This page contains Blind Willie Johnson songs, albums and video links. Music profile for Blind Willie Johnson with events, tracks, videos, pictures, lyrics and band information.
"Blind" Willie Johnson (January 22, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an United States|American singer and guitarist whose music straddled the border between blues music|blues and spirituals. While the lyrics of all of his songs were religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions. Among musicians, he is considered one of the greatest slide guitar|slide or bottleneck guitar|bottleneck guitarists, as well as one of the most revered figures of Great Depression|depression-era gospel music. His music is distinguished by his powerful bass thumb-picking and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.
Life
Blind Willie Johnson was born in 1897 near Brenham, Texas (before the discovery of his death certificate, Temple, Texas had been suggested as his birthplace). When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher, and then made himself a cigar box guitar. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried soon after her death.<ref name="Charters, 1993, p. 11">Charters, 1993, p. 11.</ref>
Johnson was not born Blindness|blind, and, although it is not known how he lost his sight, Angeline Johnson provided the following account to Samuel Charters. She said when Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man. The stepmother the... read all
