King of the Delta Blues Singers

All I could do while listening was think about the mysterious Robert Johnson, the blues king.

When I was a kid, I heard Eric and I went “wow”! Then I found Duane and I bought a pair of shot kickers and started talking with a drawl. My soul was shook. But they were pointing to BB; Muddy and Elmore as was Jimi. But all these stops pointed to the one and its captured on this “vinyl”. Modern ears and technology might prefer today’s versions (and why wouldn't you love SRV and Duane) but by going home and sitting with Mr Johnson you’ll love it all that much more. Get the original and you get and appreciate better what followed. After 50 years of listening to the blues and jazz, I have revisited this album and like a good wine or story it is better with time and I appreciate it in a clearer way. Wonderful!

Man my soul just twinges when I listen to this magic man play. Sweet sweet sound. Pure. From the heart, energy that is timeless. Real music, you just don’t know unless you have heard it. Thank you RJ

Doesn’t matter, it don’t get better than this in any format

Regardless of the number of rock stars who were enamored with this obviously talented vocalist and guitar player, didn’t he essentially sing the SAME song with different words in numerous reincarnations? A “one trick pony” with an exceptionally great “one trick” deserves recognition and respect so that’s worth at least 2 1/2 stars out of 5. I know, it’s a different era (pre WWII) and what I find most striking about him is that you can hear the terrible effects of the “American experience” in his voice. Lots of deep-down multi-generational suffering, pain, sorrow, and other emotions going on. Many people say that ALL the rivers of American modern music flow back to him which is narrow-minded B.S. — I don’t care how many PhD’s squawk it. Johnson’s one trick IS highly influential (especially to the Blues, Blues-based Rock, Soul, R&B) but he didn’t invent it out of thin air. People have absorbed different musical expressions from the cultures they were exposed to over thousands of years and blended it in with their own. Africans weren’t singing and playing the blues, as we would recognize it, back in Africa before they came to the Western Hemisphere. Only parts of the Blues were remnants of their African past: love of passionate expression and rhythm, among those. So, yes, there’s a lot of Africa in American music over the last 150 years but there’s also a good deal of European, as well as other cultural influences, in what people are citing as the wellspring of modern music — the Blues. “No man is an island unto himself.”

If you dont have any robert johnson yet, get this. One of my favroite records i have

is dope as hell. You can really jam to stuff, even if people think the company sped up a lot of his playing. Good collection of his music, in fact if I'm not mistaken it's all of his music ever recorded.

I like this, but if you want the best deal you can get buy the complete recordings and the alternate take of traveling riverside blues(only on this album). only 20 dollars for all his recordings he ever had(at least all that we've found so far).

This has to one of the greatest Delta Blues pieces ever recorded... Robert Johnson transports a body to another time and place... Earwig

Just do yourself a favor and buy this. This is where rock all started. Before MTV, VH1, commercialism and big bucks for a hit record. Just a guy singing the truth and strumming an old guitar in a recording studio somewhere long ago. He made his niche, carved out of the southern delta blues. You can almost hear the old walls talking back in these recordings. It's not a perfectly clean, polished recording but you don't want it to be. Close you eyes, turn it on, turn it up and feel the blues. Clapton did and look how he turned out!