Ses the corpse, \u201cHey Robert, I got black, boot-black, soil under my back and\u00a0night-black sky above like you. But you got blood about your body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ses Johnson, \u201cStay outa my ears crossroad creature. I\u2019m movin on\u2026 just\u00a0\u2018cidin which way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ses the scrape-voice creature, \u201cWhich ever you choose, you in a walkin\u00a0blues, rambling on your mind, travelling riverside blues from four until late,\u00a0wishin for a kind hearted woman\u2026 An all the time your love in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ses Robert Johnson, \u201cShake my shoes of you! Stamp the ground on you! Fill\u00a0your mouth with stone! Make you hush in your quick-buried scrape! You in the crossroad of no escape!\u201d<\/p>\n
Robert Johnson falls upon his knees, hands clenched in prayer learned over\u00a0hard years, feeling sanguine tides pounding in his ears, moaning words\u00a0through long unlit hours, looking this way, then that way, then looking high\u00a0above into the cold starry sky.<\/p>\n
Robert Johnson has winter mud cracked over his young hands making them\u00a0old; making fingers hard to bend. He knows there is no future without fingers\u00a0that can\u2019t make quick whispers over his 5 cent guitar neck. Robert Johnson\u00a0prays and bays like a hound fearing Hell. And all the time, between every\u00a0break in his words the creature croaks in his ear, tempting him, doing the\u00a0blues, taunting him. Another corpse, then another joins in.<\/p>\n
Yells Johnson, \u201cHell on your souls! You in the unhallowed ground of men that done no good, an have no good word on your worm-rotten tongues. Jump Jacks snappin your backs awake from the earth to spit an talk dirt! Murderers every one!\u201d 1<\/sup><\/p>\n Robert Johnson remains at the crossroad, tortured by the eloquent tongue of\u00a0the Devil as He speaks through the gone mouths of the trashed dead. Robert\u00a0Johnson hears something in the Devil\u2019s voice he recognizes. It is the shadow\u00a0of his own voice. The womanizing voice he uses after playing hours, when\u00a0another music begins, which fuels the music he plays in the juke joints. He\u00a0knows many women and has loved many women. He says it\u2019s not his fault,\u00a0it\u2019s his condition. You pick up a guitar: you pick up a woman. It\u2019s a deal done\u00a0in the first incarnation of an instrument. It\u2019s in his voice calling:<\/p>\n \u00a0A woman is like a dresser\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Some men always running thro\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Its drawers 2<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n This he will sing later, but knows at this time at the crossroads\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cNow look here Robert, I can make rocks your pillows from now till forever; I\u00a0can rain frogs and swamp on you thro the night; flay your back with memories of Abbay & Leatherman plantation; put honey of first love in your ear,\u201d 3<\/sup> moaned a cadaver.<\/p>\n \u201cThis crossroads is no good place. Got a bad deal-feel as good as X<\/strong> is a sign\u00a0of a man\u2019s name against a paper to sell his life away. To sell his wife away!\u00a0To want her back to sell her again like a song traded in bar after bar for cheap\u00a0liquor-coins. Who knows where this ends?\u201d<\/p>\n The cold black night pours itself around Johnson\u2019s shivering body creaking\u00a0the trees and shaking the hobo-brush jungle; shaking the stars out of the\u00a0heavens to frost the shone rail lines all the way to the rich north.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see your way?\u201d ses the Devil\u2019s Dead. \u201cYou see your way to Canada, to\u00a0visit The King?\u201d ses the Devil\u2019s Dead. \u201cTo troubadour a land clean of The\u00a0Klan; where cotton dust don\u2019t sit in your lungs; where a noose ain\u2019t hung lazy\u00a0over the branch of a hangin tree.\u201d<\/p>\n Ses another Devil\u2019s Dead, \u201cYou put your sign like Jesus upon all time an stop\u00a0your hangin round this crossroads. A small cross is alls needed to nail you to\u00a0eternity. Try signin in the air. Try signin in the earth. Try signin on your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOK, OK, but what deal\u2019s a goin down at this crossroads?\u201d ses Robert\u00a0Johnson \u201cI ain\u2019t got little above n below the soul of my shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSoul,\u201d ses the Devil. \u201cSoooooooul.\u201d Licking his lipless lips with his tongueless tongue, the Devil thinks thinkless things, \u201cYou have yourself Robert an you can give yself to any heart you want. Don\u2019t be out of heart, you can lose your heart to a good-heart, a sweetheart. Give your heart from the bottom of your heart, wear it on your sleeve, take heart don\u2019t eat your heart out \u2013 ain\u2019t no one never had their heart in their mouth over some heart-breaker! This here\u2019s a heart to heart talk Robert. Learn my words by heart an set your heart on what I say instead of standin there chicken all over with your heart in your boots. You a man after my own heart an enjoy women an song. I\u2019ll throw both in. Do it with heart an soul. Sayin this once an no more Robert, from the heart of my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether Robert Johnson agrees to the proposition or if he is sweet-talked into\u00a0sleep, his head nodding as his eyes close, nobody knows. The Devil seizes\u00a0the moment. The dark-heart deed is done.<\/p>\n Next morning Robert Johnson wakes with a dew blanket on his clothes and\u00a0sweat on his face. He looks about but is alone except for the perfectly curved\u00a0body and long slim neck of a Sears & Roebuck Stella guitar lying next to him\u00a0and an X<\/strong> scored deeply into the earth beside the crossroad.<\/p>\n In November 1936, in a San Antonio hotel, Robert Johnson records twenty-nine tracks with Don Law for Vocation Records. He works regularly, dresses\u00a0well, is popular, drinks and enjoys the company of women. He is poisoned in\u00a0Greenwood, Mississippi August 16th<\/sup> 1938. 4<\/sup><\/p>\n Testament. All who hear him say the Devil plays his deal through Robert Johnson, jerking and plucking each finger on each noted string and wailing torturously in vocals<\/p>\n Got to keep movin<\/em><\/p>\n Got to keep movin<\/em><\/p>\n Blues fallin down like hail<\/em><\/p>\n Got to keep movin<\/em><\/p>\n Got to keep movin<\/em><\/p>\n Hellhound on my trail 5<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0It is Wednesday 25th<\/sup> July 1965<\/strong> in the men\u2019s toilet of The Pontiac Club, Zeeta\u00a0House, Putney. 6<\/sup> A fourteen year old kid from Newcastle recognizes the guy\u00a0zipping up at the urinal. Without hang up he flips out a small flimsy diary asks for an autograph. The two chat about blues and especially blues singer\u00a0Robert Johnson, before going into the club\u2019s live music lounge. The kid\u00a0shuffles near the small stage along with a few other punters whilst the guy\u00a0from the toilet tunes his Sunburst Gibson Les Paul. What happens during the\u00a0next 45 minutes defies description. The guy plays guitar like nobody has ever\u00a0played guitar. The small audience is rock-still in awe.<\/p>\n Near the end of the set the guy steps up to a mic, nods to the kid, mumbles,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m at the crossroad,\u201d sings Robert Johnson\u2019s Ramblin On My Mind<\/em>.\u00a0The guitarist leaves the Bluesbreakers four days later. 7<\/sup> John Mayall plays the\u00a0Pontiac Club the following week with a new guitarist.<\/p>\n Standing at the crossroad the guitarist makes a new deal. He will summon a\u00a0magic to make a Strange Brew<\/em> of music for the years ahead. 8<\/sup><\/p>\n The baton of The Devil\u2019s Music, passed to Robert Johnson, is palmed into\u00a0new keeping.<\/p>\n It is Sunday, 31st<\/sup> July 1966<\/strong> at The Royal Windsor Racecourse, Windsor,\u00a0Berkshire. Ten thousand people have turned up for the 6th<\/sup> National Jazz &\u00a0Blues Festival. The fourteen year old kid from Newcastle is now fifteen and\u00a0stands in that audience. The early evening sky remains clear, as thunder\u00a0explodes from the crowd, heralding the debut performance of a three- piece\u00a0group. 9<\/sup> The guitarist wears white bell-bottom trousers and a flash, silver\u00a0jacket, spawned from his new deal. He plugs a Gibson Les Paul into a \u00a0Marshall stack, carves the opening riff of Spoonful <\/em>10<\/sup> into the air, and whips\u00a0up slavish worship from his devotees.<\/p>\n The fifteen year old from Newcastle gathers a lungful of air, \u201cPlay Robert\u00a0Johnson!\u201d he bawls through the drowning bedlam of appreciation.<\/p>\n By a magic darker than Black Mass from a Black Jack Scrub oak thicket, the\u00a0words take flight on raven-black wings through the darkening din.<\/p>\n \u201cThis one\u2019s for anybody who likes Robert Johnson.\u201d<\/p>\n From Four Until Late<\/em> rumbles, darkens the atmosphere.<\/p>\n It is 2004.<\/strong> The guitarist records 14 of Robert Johnson\u2019s songs. The CD from\u00a0those recordings is issued on the Reprise label under the title, ME AND MR\u00a0<\/em>JOHNSON<\/em>. The cover art work is by Peter Blake and shows the guitarist,\u00a0shirt, tie and suited, guitar on lap, sitting in similar pose to a portrait of Robert Johnson which is hanging on a wall behind. The guitarist is fifty-nine years of age. The portrait of Robert Johnson is copied from a studio photograph of him taken when he was 25 years of age. There is perhaps a new take and a new telling of The Portrait of Dorian Gray<\/em> in this. The young Dorian Gray surrenders his soul (to the Devil?) in order to remain forever youthful in much the same way that Robert surrendered his, to be a great musician.<\/p>\n The guitarist writes the cover notes and cites Robert Johnson as the keystone\u00a0to his musical foundation, and a landmark from which to navigate.<\/p>\n It is June 1st<\/sup> 2014<\/strong>. The fourteen year old boy from Newcastle, who turned up\u00a0at The Pontiac Club all those years ago, is sixty-three years of age and writes an article on the mythology of Robert Johnson.<\/p>\n Robert Johnson and the guitarist move into music\u2019s history.<\/p>\n Who knows what last fair deal goes down?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1 Practice from Europe of burying criminals away from good souls laid to rest in cemeteries is documented. Perhaps the act of gibbeting at crossroads as a warning to law-breakers led to convenient burial of remains in shallow graves in those proximities, as the next \u2018fresh\u2019 example was hoisted.<\/p>\n 2 From Four Until Late <\/em>by Robert Johnson<\/p>\n 3 In 1929, at the age of seventeen Robert Johnson married 15 year old Virginia Travis. One year later Virginia died in childbirth.<\/p>\n 4 Details are scant regarding Johnson\u2019s death, but it is strongly suggested that he drank poisoned whisky, given to him by a jealous girlfriend or her betrayed husband.<\/p>\n 5 Hellhound On My Trail <\/em>by Robert Johnson<\/p>\n 6 On Wednesday 4th<\/sup> July 1965, John Mayall\u2019s Bluesbreakers began a two month residency at the newly opened south-west London, Pontiac Club.<\/p>\n 7 The guitarist is Eric Clapton.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>8 Strange Brew<\/em>, the first track on the Disraeli Gears<\/em> album, released November 10th<\/sup>, 1967, and co-written by Eric Clapton.<\/p>\n 9 The group is Cream, featuring Eric Clapton (gtr), Jack Bruce (bass) & Ginger Baker (drums).<\/p>\n 10 Spoonful<\/em> written by Willie Dixon<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ric Hool has 10 collections of published poetry and has his work featured in poetry magazines & journals in Europe, USA & UK.<\/span> Publications:<\/span> Contributed to: Ses the corpse, \u201cHey Robert, I got black, boot-black, soil under my back and\u00a0night-black sky above like you. But you got blood about your body.\u201d Ses Johnson, \u201cStay outa my ears crossroad creature. I\u2019m movin on\u2026 just\u00a0\u2018cidin which way to go.\u201d Ses the scrape-voice creature, \u201cWhich ever you choose, you in a walkin\u00a0blues, rambling on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[38,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/8039007-no-5.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-N6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3044"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3055,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044\/revisions\/3055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFrom Cullercoats, Northumberland he moved to Wales in 1990.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n Fitting in with Malcolm<\/em>\u00a0(WYSIWYG Chapbooks, 1994)<\/span>
\n Cage Door Sprang Open!<\/em>\u00a0(WYSIWYG Chapbooks, 1994)<\/span>
\n Making It<\/em>\u00a0(Collective Press, 1998)<\/span>
\n The Bridge<\/em>\u00a0(Collective Press, 2000)<\/span>
\n Voice from a Correspondent<\/em>\u00a0(Collective Press, 2001)<\/span>
\n No Nothing<\/em>\u00a0(The Collective Press, 2009)<\/span>
\nS<\/em>elected Poems<\/em> (Red Squirrel Press 2013)<\/span>
\nA Way of Falling<\/em> Upwards ( Cinnamon Press 2014)<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Hetrosexual Honkies<\/em>\u00a0(co\u2013writer) (WYSIWYG Chapbooks, 1994)<\/span>
\n Tilt<\/em>\u00a0(co-writer) (Collective Press, 1996)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"