Supernatural: Robert Leroy Johnson. Robert Johnson. The talent given by the devil supernatural robert johnson

Robert A. Johnson is an American Jungian analyst born in 1921 and currently based in San Diego, California.

Johnson's course of life began, possibly with a car accident, in which he was involved at the age of 11 and in which he lost a leg. Like Parzival in the Grail myth, Robert Johnson's young spiritual quest led him to meet various sages, saints and sinners, culminating in the discovery of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.

Johnson began his analytical training at the Jung Institute in Zurich in 1947 when it first opened. After training with Carl Jung, Emma Jung and Jolanda Jacobi, he completed his analytical training with Fritz Kunkel in Los Angeles and Tony Sussman in London.

In 2002, Robert Johnson received an honorary doctorate in humanities.

Johnson also trained with Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India. For 19 years he lived between southern California and India.

For a time, Robert was a Benedictine monk in the Episcopal Church (Church of England).

Johnson is a distinguished lecturer and his books have sold over two million copies in nine languages. Robert Johnson's books are known not only for their wisdom and insight, but also for retelling timeless myths and tales, especially the Grail myth and archetypal characterization of Parzival and the wounded King Fisher.

Among the works of Robert are such as + "Inner gold: understanding psychological projection", "Contentment: the path to true happiness", "Understanding your own shadow", "He: the deep aspects of male psychology", "She: the deep aspects of female psychology", " We: the deeper aspects of romantic love. "

Books (4)

We: The Deeper Aspects of Romantic Love

Can we talk about the psychology of love? What is falling in love, and how is it different from true love? What are the historical roots of romantic love, and is there such love in our time? How has her psychology changed?

R. Johnson's book "We: The Deep Aspects of Romantic Love" is devoted to these and other issues related to the psychology of relationships between a man and a woman.

He: The Deep Aspects of Male Psychology

What does it mean to be a man? What are the main milestones in the development of masculinity? How to see the traits of Parsifal and the Fisher King in yourself? How do they manifest themselves in the life of a modern man? What place do women occupy in a man's life? How is feeling different from emotion, and where to look for the origins of a bad mood?

She: The Deep Aspects of Women's Psychology

To what extent are the life stories of all women similar to each other, and what is their significant psychological difference? What place do men occupy in a woman's life at different stages of her development? How can women discover Psyche and Aphrodite in themselves? What is female maturity?

The answers to all of these questions can be found in the fascinating book by Robert Johnson, devoted to the deep problems of female psychology.

Reader Comments

Martha/ 08/13/2019 Thanks to Anna for the selection of books))

Anna/ 06/07/2017 How many books I have read on self-development over the past 10 years - do not count. I started with the theme of dreams and eventually came to them. Probably in my case it was necessary, but maybe someone will come in handy with my advice, do not waste time and keep a journal of dreams, study them, and treat them with deep respect. They contain all the answers, books are also needed, but without practice, knowledge is forgotten. I really liked the books by Robert Johnson and helped in self-development. I would also like to recommend books by Olga Haritidi, the author pays no less attention to the topic of dreams. On self-development, I will single out the books of Roman Zyulkov, these are books for practice. I also can't miss the book by Janette Rainwater.
IT IS IN YOUR POWER. How to become your own psychotherapist, which also really helps to understand yourself.

Valeria/ 05/01/2012 The books are amazingly deep in content and at the same time are written in a very simple, accessible language. I apply the technologies of working with dreams proposed by the author. The results exceeded all expectations! I am very happy to have found such useful books on this site!

Johnson was a consummate interpreter who raised simple musical forms to the level of true art, while many others were content with just observing the canons. Johnson was the first bluesman of his generation to creatively use the recordings of other artists, adapting and refining their ideas to such an extent that the compositions they created and inspired him now sounded only like the works of Robert Johnson himself.

Apart from how much of his work has been studied so far, it should be noted that only his first disc, "Terraplane Blues", had any commercial demand, and even his friends and relatives remained in the dark about the fate of his recordings when they approached by researchers such as Gayle Dean Wardlow and Mack McCormik. In total, during 5 recording sessions, the first of which took place on November 23, 1936, and the last on June 20, 1937, Johnson recorded 29 compositions (the recording of another composition of an obscene nature, performed at the request of the sound engineers, remains unidentified). It was never established which of his compositions were (or were at all) learned specifically for studio recording, and which he performed regularly, although Johnny Shines, who performed with him, witnessed the effect produced on listeners by performing the song " Come on in My Kitchen ".

Likewise, Johnson's image as a shy, unsociable genius of the blues was inspired by Johnson's way of turning his back on the engineers and singing away from the corner of the room, which Ry Cooder, however, describes as "corner loading" - a technique that allowed to achieve more sonorous singing. This sonority and clarity of guitar playing is evident from the very first run of the blues "Kind-Hearted Woman", which, like "I Believe I" ll Dust My Broom "and" Sweet Home Chicago ", is performed unadorned in the form of a" bottleneck " All eight numbers recorded in Johnson's first recording session are examples of the use of lightweight rhythmic structures (which later became characteristic of the post-war Chicago blues and especially Jimmy Reed), arranged by him for guitar on the basis of "walking bass", usually played by the left hand of the boogie pianist.

Eight more numbers were recorded two days later, including "Walkin 'Blues" from the Son House repertoire, and "Cross Road Blues," echoing the legend that Johnson sold his soul to the devil for the art of playing the blues; and "Preachin" Blues "and" If I Had Possession over Judgment Day "whose exhilarating performance testifies to Johnson's highest level of skill.

The last line under his repertoire was summed up seven months later, at a recording session in Dallas, which lasted for two days off on June 19 and 20, 1937. The 11 songs recorded at that time represent a wide range of feelings, where melancholy, tenderness and open sexual innuendo give way to demonic possession, paranoia and despair. Biased critics tend to view "Hellhound on My Trail" and "Me and the Devil" as literal confessions rather than spectacular incarnations of the experiences indicated in the lyrics of these compositions.

Johnson's ability to convey emotional excitement, combined with the aforementioned approach to borrowing themes and techniques from his contemporaries, contradicts the fantastic explanations of his achievements. On the other hand, the drama of Johnson's music is undoubtedly a reflection of the drama of his life, the life of a wandering musician who was always looking for how to impress the female audience. One such flirtation later caused his death - a year after his last recording session, while performing at a diner in Three Forks near Greenwood, Mississippi, the booze Johnson drank was poisoned by one of the jealous husbands. Around this time, Columbia employee John Hammond was looking for Johnson to stage him as the country blues ambassador at a concert called From Spiritual to Swing. ), which took place at Carnegie Hall in New York on December 23, 1938. Instead of Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy played there.

Robert Johnson was a unique musician, unparalleled either among his contemporaries or among his followers. The degree of his influence on the subsequent development of music cannot be belittled, although his work should not be viewed in isolation from the work of his contemporaries. Johnson's name was not forgotten thanks to a project undertaken in the 1980s to republish a complete catalog of his records.

Robert Johnson is a legendary black bluesman. Much is unclear in his life: Johnson was illegitimate, his father is unknown, he had a cruel stepfather, he changed his name three or four times, married at seventeen and a year later became a widow. As a youth, he hung out in Robinsonville, in the company of Son House, Willie Brown and other titans of the Mississippi Delta - and constantly begged for the stage. A couple of times he was given this opportunity. It turned out that Johnson plays the harmonica mediocre and quite amateurishly - the guitar, does not know how to sing and is completely devoid of a sense of rhythm. At nineteen, he suddenly disappeared. When he reappeared in the city a year later, still no one took him seriously. But during the break, the musicians went out to smoke and drink whiskey - and suddenly they heard wild, fantastic blues sounding from an empty hall! Everyone rushed back in a hurry - and dropped their cigarettes: Johnson sat on the stage and played like no one else dreamed of. The old bluesmen were shocked. In less than a year, the clumsy teenager turned into a charming virtuoso who outshined everyone and everything.

From this point on, the appearance of the myth should be counted. Dumbfounded by the success of the "junior comrade", Brown and House could only ask: how can this be? Where did you learn this?

Johnson told the story that there is a magic crossroads where he made a deal with the devil - he gave his soul in exchange for the ability to play the blues.

The culture of black America, mixed with shamanism, Christianity and Santeria, did not recognize any other explanation: after all, something happened in those few months when Johnson allegedly lived with his family in Hazelhurst! Johnson did not hide that he communicated with the devil through voodoo; thus he achieved a ritual transcendence of his natural capabilities, which allowed him to make the incredible leap from apprentice to master. He traveled around the country, appearing here and there, like a ghost; "Black dandy" in a smart suit, hat and tie, with a constant cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he himself was like the devil and flaunting it when he sang: "Bury my body on the side of the highway so that my old evil spirit could jump on the bus and go. " A chill ran through his lines: “I and the devil walk side by side, me and the devil, oh-oh! we walk alongside, and I will beat my woman to my heart's content! "

Everything here played a role - both the mysterious transformation from a student into a master, and years of lonely wandering, without friends, persecuted, possessed, and half a dozen different stories about his death, the secret of which was clarified quite recently ... He was feared and adored. Sometimes he was seen at the same time in different cities, far from each other (and confusing his game with someone else's was unthinkable!) - he played through smoky cheap clubs "barrel house", in negro pubs, instructed all the peasants to the right and left and wrote down songs on cheap little vinyl "race records" - there were twenty-nine of them, these blues, and each one was raw and rough and beautiful as a rough diamond. Johnson died in 1938, "writhing on the floor and howling like a dog," when another jealous husband treated him to a glass of poisoned whiskey. He was only twenty-seven.

To say that there was no blues before Johnson is to lie, but it was Johnson who added to it that bit of madness, a drop of transcendent black mysticism, after which this music could not remain the same. His notes are the bible for anyone who wants to play the blues. Robert did things on the guitar that no one had ever done before. The strange, harsh sounds of his voice - now a bass growl that suddenly breaks down in falsetto to screeching, then screams and nasal lamentations, his songs about sex and powerlessness, about devilish deals with conscience and male bragging, full of causeless curses and rough sensuality, accompanied by heavy, furious hitting the strings of a guitar that sounds like two or even three separate instruments, with a stifled howl, boogie-woogie rhythms and melodies driving his dark lyrics right along a deserted highway somewhere west of Memphis - all this is amazing now, and then ... Many are still seriously looking for the legendary Crossroads, where Johnson made his deal. There is even a film about this story - mystical, slightly naive, heavily mixed with blues, the bitterness of loss and love.

edited news OzzyFan - 3-03-2013, 10:02

He grew up in a rural area, in a dysfunctional family. He had vision problems severe enough to warrant an exemption from compulsory schooling. On the other hand, he dispensed with glasses. According to rumors, one eye was susceptible to cataracts, which from time to time appeared and disappeared. He received his first guitar lessons from his older brother Charles. He knew how to play the harmonica, although he did not use it on any of the records for the records. As a teenager, he sang, accompanying himself on the guitar and harmonica at the same time. Favorite song was How Long How Long Blues Leroy Carr. Friendship with the then-famous bluesman Willie Brawn, to whom Johnson would devote a few lines in his famous crossroads blues ( Crossroads), allowed him to study guitar technique more seriously. Thanks to Willie Brown, as a teenager, Robert Johnson was able to communicate with some other legendary bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta, primarily with Charlie Patton (Cherlie Patton), whose work had a serious impact on the formation of Johnson as a musician. However, he had no serious plans for a musical career so far. After wandering around with a guitar in his youth, he was going to take up farming. He settled on a farm owned by his sister, near the town of Robinsville. At 18 he married, but a year later his wife, who was barely 16, died in childbirth. He no longer tried to lead a normal life.

Meeting another famous bluesman - Son Hause - strengthened Johnson's desire to become a professional musician. From Son House, he adopted the manner of weaving the notes played by the slide into the usual "finger" guitar accompaniment. After the death of his wife, Robert Johnson returned to his native Hazelhurst. The country has entered the "Great Depression". Part of the state employment program was the construction of a highway network, and one such construction was taking place near the city. Robert Johnson played in a construction camp, and here he met older bluesman Ike Zinnermann, thanks to whom he continued his training in the art of playing the guitar. Johnson lived this phase of his life in isolation from the Delta blues community. He again met with Willie Brown and Son House a year and a half to two years later, when he went on a journey, and they were amazed at the progress in his guitar playing, especially since they had not noticed any special abilities in him before. The fact that Robert Johnson disappeared from their field of vision as an amateur musician, and then reappeared as an inimitable virtuoso, apparently formed the basis of the myth that Johnson bought his art from the devil, selling him his soul.

The poetry of Robert Johnson is unique. It is full of bright and unexpected images. But among the few joyful, amorous and comic blues, his main mood remains the state of anxiety, the expectation of danger and the feeling of doom. Anyway, "Unclean" is mentioned too often by Robert Johnson. For several decades, before being recorded on paper by the first historians of the blues, legends were passed down orally about his successes with women, his hypnotic charm, his always impeccably clean suit ... And about his phenomenal musical memory and impeccable technique, in which he far surpassed his first teachers. Robert Johnson's recordings are also distinguished by the fact that only one of the songs he recorded contains a short guitar solo. As an accompanying instrument, his guitar is really flawless. How amazing the combination of clear bass lines, rhythmic chords and expressive "slide" notes in his playing is illustrated by the anecdote told by Keith Richards himself about how, when listening to Robert Johnson's record for the first time, he was completely sure that two musicians were playing ... One of several surviving photographs of Robert Johnson clearly shows his hands with unusually large hands. Some notes or chord passages in his recordings are almost impossible to play with regular-length fingers.

In the 1930s, Robert Johnson traveled around America, often on foot or on freight trains, to Mexico and Canada. He never performed in large concert halls. Its sites were city streets and rural pubs, construction camps or sawmills, sometimes small city clubs. In November 1936, and in July 1937 in Texas, he recorded 29 songs, which, together with several recorded versions, constitute his only legacy in recording and the basis of his current fame.
Only a few recordings were released on records during his lifetime. But it turned out to be enough to attract the attention of two prominent admirers of African American culture. In late 1938, John Hammond Sr. tried to find him in order to invite him to the program of the first concerts of the series "From Spirituals to Swing" at Carnegie Hall.

However, Robert Johnson was not destined to reach a really large audience. Two months after his last entry, he died under unclear circumstances: he was either stabbed to death, or shot, or poisoned. The official death certificate under the heading "Reason" only reads "No doctor" ... And as he asked in one of his blues, his grave was indeed near the highway - so that his "old evil spirit could get on the bus and drive away." ...

If his physical characteristics can partly explain the ease of mastering a virtuoso technique, then it is hardly possible to find an explanation for the universal power of the influence of Robert Johnson's creativity. It is based on folklore traditions, enclosed in narrow regional and racial boundaries - after all, most of Robert Johnson's songs are the author's interpretation of common folk melodies and plots of the Mississippi Delta. But widespread fame still came to him after he played his last note - after the release of the first long-playing album with his recordings (three decades later). This album went around the world and had a strong influence on young musicians who had to change the idea of ​​the essence of popular music and its place in the life of society.

After meeting in 1930 with famous bluesmen Son House and Willie Brown, he tried to master the blues guitar in order to perform with luminaries together. I must say that art ... Read all

Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911, Hazelhurst, Mississippi - August 16, 1938, Greenwood) is an American musician, one of the most famous (and legendary) bluesmen of the XX century.

After meeting in 1930 with famous bluesmen Son House and Willie Brown, he tried to master the blues guitar in order to perform with luminaries together. I must say that this art was given to him extremely difficult. For a while, Robert parted with friends and disappeared in an unknown direction, only to reappear in 1931. Appear as a great musician.

From this point on, the appearance of the myth should be counted. Dumbfounded by the success of the "junior comrade", Brown and House could only ask: how can this be? Where did you learn this?

Johnson told the story that there is a certain magical intersection at which he made a deal with the Prince of Darkness - he gave his soul in exchange for the ability to play the blues.

In his most famous songs (Me and the Devil Blues, Hellhound On My Trail, Cross Road Blues), he directly mentions this. Having written 29 songs, having spent three recording sessions, he dies, as the official version says, at the hands of his beloved's deceived husband.

His songs were performed (and are still performed) by the most famous musicians of the planet: Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Ry Cooder, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, John Mayall, Peter Green, Luther Allison, Red Hot Chili Peppers , Bonnie Raitt, The White Stripes and tons of others.

Several films have been shot - documentaries (“The search for Robert Johnson”, “Cain’t you hear the wind howl?”) And one feature film (“Crossroads” by Walter Hill).

His discography is large and defies reasonable calculation due to the fact that he did not record a single album during his lifetime, and after the death of the musician, companies compile his legacy of their own free will.