Sweet Home Chicago
On the first day of his historic recording career, 25-year-old Robert Johnson sat before a microphone in Room 414 of a San Antonio hotel and recorded a song that would outlive him by centuries. "Sweet Home Chicago" was...
On the first day of his historic recording career, 25-year-old Robert Johnson sat before a microphone in Room 414 of a San Antonio hotel and recorded a song that would outlive him by centuries. "Sweet Home Chicago" was Johnson's upbeat adaptation of older blues tunes like "Kokomo Blues." He anchored the track with a propulsive, walking bassline on his acoustic guitar, singing with an urgent, yearning voice about escaping to a geographical fantasy of California via Chicago. It eventually evolved into the ultimate, inescapable jamming standard for every electric blues band on the planet.