Johnson and Passion

Musically speaking, the so-called “British Invasion” of the late 60s and early 70s were interesting times. It wasn’t so much that Americans couldn’t ‘rock and roll’ with the best of them, it’s just that the British had tapped into a resource that the Americans had overlooked. Was that resource a particular piece of equipment, a new recording technique or possibly a different rehearsal technique? No. That resource was a man; and that man’s name was Robert Johnson.

To those who cut their chops on the early 60s UK R&B scene, Johnson’s recordings were both a primer and a master class on guitar playing. Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Cream, The Who and The Stones all cite Johnson as a major influence. Zeppelin covered many of his songs and Clapton recently released a disc of Johnson’s music.

I recently listened to Robert Johnson’s complete recorded works, and through the popping and hissing of the vinyl one word seems to summarize this amazing listening experience: passion. This is a man who lived his blues. This is the raw experience of unedited, unrefined poetry that scares the fainthearted and even makes the most sure-footed slip. One man, one guitar, one take. An unrefined voice and some incredible, if unpolished, guitar playing. If you don’t believe me, here is what Eric Clapton wrote of Johnson’s recordings:

“Up until I heard his music, everything I had ever heard seemed as if it was dressed up for a shop window somewhere, so that when I heard him for the first time, it was like he was singing only for himself, and now and then, maybe God.”

Robert Johnson, (1911-1938) who lived and died in poverty, probably contributed more to the Old School sounds of the late 60s and early 70s by allowing his passion to be experienced and communicated. One cannot imagine Zeppelin without the yelps of Plant or the excess riffs of Page. Or, concerning another passionate practice, what would a Who concert been like without the destruction of instruments and equipment on stage? This leads me to the point of this post: What has happened to unbridled passion in popular music these days?

The studio is so antiseptic, the recording software so manipulative these days, that we continue to churn out songs, perfected by the computer and void of passion and danger. Oh yes, I do know that there are some bands out there that still live and perform and record on the edge, but they are too few and far between. Passion is so very necessary to drive an audience of any size, and particularly a large audience. The passionless perfection of today’s popular music has created a vacuum in our society that feeds mediocrity at all levels. Today, almost anyone can make a “perfect” recording; but can they make a great recording, or even a good one? Do we get out and play our instruments because we are “flawless” at the technique, or because we have “something to say?” – something we are passionate about.

So, I still tip my hat to Mr. Robert Johnson; a man with a flawed voice, raw and bitter poetry, questionable lifestyle habits, and great yet unrefined guitar chops. A man who cranked out a total of 29 short songs and recorded them in a hotel room in Dallas over the course of a very few days. A man who changed the face, sound and style of popular music forever, because he had something to say…and he was passionate about it!

In this day, may you have the strength to be passionate. Leave “perfection” for the mediocre and strive, rather, to be a voice crying out in the wilderness. Have something to say…and say it Loud.

Technologicalmegatimemonster

How many can remember when advances in technology promised to save us so much time? This information age would speed up communication to such a point that we would have oodles of free time on our hands--Automation would bring us the three-hour work week--and we would have hover-cars by 1999.


Certainly technology has given us a great deal of prosperity and a standard of living that few generations have known. But it has come with a high price, that being the spending of so much time on that which ultimately does not matter, and stifling truly intelligent, artistic and spiritual development. Rather than writing, we "tweet." Rather than reading, we are fed the non-stop assault of fast-cut video images. Rather than composing, we can simply cut and paste musical samples. Rather than taking a picture, we take hundreds of digital shots and photoshop them afterwards. Rather than meditating, we simply ignore.

What I'm getting at is that we often no longer consider what we do; we (as Nike coined) just do it. And "it" consumes so much of our time! We update blogs, websites, facebook, etc.; we watch our HD TV, listen to I-pods, Google everything, run apps on whatever, stay glued to e-mail and even text each other while avoiding personal communication! Our time is truly stretched thin; and there are a few things for which we no longer have time.

Those things include exercising the intellectual, artistic and spiritual side of our being--

We no longer have to think since thinking is done for us. The "so called" intellectual elite will take care of all of our problems, so there's no worries. And if there are any worries, you're obviously thinking too hard! Just ask our government--Washington truly believes that its elected officials were put into office to solve our problems--in essence, to think for us so we don't have to bother with that discipline.

We no longer have to create. We have programs that create for us. Whether it's visual art, music or written word, it's all just a click a way. It may not be of pristine quality, but it is "good enough." I remember when I first took a church gig, and it was expected of me to arrange, compose, rehearse and present the music. Now a days, not only is all that taken care of with a subscription service, but if one doesn't present the "ready-made" arrangements, then you are not like everyone else and are therefore suspect of unsatisfactory work.

And we have taken a true hit spiritually. Not only in our churches and families, but even in our world view and our understanding of literature and art. One simply cannot comprehend the bulk of western thought apart from the spiritual backdrop of its writers and poets. I remember my high school piano teacher explaining to me that you can see in the late works of Beethoven a man seeking God. When I recently performed Ives' Concord Sonata, I spent much time trying to comprehend the spiritual dimension of its namesakes--Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott and Thoreau. Even a reading of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings reveals a world view founded in the spiritual journey that is life; and who can begin to fathom the works of DaVinci apart from the relationship between God and man?

Yes, this technologicalmegatimemonster has delivered a higher standard of living--but it is a non-thinking, in-artistic and soul-less standard of living. It is a construct that requires us to make a concerted effort to prioritize our intellectual, artistic and spiritual development. In other words, we must make time for that which is truly important, lest we allow our lives to be consumed by the tyranny of the urgent. The tyranny of the urgent really isn't that urgent; but it does consume so much time!

(And when are we ever going to get those hover-cars?)