Robert Johnson — Unrecorded Repertoire

Robert Johnson is the most mythologised figure in American music. His 29 recorded songs — cut in a San Antonio hotel room in November 1936 and a Dallas warehouse in June 1937 — became the foundation of modern blues, rock and roll, and popular music. But Johnson was a working musician who performed nightly, and his live repertoire far exceeded his recordings. Fellow musicians including Johnny Shines, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, and Robert Lockwood Jr. described hearing Johnson play dozens of songs that were never recorded. Shines, who travelled with Johnson for two years, recalled original compositions, popular songs of the day, and blues that Johnson modified into his own style. Edwards described Johnson as having an enormous working repertoire spanning blues, gospel, hillbilly, and popular songs. The two recording sessions captured only Johnson's most polished originals and a handful of covers. The loss is compounded by the circumstances of Delta blues culture: Johnson could not read or write music, worked in an oral tradition, and performed for audiences who left no written records. When he died on 16 August 1938 — reportedly poisoned by a jealous husband — his unrecorded music died with him, preserved only as fragments in the memories and subsequent recordings of musicians who heard him play.