For blues fans in or near Pittsburgh

[Heel n Toe]

No, this does not have anything to do with the Ravens game, although that made me sad. But I hope any Steelers fans here at least got to see Byron Leftwich's TD run. Heh heh... it was beautiful... find a highlight reel on YouTube if you missed it.

Most of you in the area have probably already heard about this, but just in case...
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Music store owner finds rare Robert Johnson record
The Associated Press
Published Friday, Nov. 16, 2012 7:03PM EST

PITTSBURGH -- A record store owner has found what he calls "the holy grail of 78s" in a box of old albums he picked up for $50.

Jerry Weber said he discovered a copy of the second song ever recorded by Mississippi blues legend Robert Johnson, "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom," put to disc two years before Johnson's mysterious death in 1938 at age 27.

The rarity, whose value Weber pegged at $6,000 to $12,000, was tucked in a collection of otherwise worthless, water-damaged old platters that sat in a hallway at Jerry's Records for days before anyone looked at them.

"I saw one 30 years ago that was broke," Weber told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "and I saw one that a friend of mine found and let me hold before he sold it. It's the most expensive record I've ever found, and it's in real nice shape."

Johnson was an itinerant singer and guitarist from Hazlehurst, Miss., whose landmark recordings would influence a generation of rock 'n' roll icons, including Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones. Little is known about his life and death. In popular legend, Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at a Mississippi Delta crossroads in return for an extraordinary ability to sing and play the blues.

Weber said the "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" record he found is in good shape.

Collector John Tefteller, who specializes in rare blues and jazz records, estimates there are perhaps 15 to 30 copies of the record in existence in that condition.

"There's not a huge market for something like that," he said. "Yes, it's rare, but you could count on your hands and toes the number of people who would buy it for a few thousand dollars."

Weber doesn't plan to sell it, at least not right away. His son, Willie Weber, will play it for customers at 2 p.m. every Saturday until the end of the year at his adjacent record store.


Read more: Music store owner finds rare Robert Johnson record | CP24.com

[Heel n Toe]

Hmmm... looks like the "more" was deleted.
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The very brief Robert Johnson saga is fraught with mythology, solid information (thanks to new research) and ample debate. He was born in southern Mississippi in 1911 and by the late 40's played mediocre harmonica and guitar, as top bluesmen like Son House remembered. The legend takes over at this point. It's said Johnson went to a Delta crossroads with his guitar and "sold his soul to the Devil," who in return, made him a great musician. After disappearing for a while, he returned to blow Son and his musical partner Willie Brown away with these supposedly Satanically-endowed talents.

Dramatic. Romantic. And since Son House himself told the tale, it titillates the uninformed, including many casual tourists visiting the Mississippi Blues Trail. It's also pure BS. Hard work during his disappearance (back to the area of his birth), listening to other blues players (and their records) plus relentless guitar practice allowed Johnson to excel and dazzle Son, Willie and plenty of others. It's worth noting that surviving contemporaries recall a musician so versatile he could sing pop songs, cowboy or country numbers and play polkas.

He first recorded in San Antonio in 1936 for ARC or American Recording, Vocalion's parent company (later absorbed by Columbia Records). He did another session in Dallas in 1937. The producer was Don Law, who in the 50's and 60's produced tons of country hits for Columbia Records in Nashville.

In his life, Johnson never had "hits," but his records got around and impressed people beyond the South, including the famous jazz producer-promoter John Hammond, who discovered Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Dylan, Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1938 Hammond wanted to bring Johnson to New York to perform in his "Spirituals to Swing" concerts featuring blues, jazz and gospel.

By then, Johnson singer was dead, taken ill while playing at a joint near Greenwood, Mississippi on August 16. The most popular story involves his being drinking booze poisoned by a jealous husband; other accounts hint at syphilis as the culprit. Since Johnson's actual physical grave site is unknown, it's sure to remain a mystery.

The best book on Johnson's music, one that de-mythologizes and gets to the truth is Elijah Wald's Escaping The Delta: Robert Johnson and The Invention of the Blues. As Wald declares, "Along with songs learned from recordings and other players, Johnson had a rare ability to create his own material." That's true.

Case in point: Johnson did not create "Dust My Broom" out of wholecloth, but by fusing his original ideas with bits from other blues recordings (commonplace then and now in all pop music genres). Moreover, it wasn't Johnson's record that made "Broom" a staple in blues and rock. That happened 15 years later, in 1951, when singer and amplified slide guitarist Elmore James recorded a version for the Lillian McMurry's Trumpet label in Jackson, Mississippi that hit the R&B charts in 1952. Johnson's old Mississippi friend Sonny Boy Williamson (# 2) is on harmonica.

James improved on the Johnson guitar riff and recorded many versions and variations over the years). A slew of other bluesmen, not to mention Eric Clapton, original Rolling Stone Brian Jones, Mike Bloomfield, George Thorogood and Johnny Winter were among the many who drew from James's style. Today, "Dust My Broom's" slide riffs and chugging rhythm are staples of basic blues and rock guitar.

As for Johnson, after Clapton, the Rolling Stones (who covered Johnson's "Love In Vain") and many others made him a blues icon in the late 60's, mythology ruled. The 1986 movie Crossroads was based on the Johnson legend.

CBS Records, not yet part of Sony, released the two-CD Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings box set in 1990. It won a Grammy for Best Historical Album and to everyone's amazement, the set was blowing out of record stores (you remember those, don't you?) at a phenomenal rate. Duly impressed with the sales figures, some guileless souls in Columbia's sales department, knowing absolutely nothing about the artist, naively asked if it were possible to get Robert to do in-store appearances to promote the set. Really. It was funny then, too.

[Aggie93]

Dropping hints for the gift exchange?

Story I saw last week said the record store owner paid $50 for the box(es) of records. Not a bad ROI.