave!
All this kerfuffle came about because Johnson was having an affair with a woman named Beatrice Davis, whose jealous husband, Ralph, owned the juke joint Johnson was performing in and supposedly laced the whiskey he was drinking with naphthalin. But he probably didn't intend to kill Johnson. In those days naphthalin was commonly used to subdue rowdy bar patrons, but what Ralph couldn't have known is that Johnson had just been diagnosed with an ulcer and the spiked drink would prove to be too much for him.
