Tommy Johnson (1896 - 1956)
Big Road Blues
“Tommy Johnson was an American Delta blues musician who recorded in the late 1920s and was known for his eerie falsetto voice and intricate guitar playing. He was unrelated to the blues musician Robert Johnson.” (I love that they specified that haha)
In 1928, he made his first recordings, with McCoy, for Victor Records, including "Canned Heat Blues" and “Big Road Blues”, which is the song I chose to transcribe for this installment.
“Johnson recorded two further sessions, for Victor in August 1928 and for Paramount Records in December 1929. He did not record again, mistakenly believing that he had signed away his right to record. Some suggest he had been intentionally given this misimpression by people at Paramount Records. This resulted in a legal settlement with the Mississippi Sheiks, who had used the melody of Johnson's "Big Road Blues" in their successful "Stop and Listen". Johnson was party to the copyright settlement but was too drunk at the time to understand what he had signed.”
These guys sure had interesting lives (to say the least).
Here’s the 1928 recording of Big Road Blues. As many of the blues tunes, this one’s in Drop D tuning (DADGBE).
Here’s a nice alternate version played by Ben Powell on a beautiful resonator guitar.
For the transcription I actually used the two instructional videos below.
The original recording is quite difficult to hear in detail and it sounds like there are actually 2 guitars or 1 guitar and 1 piano (or it’s the magic of Tommy Johnson that makes it seem like that… and/or the recording quality).
So below you can find a little mash-up of these two versions.
In other news, the band 1960’s band Canned Heat took their name after the song “Canned Heat Blues”, which was about drinking methanol from the cooking fuel, Sterno during prohibition.
The 1968 song “On The Road Again” was also inspired by “Big Road Blues”.
Grab the pdf here and until next time!
