78 RPM - Robert Johnson - Love In Vain Blues / Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil) - Vocalion - USA

78 RPM Record

Artist:	Robert Johnson
Label:	Vocalion
Country:	USA
Catalogue:	04630
Date:	9 Feb 1939
Format:	10"
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
Community:	1 Owns, 4 Want
Price Guide:	Valuation Page
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Track	Artist	Title	Composer	Rating
A	Robert Johnson	Love In Vain Blues	Johnson	6.0 Rate
B	Robert Johnson	Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)	Johnson	6.0 Rate

Notes

Blues Singer with Guitar.
Recorded on November 27, 1936, San Antonio, Texas ("Preachin' Blues") and June 20, 1937, Dallas, Texas ("Love In Vain Blues").
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Comments and Reviews


BigBadBluesMan 21st Feb 2015



BigBadBluesMan 21st Feb 2015



fixbutte 25th Aug 2014		Auctioned on eBay in August 2014 (ended Aug 22) but actually not sold despite 44 bids and a last bid of US $30,100.00 (plus shipping $100.00): Reserve price was not met.



fixbutte 12th Aug 2014		Although "Preachin' Blues" is a spectacular showcase, "Love In Vain" is probably Robert Johnson's crowning achievement. Indeed, the melody was taken from Leroy Carr's "When The Sun Goes Down", and Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Dry Southern Blues" had already used the haunting verse, "One train's at the depot with the red and blue lights behind / Well, the blue light's the blues, the red light's the worried mind" some years before. Anyway, this song about the sad end of a love affair was the most beautiful and coherent of all Robert Johnson's compositions, somehow timeless, so it would not stand out among the newly written Jagger/Richards compositions on the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed album in 1969. Robert Johnson's original recording is adequately soulful, much slower than the record's flipside, and highlighted by the last hummed verse with only two moans "Oh, Willie Mae" before the last refrain, “All my love’s in vain" (Willie Mae Powell, the woman for whom the song was supposedly written, was much later traced). The Rolling Stones, by the way, had thought for a long time that the songs on the first King of the Delta Blues Singers album were the only recordings that Robert Johnson had made, and found "Love In Vain" in 1967 or 1968 when a bootleg of the second volume (officially released in 1970) came up.



fixbutte 12th Aug 2014		"Preachin' Blues" was not only one side of the last 78 rpm record released of Robert Johnson, it was also the first recording made available to the a wider public two decades later. As said before, music historian and writer Samuel B. Charters had published his seminal book The Country Blues in 1959, in which he outlined his research into the history of the blues and his search for the bluesmen themselves, and he also compiled a companion album of the same name for Folkway Records. Several of the 14 songs of this album became standards of rock music (e.g. "Key To The Highway", "Statesboro Blues", "Walk Right In"), and "Preachin' Blues" by Robert Johnson was among them, possibly on the recommendation of John Hammond. It is well-known now that "Preachin' Blues" goes back to a song of Johnson's major influence, Son House, whose "Preachin The Blues" includes some very similar lines to Johnson's initial ones, "I's up this mornin', ah, blues walkin' like a man ... / Worried blues give me your right hand". Johnson, however, does not preach the blues but moans about this "low-down shakin' chill" or "low-down achin' heart disease" but he is "gon' drive my blues away / Goin' to the 'stillery / stay out there all day". Much more spectacular than the lyrics is the performance though, as Johnson demonstrates his highly complex artistry on the guitar at breakneck speed, thus puzzling the many listeners of the King of the Delta Blues Singers compilation of 1961, on which "Preachin' Blues" was included as well. Among them was a young Keith Richards who, when first introduced to Johnson's music by Brian Jones, replied, "Yeah, but who's the other guy playing with him?", not realizing it was Johnson alone "because I was hearing two guitars, and it took me a long time to realize he was actually doing it all by himself" (see Robert Johnson as told by Keith Richards).



fixbutte 11th Aug 2014		A-side label replaced, "unknown" B-side added and its label image uploaded, release date and notes added. This twelfth and last original single of Robert Johnson was released only nine months after its predecessor and nearly six months after the artist's premature death. So why was it released then and why was it released at all? It seems that all credit for that belongs to John Hammond, the legendary producer for Columbia Records who sparked and furthered the musical careers of Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and Bob Dylan among many others. When Hammond was organizing the first From Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938, which was going to present a broad program of blues, jazz and gospel artists, he came across the recordings of Robert Johnson for ARC/Vocalion, which labels CBS had purchased in February 1938. Hammond sent someone to the South for Robert Johnson, only to learn of his death a few weeks before (he then chose Big Bill Broonzy in Johnson's place). When the concert took place on December 23, 1938, he still played two of Johnson's recordings to the public, "Walkin' Blues" (Vocalion 03601) and "Preachin' Blues" - which had not been released yet and would only be on this record in February 1939.