Editing Robert Johnson (section)

==Legacy==
===Early recognition and reviews===
Famed producer [[John Hammond (record producer)|John Hammond]] was an early advocate of Johnson's music.{{sfn|Perone|2019|p=91}} Using the pen-name Henry Johnson, he wrote his first article on Robert Johnson for the ''[[New Masses]]'' magazine in March 1937, around the time of the release of Johnson's first record. In it, he described Johnson as "the greatest Negro blues singer who has cropped up in recent years{{nbsp}}... Johnson makes [[Lead Belly|Leadbelly]]<!-- Source spells this as one name --> sound like an accomplished poseur."{{sfn|Pearson|McCulloch|2003|p=18}} The following year, Hammond hoped to get Johnson to perform at a December 1938 ''[[From Spirituals to Swing]]'' concert in New York City, as he was unaware that Johnson had died in August.{{sfn|Gioia|2008|p=188}} Instead, Hammond played two of his recordings, "Walkin' Blues" and "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)", for the audience and "praised Johnson lavishly from the stage".{{sfn|Gioia|2008|p=188}} Music historian [[Ted Gioia]] noted "Here, if only through the medium of recordings, Hammond used his considerable influence at this historic event to advocate a position of preeminence for the late Delta bluesman".{{sfn|Gioia|2008|p=188}} Music educator James Perone also saw that the event "underscored Robert Johnson's specific importance as a recording artist".{{sfn|Perone|2019|p=91}} In 1939, Columbia issued a final single, pairing "Preachin' Blues" with "Love in Vain".{{sfn|LaVere|2011|pp=24, 25}}

In 1940, nine of Johnson's songs were included on a "List of American Folk Songs on Commercial Records" prepared by musicologist [[Alan Lomax]] for a U.S. government conference.{{sfn|Lomax|1940|p=131}} Lomax's notations for the entries range from "elaborate sex symbolism" ("Terraplane Blues"), "very nice love song" ("I'm a Steady Rollin' Man"), to "traces of voodoo" ("[[Stones in My Passway]]", "[[Hellhound on My Trail]]", "Cross Road Blues").{{sfn|Lomax|1940|pp=131, 135, 136, 138, 143, 144}} In 1942, commentary on Johnson's "Terraplane Blues" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" appeared in ''The Jazz Record Book'', edited by [[Charles Edward Smith (jazz)|Charles Edward Smith]].{{sfn|Pearson|McCulloch|2003|p=21}} The authors described Johnson's vocals as "imaginative" and "thrilling" and his guitar playing as "exciting as almost anything in the folk blues field".{{sfn|Pearson|McCulloch|2003|p=21}}  Music writer [[Rudi Blesh]] included a review of Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail" in his 1946 book ''Shining Trumpets: a History of Jazz''. He noted the "personal and creative way" Johnson approached the song's harmony.{{sfn|Blesh|1946|p=}} Jim Wilson, then a writer for the ''[[Detroit Free Press]]'', also mentioned his unconventional use of harmony. In a 1949 review, he compared elements of [[John Lee Hooker]]'s recent debut "[[Boogie Chillen]]": "His [Hooker's] dynamic rhythms and subtle nuances on the guitar and his startling disregard for familiar scale and harmony patterns show similarity to the work of Robert Johnson, who made many fine records in this vein".{{sfn|Wilson|1949|p=14}}

[[Samuel Charters]] drew further attention to Johnson in a five-page section in his 1959 book, ''[[The Country Blues (book)|The Country Blues]]''. He focused on the two Johnson recordings that referred to images of the devil or hell{{snd}}"Hellhound on My Trail" and "Me and the Devil Blues"{{snd}}to suggest that Johnson was a deeply troubled individual. Charters also included Johnson's "Preachin' Blues" on [[The Country Blues|the album published alongside his book]].{{sfn|Pearson|McCulloch|2003|pp=24-26}} Columbia Records issued the first album of Johnson's recordings, ''[[King of the Delta Blues Singers]]'' two years later.

===Musicianship===
Johnson is mentioned as one of the Delta artists who was a strong influence on blues singers in post-war styles.{{sfn|Gillett|1972|p=159}} However, it is Johnson's guitar technique that is often identified as his greatest contribution.{{sfn|Komara|2007|p=75}} Blues historian Edward Komara wrote:
{{Blockquote|The execution of a driving bass beat on a [[Plucked string instrument|plectrum instrument]] like the guitar (instead of the piano) is Johnson's most influential accomplishment{{nbsp}}... This is the aspect of his music that most changed the Delta blues practice and is most retained in the blues guitar tradition.{{sfn|Komara|2007|p=75}}}}
This technique has been called a "boogie bass pattern" or "boogie shuffle" and is described as a "fifth–sixth <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Degree (music)|degrees]] of a [[major scale]]<nowiki>]</nowiki> oscillation above the [[Root (chord)|root chord]]".{{sfn|Perone|2019|p=92}} Sometimes, it has been attributed to [[Johnnie Temple]], because he was the first to record a song in 1935 using it.{{sfn|Conforth|Wardlow|2019|p=127}} However, Temple confirmed that he had learned the technique from Johnson: "He was the first one I ever heard use it{{nbsp}}... It was similar to a piano boogie bass [which] I learned from R. L. [Johnson] in '32 or '33".{{sfn|Conforth|Wardlow|2019|p=127}} [[Johnny Shines]] added: "Some of the things that Robert did with the guitar affected the way everybody played. In the early thirties, boogie was rare on the guitar, something to be heard".{{sfn|Guralnick|1998|loc=eBook}} Conforth and Wardlow call it "one of the most important riffs in blues music"{{sfn|Conforth|Wardlow|2019|p=127}} and music historian [[Peter Guralnick]] believes Johnson "popularized a mode [walking bass style on guitar] which would rapidly become the accepted pattern".{{sfn|Guralnick|1998|loc=eBook}} Although author [[Elijah Wald]] recognizes Johnson's contribution in popularizing the innovation, he discounts its importance{{sfn|Wald|2004|p=137}} and adds, "As far as the evolution of black music goes, Robert Johnson was an extremely minor figure, and very little that happened in the decades following his death would have been affected if he had never played a note".{{sfn|Wald|2004|p=XV}}

===Contemporaries===
Johnson's contemporaries, including [[Johnny Shines]], [[Johnnie Temple]], [[Henry Townsend (musician)|Henry Townsend]], [[Robert Lockwood Jr.]], [[Calvin Frazier]], and [[David "Honeyboy" Edwards]] were among those who kept his music alive through performing his songs and using his guitar techniques.{{sfn|Komara|2007|pp=68–69}} Fellow Mississippi native [[Elmore James]] is the best known and is responsible for popularizing Johnson's "Dust My Broom".{{sfn|Rubin|2015|loc=eBook}} In 1951, he recast the song as a Chicago-style blues, with electric slide guitar and a backing band.{{sfn|Palmer|1981|p=214}} According to blues historian Gerard Herhaft:
{{Blockquote|Johnson's influence upon Elmore James's music always remained powerful: his falsetto voice, almost shrill, and the intensive use of the "walking" bass notes of the boogie-woogie, several pieces of James' repertoire were borrowed from Johnson (e.g, "Dust My Broom", "Rambling on My Mind", and "Crossroads").{{sfn|Herzhaft|1992|p=162}}}}
James' version is identified as "one of the first recorded examples of what was to become the classic Chicago shuffle beat".{{sfn|Charters|1973|p=29}} The style often associated with Chicago blues was used extensively by [[Jimmy Reed]] beginning with his first record "High and Lonesome" in 1953.{{sfn|Romano|2006|p=48}} Sometimes called "the trademark Reed shuffle" (although also associated his second guitarist, [[Eddie Taylor]]),{{sfn|Romano|2006|p=149}} it is the figure Johnson used updated for electric guitar.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=184}}

===Blues standards===
Several of Johnson's songs became [[blues standards]], which is used to describe blues songs that have been widely performed and recorded over a period of time and are seen as having a lasting quality.{{sfn|Herzhaft|1992|p=435}}{{sfn|Barrett|Garcia|2010|p=73}} Perone notes "That such a relatively high percentage of the songs attributed to him became blues standards also keeps the legacy of Robert Johnson alive".{{sfn|Perone|2019|p=92}} Those most often identified are "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Dust My Broom", but also include "Crossroads" and "[[Stop Breaking Down]]".{{sfn|Guralnick|1998|loc=eBook}}{{sfn|Wald|2004|p=188}}{{sfn|Herzhaft|1992|pp=443–444, 457, 467}}{{sfn|Milward|2013|loc=eBook}}{{sfn|Koda|1996|p=140}}{{sfn|Palmer|1981|p=125}} As with many blues songs, there are melodic and lyrical precedents.{{sfn|Milward|2013|loc=eBook}} While "Sweet Home Chicago" borrows from [[Kokomo Arnold]]'s 1933 "Old Original Kokomo Blues", "Johnson's lyrics made the song a natural for Chicago bluesmen, and it's his version that survived in the repertoires of performers like [[Magic Sam]], Robert Lockwood, and [[Junior Parker]]".{{sfn|Palmer|1981|p=128}}

In the first decades after Johnsons' death, these songs, with some variations in the titles and lyrics, were recorded by [[Tommy McClennan]] (1939),{{sfn|Wald|2004|p=134}} [[Walter Davis (blues)|Walter Davis]] (1941),{{sfn|Wald|2004|p=134}} [[Sonny Boy Williamson I]] (1945),{{sfn|Herzhaft|1992|p=443}} [[Arthur Crudup]] (1949),<ref>{{Cite web| url =https://www.allmusic.com/album/complete-recorded-works-vol-2-1946-1949-mw0000124645| last = Yanow| first = Scott| title = Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup: ''Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2 (1946-1949)''{{snd}}Review| website = [[AllMusic]]| access-date = October 24, 2021}}</ref> [[Texas Alexander]] (1950),<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.goldminemag.com/articles/go-down-to-the-crossroads-with-bluesman-robert-johnson |last=Sliwicki |first=Susan |date=September 13, 2011 |title=Go Down to the 'Crossroads' with Bluesman Robert Johnson |website=[[Goldmine (magazine)|Goldmine]] |access-date=July 24, 2023}}</ref> Elmore James (1951–1959), [[Baby Boy Warren]] (1954),<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://www.allmusic.com/album/detroit-blues-blues-from-the-motor-city-1938-1954-mw0000633441 | last = Brown| first = Marisa| title = Various Artists: ''Detroit Blues: Blues from the Motor City 1938-1954''{{snd}}Review| website = [[AllMusic]]| access-date = October 24, 2021}}</ref> [[Roosevelt Sykes]] (1955),<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://www.allmusic.com/album/complete-recorded-works-vol-10-1951-1957-mw0000108289| last = arwulf<!-- Stylized without caps -->| first = arwulf| title = Roosevelt Sykes: ''Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 10 (1951-1957)''{{snd}}Review| website = [[AllMusic]]| access-date = October 24, 2021}}</ref> Junior Parker (1958), and [[Forest City Joe]] (1959).<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://www.allmusic.com/album/sounds-of-the-south-4-cds-mw0000619631| last = Planer| first = Lindsay| title = Various Artists: ''Sounds of the South [4 CDs]''{{snd}}Review| website = [[AllMusic]]| access-date = October 21, 2021}}</ref> Pearson and McCulloch believe that "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Dust My Broom" in particular connect Johnson to "the rightful inheritors of his musical ideas—big-city African American artists whose high-powered, electrically amplified blues remain solidly in touch with Johnson's musical legacy" at the time of Columbia's first release of a full album of his songs in 1961.{{sfn|Pearson|McCulloch|2003|p=28}}

In [[Jim O'Neal]]'s statement when Johnson was inducted into the [[Blues Foundation]] [[Blues Hall of Fame]], he identified "Hell Hound on My Trail", "Sweet Home Chicago", "Dust My Broom", "Love in Vain", and "Crossroads" as Johnson's classic recordings.<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://blues.org/blues_hof_inductee/robert-johnson/| author-link = Jim O'Neal| date = November 10, 2016| title = 1980 Hall of Fame Inductees: Robert Johnson| website = [[Blues Foundation|Blues.org]]| access-date = October 25, 2021}}</ref> Over the years, these songs have been individually inducted into the Blues Hall's "Classic of Blues Recording{{snd}}Single or Album Track" category, as well as "Come On in My Kitchen" and "Terraplane Blues".<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://blues.org/awards/| author = <!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->| date = n.d.| title = Award Winners and Nominees: Robert Johnson{{snd}}Classic of Blues Recording - Single or Album Track| website = [[Blues Foundation|Blues.org]]| access-date = October 25, 2021}}</ref>

===Rock music===
In the mid-1950s, rock and roll pioneer [[Chuck Berry]] adapted the boogie pattern on guitar for his songs "[[Roll Over Beethoven]]" and "[[Johnny B. Goode]]".{{sfn|Rubin|2015|loc=eBook}} Author Dave Rubin commented:
{{Blockquote|his [Berry's] utilization of the bass-string cut-boogie patterns popularized by Robert Johnson on songs like "Sweet Home Chicago"{{nbsp}}... subtly altered the swing feel of the boogie blues into a more driving, straight 4/4 meter while still maintaining a limber lilt that is often missing in the countless imitations that followed.{{sfn|Rubin|2015|loc=eBook}}}}
The pattern "became one of the signature figures in early electric guitar-based rock and roll, such as that of Chuck Berry and the numerous rock musicians of the 1960s who were influenced by Berry", according to Perone.{{sfn|Perone|2019|p=90}} Although music historian Larry Birnbaum also sees the connection, he wrote that Johnson's "contributions to the origins of rock 'n' roll are negligible".{{sfn|Birnbaum|2013|pp=78, 380}} The [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] inducted Johnson as an early influence in its first induction ceremony, in 1986, almost a half century after his death. It also included four of his songs it deemed to have shaped the genre: "Sweet Home Chicago", "Cross Road Blues", "Hellhound on My Trail", and "Love in Vain".<ref name="Rockhall">{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockhall.com/exhibithighlights/500-songs-gj/|title=500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll G-J|year=1995|website=[[The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame|Rockhall.com]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080822050749/http://www.rockhall.com/exhibithighlights/500-songs-gj/|archive-date=August 22, 2008|access-date=October 30, 2020}}</ref> [[Marc Meyers]], of the ''[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]'', commented, "His 'Stop Breakin' Down Blues' from 1937 is so far ahead of its time that the song could easily have been a rock demo cut in 1954".<ref name="Myers"/>

Several rock artists describe Johnson as an influence:
* [[Eric Clapton]]{{snd}}"Robert Johnson to me is the most important blues musician who ever lived".{{sfn|LaVere|1990|p=23}} He recorded several of Johnson's songs as well as an entire tribute album, ''[[Me and Mr. Johnson]]'' (2004).<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1798862| title = Eric Clapton Takes on Robert Johnson's Blues: Guitarist Records the 'Powerful' Music that Influenced Him| date = March 30, 2004| website = [[Npr.org]]| access-date = October 27, 2021}}</ref> Clapton feels that rather than trying to recreate Johnson's originals, "I was trying to extract as much emotional content from it as I could, while respecting the form at the same time".{{sfn|LaVere|1990|p=23}}
* [[Bob Dylan]]{{snd}}"In about 1964 and '65, I probably used about five or six of Robert Johnson's blues song forms, too, unconsciously, but more on the lyrical imagery side of things. If I hadn't heard the Robert Johnson record when I did, there probably would have been hundreds of lines of mine that would have been shut down—that I wouldn't have felt free enough or upraised enough to write. [His] code of language was like nothing I'd heard before or since".{{sfn|Dylan|2004|pp=287–288}}
* [[Robert Plant]]{{snd}}"A lot of English musicians were very fired up by Robert Johnson [to] whom we all owe more or less our existence, I guess, in some way".<ref>{{Cite AV media| people = [[Terry Gross]]| date = August 24, 2004| title = Former Led Zeppelin Singer Robert Plant| type = Radio interview| url = https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3868283| access-date = October 27, 2021| time = 9:05| publisher = [[Npr.org]]}}</ref> [[Led Zeppelin]] recorded "[[Traveling Riverside Blues]]" and quoted some of Johnson's lyrics in "[[The Lemon Song]]".<ref>{{Cite web
| url = https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2011/05/06/136023215/youve-never-heard-robert-johnsons-complete-recordings| last = Degennaro| first = Catherine| title = You've Never Heard Robert Johnson's 'Complete Recordings'?!| date = May 6, 2011| website = [[Npr.org]]| access-date = October 27, 2021}}</ref>
*[[Keith Richards]]{{snd}}"I've never heard anybody before or since use the [blues] form and bend it so much to make it work for himself{{nbsp}}... he came out with such compelling themes [and] just the way they were treated, apart from the music and the performance, [was appealing]."{{sfn|LaVere|1990|pp=22–23}} The [[Rolling Stones]] recorded "Love in Vain" and "Stop Breaking Down".{{sfn|Marcus|2015|p=196}}
*[[Johnny Winter]]{{snd}}"Robert Johnson knocked me out—he was a genius. [He and Son House] both were big influences on my acoustic slide playing."{{sfn|Sullivan|2010|p=26}} He recorded "Dust My Broom" with additional guitar by [[Derek Trucks]].<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://www.allmusic.com/album/roots-mw0002190165| last = Leggett| first = Steve| title = Johnny Winter: ''Roots''{{snd}}Review| website = [[AllMusic]]| access-date = October 27, 2021}}</ref>