Hanging with an old fave

...just playing one of my favorite songs, Love in Vain, by Robert Johnson, who is also one of my most-loved bluesmen. Love in Vain is a deceptively simple song about his girl taking him to the train and putting him on it, bags and all, and how lonesome and crazy he is to be leaving. My favorite stanza -

When the train/it left the station/'t was two lights on behind/well/the blue light was my blues/and the red light was my mind/all my love's in vain

I'm just an enamored with his legend as I am with his voice and his playing. He's part of the Crossroads legend, where it was thought one could go and sell one's soul to the devil in exchange for the skill one wanted to master, a legend I didn't know was West African/Caribbean until recently:

In West African and Caribbean lore, the crossroads is an intersection of dimensions as well as of roads, a place where the world of the dead and the world of the living have contact. The governing spirit is Legba, the guardian of doorways and mirrors, of all crossings, a trickster deity whose function is to interpret communication between humans and the other gods.

And on Robert Johnson's talent, specifically:

His playing was a juxtaposition of shuffling rhythms and slide guitar leads that dwarfed the playing of his contemporaries. Some believed that Johnson had met the Devil at the Crossroads and exchanged his soul for his extraordinary ability. Although Johnson's songs were derivative of other musicians', they display a personal approach to familiar themes of loss, isolation, and paranoia, while introducing diabolical references.

He was poisoned not long after recording 29 incredible songs, most stories claim over a married woman (not, of course, married to him). One website, though, claims he died of complications from syphillis - not quite as romantic, but doesn't that put him in the company of Shelley, Keats, and possibly Mozart?

His story and the stories in his music are so uniquely American, they make me want to hop in an old Chevy and hit the road southbound, eat hamburgers and drink shakes and weat cutoff jeans. I think of all the great jazz and blues I've heard live - no one better than Mike Powers and Powder Keg in NYC, but plenty of other greats - and the way they channel the history of this country is like no other kind of music. Off, to download more...