Robert Johnson - His Recorded Legacy - The 29 Songs
The plot of the 1986 Hollywood movie "Crossroads" concerns a teenage classical guitar student at New York's prestigious Juilliard School of Music. His personal obsession is the music of long-dead blues singer Robert Johnson and he has a notion that instead of the twenty-nine songs Johnson is known to have recorded, a thirtieth one exists; with the discovery of this missing song, he could make his own reputation by recording it. When the lad finds Willie Brown, a known associate of Johnson, to be a patient in a New York hospital, he befriends the old man and together they start on an unlikely odyssey to Mississippi to unearth the song (unsuccessfully) and to discover whether Johnson had made a pact with the Devil, at a crossroad, as legend would have it.
Presented here are the twenty-nine songs, remastered using the wizardry of modern sound techniques to give the listener a lot more of Robert Johnson and a lot less of the poor recording techniques of his day, without in any way corrupting the actual music. The only liberty which has been taken has been to select the best take where an alternative exists and to compile the twenty-nine songs in a running order which provides a better listening experience than the strict discographical order allows.
Tracklist:
1. Walking Blues
2. Rambling On My Mind
3. 32-20 Blues
4. I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
5. Come On In My Kitchen
6. Sweet Home Chicago
7. Terraplane Blues
8. Kindhearted Woman Blues
9. Phonograph Blues
10. When You Got A Good Friend
11. Dead Shrimp Blues
12. Cross Road Blues
13. Stop Breakin' Down Blues
14. Last Fair Deal Gone Down
15. Preaching Blues
16. Stones In My Passway
17. If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day
18. I'm A Steady Rollin' Man
19. From four till late
20. Hellhound On My Trail
21. Malted Milk
22. Little Queen Of Spades
23. Drunken Hearted man
24. Traveling Riverside Blues
25. Me And The Devil Blues
26. Love In Vain
27. Milkcow's Calf Blues
28. Honeymoon Blues
29. They're Red Hot
Released 2001.