Blind Willie Johnson and the Guitar Evangelists

AMG Review of Blind Willie Johnson and the Guitar Evangelists

Steve Leggett
All Music Guide

There is only a slight difference between a street-corner lues singer and a sanctified street singer, since both need to hold a crowd and make a few bucks (no matter what they do with the money when the day is done), and as this four-disc collection of so-called guitar evangelists from the 1920s, '30s, and early '50s makes clear, playing slide for the Lord sounds pretty much like playing slide for the other side. If anything, the guitar preachers represented here might be even more out there and eccentric than their secular counterparts, making this box set a delightful addition to the standard country blues record collection. Blind Willie Johnson, the apex of the guitar evangelists, is well represented here with classic late-'20s tracks like "Dark Was the Night -- Cold Was the Ground," "God Moves On the Water," "The Soul of a Man," and "John the Revelator," but there are plenty of other striking selections here as well, including the very first of these guitarists for God, Rev. Edward W. Clayborn, whose tight, efficient slide work is impressive on songs like "The Gospel Train Is Coming." Unfortunately, Clayborn uses the exact same tempo and rhythm on all of his little sermons, and while the slide work is always coiled and solid, it never varies. A.C. and Blind Mamie Forehand have an utterly unique sound, however, turning songs like "Honey in the Rock" and "I Wouldn't Mind Dying if Dying Was All" into haunting, atmospheric masterpieces, complete with hazy bells and chimes, while I.B. Ware (can that possibly be his real name?) and family hand it out with no pulled punches on "You Better Quit Drinking That Shine." The biggest revelations here, though, are a pair of electric guitarists from the fourth disc (the collection moves chronologically from Clayborn's earliest material from 1927 through Blind Willie Johnson's last work in 1930, then jumps to 1953), Rev. Utah Smith and Rev. Anderson Johnson. These guys are sanctified madmen on the guitar, with swooping slide runs, free-form anything-goes approaches, and amps set on distort and stun. Smith is rumored to have worn giant angel wings strapped to his shoulder blades when he performed his signature "I Want Two Wings," a sight that must have been as frightening as it was outrageous as he strangled the daylights out of his guitar, while his gargling vocal on "God's Mighty Hand" simply has to be heard to be believed, not to mention his "Take a Trip" musical sermon, which will forever be a matter of perspective. Johnson was only slightly less theatrical, combining the energy and fervor of a Little Richard with the sonic abandon of a proto-Jimi Hendrix on tracks like "God Don't Like It," "Death in the Morning," "Let That Liar Pass On By," and "Run Children Run." It's a remarkably short step from Smith and Johnson to the Marshall stacks and ear-melting assault of bands like Blue Cheer, and if God isn't deaf, the congregations of the Reverends Smith and Johnson certainly must have ended up that way. It might not technically be the lues, but there are a lot of ways to the river (or to Heaven), and the guitar-slinging preachers collected in this delightful box set knew full well that a perfect slide tone was quite likely next to Godliness.