Robert Johnson, "Star Wars" of the Blues

So, the other night I'm on The Porch with my good buddies Nick and Shaun, and of course, we're talking about music.

Shocking, I know.

Nick: "Get your arm off me, you sleaze."
Shaun: "Hahahaha! Oh, you!"
Nick: "No, seriously, I'm going to go berserk any second now."

So it doesn't take us long to get talking about the Blues and naming our fave artists. Mine come down to Muddy Waters (Mr. Number One in my book)...

From His Viagra Period

John Lee Hooker...

Please, Mr. Hooker, Don't Come Back For My Soul. I Always Been A Friend To You.

And Lightnin' Hopkins...

Dear Baby God, Please Make Cigarettes Safe Again. I Wanna Be This Bad.

Now, before you get all crazy and up in arms about who should or should not be on this list, take a breather. My list of Bluesmen and women whom I adore is quite extensive. But for the sake of brevity, I have pared it down to just a few essentials who are near and dear to me. But this leads us to the topic at hand. After I had announced these three as a Holy Trinity of sorts, Nick (quite tactfully, mind you) pointed out that I had left out the King of the Delta Blues, Mr. Crossroads himself, Robert Johnson...

I Can't Imagine What Made People Think He'd Had Dealings With Satan...

To which I had to tell Nick, "Robert Johnson is the Star Wars of the Blues."

Let me 'splain. No, let me sum up. If I am ever asked what my favorite movie is, I will quickly and with conviction tell you that is Amadeus. If you want to break it down into categories, I'd have to go with Three Amigos for comedy (weeelll... Maybe The Jerk. Or Safemen. Why is this so hard?!?), The Endless Summer for documentary, and so on and so forth.

You haven't seen this yet? OH MY GOD quit reading this pointless blog and go watch this RIGHT NOW!!!

But I will always make sure you know that there is another category that supersedes all of the above, that does not even need to be named as a variable in the equation of what equals my favorite movie. I like to call this particular genre of film "Star Wars." Now, when I say "Star Wars" as a genre, I'm simply referring to Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. With a few scenes from Jedi thrown in. 

So this is how I feel about Robert Johnson. He doesn't even need to be named when the question of Blues greatness comes up. He's like some otherworldly, spiritual, conceptual entity.

I feel the same way about The Godfather and The Godfather II, but you can't just slap "The Godfather of..." onto just anything. Robert Johnson is much more than a godfather. He's like some ancient alien astronaut come here to show us how to build pyramids and giant stone astronomy sites and shizzz.

Robert Johnson, Ancient Alien Astronaut.