By Tony Attwood
With my personal review of some of the songs in Theme Time Radio Hour we have reached “The Devil”, and when I came to this episode, without looking back at Bob’s selection of songs, I immediately thought of Robert Johnson, and of course, there he is, as Bob didn’t disappoint.
Of coursel the blues has a very particular story associated with its supposed origins, in that it is said that Robert Johnson sold his sould to the devil in return for the ability to play the guitar. And in regard to this, I rather do like the comment that Google’s AI gave me this morning to the effect that “While popular, the story is largely folklore…” I mean, “largely” folklore? Which is to suggest that there is a part of the tale that is true? I must be more careful with using Wiki for information. Although to be fair, even the Guardian newspaper goes so far as to tell us that it all happened at the “intersection of Highways 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi.” But at least they are not suggesting that even one fraction of the tale is true.
Bob of course, had to include a Robert Johnson song in his collection of songs relating to the Devil, and I’ll come back to that in a moment, for first I want to mention the earliest song in this collection, which comes from 1931. And I want to focus on this as for the blues, it makes a nice change, as it varies the order of the chords from the normal sequence. And as any musician who has listened carefully to the recording and then tried to replicate the guitar playing will testify, the tuning of the guitar is really weird.
But to go back a bit, as we might expect, the first song in Bob’s collection was indeed a Robert Johnson song, “Me and the Devil Blues” from 1936, although some sources quote it as a year later, being recorded in Johnson’s last ever recording session.
The devil tells the singer to wake up, as “it is time to go”. Robert Johnson died in 1938, aged just 27.
The lines below which make up the opening of the final verse are followed by the comment that “I don’t care what you do with my body…”
"You may bury my body down by the highway side So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride.
Of course, Bob’s selection isn’t just made up of recordings from the original blues artists – for he takes us right up to 1987 with Tom Waits “Way Down in the Hole”, with a recording that shows that there is far more to be got out of the 12 bar blues variations than we could ever imagine.
This was recorded in 1987 and really does take us somewhere completely new. The fade out is totally unexpected – at least for me.
But even more recently, we have “Devils Haircut” – which shows we really don’t have to be restricted to 12 bar variations, in these songs. (Or indeed worry about the correct use of apostrophes).
And indeed there was a bit of fun within the songs as well, and I really do want to lighten this selection from Bob’s show a little bit, so my last song taken from Bob’s collection, although being a 12 bar blues, is in a different mood…
The blues has always been associated with the devil, and with the singer being in a bad state of mind. But it is good to find the occasional uplift or at least a bit of fun. The instrumental sections after the sung verse really cheered me up.
Previously in this series
- 1: Happy 20th anniversary, Theme Time Radio Hour. Still offering us fun
- 2: Mother
- 3: Drinking
- 4: Coffee
- 5: Jail
- 6: Father
- 7: Wedding
- 8: Divorce
- 9: Summer
- 10: Flowers
- 11: Why are all the car songs 12 bar blues?
- 12: “Rich Man Poor Man” – the songs of hope and contrast.