Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground

Currently enjoying a lot of pre-war country blues; guys like Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, the Reverend Gary Davis, Bukka White, and most of all, Blind Willie Johnson, on a terrific LP called Praise God I'm Satisfied.



It's been suggested that the terrors which Robert Johnson sang about - hellhounds, devils, stones in his passway, judgement day; are all forewarned in the apocalyptic gospelizing of Blind Willie Johnson, who recorded between 1927 - 1930.

Here is a man palpably aware of divine redemption; song titles like 'I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole', and 'Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dyin' Bed' hint at a man well of aware of his own fragile mortality.

Blind Willie's most famous recording is 'Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground' (adapted by Ry Cooder as the theme for Paris Texas). A wordless description of Christ's plight on the cross, this piece was included on the batch of recordings sent out on the Voyager 1 mission into space in 1977, presumably designed to allow possible alien life forms to get a feel for humanity via the medium of music.

Other music included a couple of pieces by Bach and Beethoven , some Native American chants, Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven, Chuck Berry, and various other supposedly representative examples of earthly music. It's hard to imagine what impression an alien life form might make of the human race on hearing 'Dark Was the Night'...but there are few more starkly affecting representations of the human condition in any art form, by anyone.