Robert Johnson played – wait – an electric guitar?!?

Yes. There are blues researchers and history buffs that are making the claim that Robert Johnson was playing an electric guitar through an amplifier prior to his death.  Since Robert Johnson fell ill and died in 1938, is is fairly easy to pin down the type of equipment he was most likely to play.

According to new evidence, Johnson most likely played a Gibson ES-150 (released 1936).  These electric guitars were becoming popular and readily available in the delta, as it was a guitar designed for big band play which was popular music in New Orleans at the time.  If Johnson did not have an ES-150, he most certainly played a Rickenbacker Electro Spanish (released 1935).  The type of amp he used is still under speculation.

Also, just to be clear, there are no recordings of Johnson playing an electric.  Even if there were, it is highly unlikely you would have heard any kind of face melting solo – the guitar solo wasn’t even invented until Charlie Christian cooked one up in 1939 while playing with Benny Goodman’s band.  In the days of Robert Johnson, amplified instruments and electric guitars were used to achieve higher volumes for crowded juke joints, parties, and the like, and not for solos, or distortion effects.

According to some “living legends” of the Delta, Johnson was indeed playing an electric guitar about 6 months before his death.  Some of these legends insist he played a couple of gigs using the electric, while others claim he only practiced with the electric (learning its limitations, and expanding his musical prowess) but still performed with the acoustic.  Either way, it is very likely Robert Johnson was playing the electric guitar.

So where is the proof?  No one will ever know for sure.  But as blues researchers continue to dig deeper, it is likely more evidence will come forth supporting or disproving this claim.   Knowing that Johnson’s songs so easily translated to the electric guitar by later artists (just think Crossroads by Clapton), it is possible to imagine he would have been fond of experimenting with an electric.

Of course, we will never know for sure.

~ by thedeltablues on July 9, 2008.