Robert Johnson is arguably one of the most important figures in all of recorded music. The tales of his brief life and mysterious death are enough to draw most people in, but his music is even more powerful. His voice, capable of falsetto wailing and eerie plain-talking, along with his fluid fretwork, truly make his songs feel “other-worldly.” The Centennial Collection – The Complete Recordings, was issued in 2017 to celebrate the 100 anniversary of Robert’s birth.
These recordings have been issued many times before. If the
title of this set sounds familiar, it’s shared by the 2-CD box set 'The Complete Recordings', which
sold over a half a million copies back in 1990. But, this new
collection has some significant improvements, the biggest being the
sound quality. The tracks on the 1990 version are muffled and tinny, as if Johnson is calling you from a Dallas phone booth in 1937. On The Centennial Collection, you can
actually hear Robert breathing between vocal phrases, hear his hands
move across the guitar, and even hear traffic passing by the hotel where
these songs were originally recorded.
Another improvement over the 1990 release is the sequence of songs:
the older collection chose to include the alternate takes right along
with the released ones, so you’d get two versions of the same song back
to back, making for repetitive listening. In this new set, they’ve
chosen to put the master takes first, then stick the alternate takes of
those songs at the end of the disc.
For the freeload, tell us about your favorite relative, who is not in your immediate family, e.g., a parent, sibling, spouse, or child.