Shop our Big Takeover store for back issues, t-shirts & CDs
Follow The Big Takeover
Released to celebrate the blues pioneer’s 100th birthday, The Centennial Collection serves as one-stop shopping for newcomers to singer/guitarist Robert Johnson‘s brief but extremely important oeuvre. All twenty-nine of Johnson’s recorded songs are here, divided on each disk by recording location – the 1936 San Antonio tracks on one disk and the 1937 Dallas tracks on the other, all given a new audio spit-and-polish that, given the original 78 sources, gives as clear a picture as we’re ever likely to get.
The number of standards is too long to list. “Come On In My Kitchen,” “Last Fair Deal Gone Down,” “Stones in My Passway,” “Cross Road Blues,” “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day,” “Love in Vain Blues,” “Hell Hound On My Trail,” “Traveling Riverside Blues” – these songs are some of the most significant building blocks in the American music landscape of the 20th century. Lesser-known tunes like “Little Queen of Spades,” “Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped the Devil),” “Drunken Hearted Blues,” “From Four Until Late” are no slouches, either – even the silly toss-off “They’re Red Hot” holds up. In addition, fifteen alternate takes are included, enough to present a look at the recording process, but not enough to induce listener fatigue, as on the The Complete Recordings box set. The only complaint is that, while the track list promises “Johnson speaks” as a prelude to the alternate take of “Love in Vain Blues,” he remains silent outside of his throaty keen and bedrock slide guitar. No matter – the mystery is as much part of Johnson’s legacy as his music, and in the case of the latter The Centennial Collection has it all.
http://www.legacyrecordings.com
