Blind Willie Johnson

Blind Willie Johnson was a gospel-blues guitarist and singer whose recordings rank among the most powerful and transcendent in American music. Blinded as a child (reportedly when his stepmother threw lye in his face), he became a street-corner evangelist who recorded 30 sides for Columbia Records between 1927 and 1932. His rough, growling vocal style and extraordinary slide guitar technique produced recordings ('Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,' 'John the Revelator,' 'Soul of a Man,' 'It's Nobody's Fault but Mine') that defy easy categorization as either blues or gospel. 'Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,' an almost entirely wordless performance of devastating emotional depth, was selected by Carl Sagan for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Record sent into interstellar space in 1977. His wife and singing partner, Angeline Johnson (later Morrison), appears on several of his recordings. Johnson died of malarial fever in 1945 in Beaumont, Texas; accounts of his final circumstances, including the widely repeated story of a house fire, are murkier than commonly presented.