1930s
His album
Eric says: I recently watched There Will be Blood for the third time and once again, I was completely transported to another universe with its own rules, norms, and culture. Whether it’s being absorbed by the strange world of the 1950s south in Flannery O’Connor’s stories or immersing myself into Daniel Plainview’s world of the early 20th century, for whatever reason, I’m completely transfixed by an America that I know very little about from a first-hand perspective (even if it is fictionalized). It’s an America of hard, rural living, where people are worried less about their credit card bills and promotions and more about a ever-present danger that lurks behind every decision. Robert Johnson fits squarely into this intrigue. His songs aren’t ones you listen to on the subway or while walking down a noisy city street. It feels wrong and totally incongruous to do so. Instead, you need to give your full attention to these recordings and immerse yourself in his world of the 1930s south. These performances are full of pain, passion and most all, are alive. You feel these songs in your gut. With nothing but an acoustic guitar and Johnson's strange, high-pitched voice, these very dusty, one-track recordings are completely captivating. Despite being of a completely foreign time and place, these songs affect me in a way that is hard to put into words. While these songs are a product of a very specific time and place, they also live on in our very different age.
I also have to say, from a guitarist perspective, Johnson’s style of simultaneously finger-picking and playing slide and his use the high strings for melodic emphasis and the low stings for rhythm is just ingenious. It’s a method I’ve tried throughout college when I first bought this record to predictably embarrassing effect.
Anouche says: This is a good album to have if you want to impress your friends with your knowledge of blues or you just really like straight-ahead, old-fashioned blues. The recordings are really low-fi, just vocals over acoustic guitar with an airy crackle in the background. There’s something refreshing about the simplicity of the songs and recordings. And there are some clever lyrics such as “You can squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg. Know what I’m talking about?” Yeah, we get it. Good album, but not really my thing. If you happened to put this on at just the right moment I would really enjoy it (maybe somewhere rural during a cross country car trip in the summer), but I wouldn’t put this on for a listen on a regular basis.
Stop Breaking Down Blues
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