This is my first time day on this site, and I really like what I see, as I've loved blues music ever since I was a kid. During my 20 years as a staff editor for Guitar Player magazine, I was lucky to interview many of the original bluesmen as well as modern bluesmen and rock musicians who cover their songs. It's been an interesting journey! I've recently been sharing a lot of my research on my new website at
http://jasobrecht.com/One interview that always stood out to me was a conversation with Ry Cooder where he was talking about Blind Willie Johnson and then suddenly shifted gears to Robert Johnson.
The liner notes for Columbia's first Robert Johnson LP, 1961's "King of the Delta Blues Singers," provided one of the enduring images of the mysterious bluesman when producer Don Law was quoted as saying: ?Embarrassed and suffering from a bad case of stage fright, Johnson turned his face to the wall, his back to the Mexican musicians. Eventually he calmed down sufficiently to play, but he never faced his audience.? Cooder up-ends this notion. His view? Robert Johnson faced the wall because he intuitively understood the acoustic principle of "corner loading." Anyway, I thought some of you may enjoy reading the whole conversation, which also touches on Tampa Red, Blind Blake, Sleepy John Estes, and others. You can read it here:
http://jasobrecht.com/ry-cooder-%e2%80%93-talking-country-blues-and-gospel/
