A Tale Both Old and New

The blues genre is filled with fantastical and colourful characters. Some are so fantastical they enter the realm of myth.

Most people- blues fans and non blues fans alike- are familiar with the mythology that surrounds Robert Johnson and his famous midnight rendezvous at the crossroads with the devil himself. His subsequent rise to blues legend and the circumstances surrounding his mysterious death are still debated today. Was he poisoned –down on all fours and barking like a dog? Had the devil come to collect his due? It’s the stuff of Hollywood movies.

As it turns out Robert Johnson wasn’t the only name scratched on the Satan’s calendar. Long before Robert Johnson’s nefarious meeting, blues pioneer Tommy Johnson (no relation) claimed to have gone to a crossroads a little before midnight. He'd been playing for a short time when a large black man walked and took his guitar, tuned it, then gave it back. For the mastery of the guitar Tommy had given up his everlasting soul.

Beyond the mythology however is a very real and human story of self destruction. Johnson’s story wouldn’t seem out of place in modern entertainment tabloids. Everyday we hear of talented musician’s hell bent on self destruction. One only need point to Amy Winehouse and her current struggles or the tragic lives of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain or Shannon Hoon. The list goes on.

One of my favorite Delta blues songs has always been “Canned Heat Blues” by Tommy Johnson. I really had no idea what it was about or what the title refers to. I just dug the quirky groove. Other than in reference to the sixties blues/rock band -I had never even heard the term used before.

As my interest in Blues music grew over the years I began to read more about it. I eventually learned that “Canned Heat“ was the end result of a process of straining the alcohol out of the popular portable cooking fuel Sterno. This was a common and potentially lethal practice amongst the harder-living men of Prohibition times.

If the Devil came to collect his due from Johnson- he did it in a slow and torturous fashion. The songs “Canned Heat Blues” and “Alcohol and Jake Blues” are testaments to that. They are agonizing howls from a man in the cast-iron grip of alcohol addiction. Johnson’s alcoholism was so absolute he was also known to drink Bay Rum(aftershave), shoe polish and Solo(paint thinners). Ledell Johnson, in an interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, said this of his brother
"Tom, he was already embalmed before he died.”

Ishmon Bracey a former blues musician turned minister and contemporary of Johnson, tells a heart-wrenching story of the last time he saw Johnson alive (audio clip below). Bracey’s story of redemption would not to be Tommy’s to share unfortunately. Tommy Johnson died on November 1st, 1956.


(Audio clip from companion CD/"Chasin'That Devil Music" by Gayle Dean Wardlow)