ROBERT JOHNSON - The Best of (LP)

It is an extraordinary story, the very stuff of legend. A country blues singer with a career shrouded in mystery, who died in his twenties, whose entire recorded output numbered fewer than thirty songs which hardly sold any copies during his short lifetime, has become regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century. He was the progenitor of the brand of Chicago blues which became popular after the war, while bluesmen such as Muddy Waters and Elmore James together with musicians like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones have frequently acknowledged their debt to him. If details of Robert Johnson’s life are shadowy, there is nothing at all indistinct about his music, which is full of the most elemental power imaginable. Obviously a driven man, he attempted to exorcise his demons through the medium of his songs in a unique way.