Blind Willie Johnson was a Texas ‘guitar evangelist’ who performed in a style that has recently come to be described as ‘holy blues’ or ‘gospel blues.’ Those terms may not have been appreciated by some of the good Christians who sought to differentiate themselves from the blues – –the milieu of the devil, they said —but the similarities between blues and gospel music have always been striking. Fans (and players) of blues guitar have long appreciated the music of master guitarists like Johnson or the Rev. Gary Davis in the gospel realm. In a recording like ‘Dark Was the Night Cold Was the Ground,’ which has no lyrics ‘ only Johnson’s hums and moans, the beauty of Johnson’s slide guitar work and the pure emotion of the performance transcend questions of genre definition. It is regarded as such a quintessential representation of earthly ‘ if unearthly’ sound that NASA selected it as one of the immortal pieces of global music to be launched into space aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1977 on the Golden Record (‘Earth’s greeting to the universe’). Both Johnson’s original and Ry Cooder’s cover (‘Dark Is the Night’) have also been used in movie soundtracks.
Blind Willie Johnson, humming, moaning and guitar. Recorded December 3, 1927, Dallas, Texas. Released on Columbia 14303-D; rereleased on Vocalion 03095 (both 78 rpm).
Discographical details from Blues and Gospel Records 1890-1943.
— Jim O’Neal