“Mother’s Children Have A Hard Time” - Blind Willie Johnson (1927)
Since it is Sunday I thought that I would post another spiritual. This Sunday’s spiritual comes from the incomparable Blind Willie Johnson.
Blind Willie Johnson was quite simply the greatest bottleneck or “slide” guitarist in the history of the universe. I have never heard another slide guitarist who even remotely came close to touching Willie Johnson. Johnson handled his guitar and “slide” like a surgeon handles his scalpel. Every note that Johnson played was played with pinpoint precision. For those of you who don’t play the guitar playing slide guitar might seem easy but it’s really not. It takes a lot of practice and skill to accurately hit notes and maintain intonation while performing fast slides. Blind Willie Johnson made these tasks seem effortless. Willie Johnson also possessed one of the most distinctive voices in all of early American roots music. He sang in a gravelly voice that perfectly suited his religious lyrics. Musically Johnson drew on both blues and sacred music but he always refused to sing blues and instead sang only religious songs.
Blind Willie Johnson was born near Brenham, Texas in 1897. 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.
Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not known how he lost his sight, Willie’s second wife 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 then picked up a handful of lye and threw it, not at Willie’s father, but into the face of young Willie.
Johnson remained poor until the end of his life, preaching and singing in the streets of Beaumont, Texas to anyone who would listen. A city directory shows that in 1944, a Rev W J Johnson, undoubtedly Blind Willie, operated the House of Prayer at 1440 Forrest Street, Beaumont, Texas. This is the same address listed on Blind Willie’s death certificate. In 1945, his home burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed. He lived like this until he contracted pneumonia two weeks later, and died. In a later interview his wife said she tried to take him to a hospital but they refused to admit him because he was black, while other sources report that, according to Johnson’s wife, his refusal was due to his blindness. Although there is some dispute as to where his grave is, members of the Beaumont community have committed to finding the site and preserving it.
Johnson recorded 30 songs in five separate sessions for Columbia Records between 1927 And 1930. On some of these recordings Johnson uses a fast rhythmic picking style, while on others he plays slide guitar. According to a reputed one-time acquaintance, Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959), Johnson played with a brass ring, although other sources cite him using a knife. The only known photograph of Johnson does not reveal any fretting instrument.
As far as I can tell “Mother’s Children Have A Hard Time” was recorded in 1927 for the “Columbia” label. It was later covered by Eric Clapton as “Motherless Children” on his “461 Ocean Boulevard” album. Johnson’s other songs have been covered by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin,The Grateful Dead, Beck, The White Stripes, and Nick Cave among many others.
