Quote Originally Posted by Resident Loser
...I've read it in a few places that Johnson was no big deal in his heyday and that he was considered a master of hype and self-promotion...Surely he had contemporaries like Muddy Waters (one of his songs was the source of the Rolling Stones' name), Bukka White, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, Wille Dixon et al...and certainly their records have been around for quite some time...in some cases recorded by Alan Lomax in the 30s for the Library of Congress...others through the 40s and 50s as commercial releases...

It doesn't seen that RJs music was any big thing 'til recorded by Columbia at the urging of John Hammond in '61...and that may have been part of the overall resurgence of folk music in the late 50s/early60s...One could ask the question, had one of the others been championed by the legendary Mr. Hammond for commercial release, would Johnson be crowned 'King" of anything...

Most latter-day performers or group certainly didn't try to emulate the performances or the simple arrangements...they may have covered the material, but performed it in stylistically different ways...The Stones usually were the more "authentic" when doing blues or R&B covers...maybe the Yardbirds...Cream was a whole 'nother thing and Zep...well some of their lyrics like "...shake for me girl, I wanna' be your back door man are nothing but titles of blues/R&B songs...

The reasoning for inclusion of this album is debateable and even as a source of material ripe for the pickin', it's contribution was rather small when viewed in the context of the overall RJ catalog...

If anything, it's original release date may have been the impetus to investigate the genre as a whole. As a result of its discovery by the likes of Messrs. Clapton, Richards and Page, I suppose one could give it significance on that count alone rather than on it's specific artistic importance as a single entity...

jimHJJ(...who knows?...)
I'm always careful about what I read about the blues, particularly if it comes from another bluesman. Inconsistencies abound. But I tend to agree that it was the "rediscovery" of RJ by the British rockers you mentioned that made this record so influential. I think the record is great but I'd hesitate to say it was "better" than stuff by Son House, Charley Patton, Frank Stokes or some of the other contemporaries. Quite frankly, I think Elmore James was more influential in the sense that his presentation was more closely emulated - but then we get into the "RJ influenced Elmore" thing which is, of course, true. MindGoneHaywire mentions that he was the biggest influence on the Stones and I think that is undeniable. Clapton may have been heavily influenced by RJ but his bandmate at the time Keith Relf was more into Sonny Boy's I and II.

All of this makes me realize what an exercise this all is.