DARK AND COLD

Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground













It's in outer space so aliens may already have heard it. You should roll around on its ground, succumb to its darkness. I caught this on a C90 cassette from John Peel's radio show some time in the early 1980s. Heard it again on Channel 4 soon afterwards, when Pasolini's Gospel According To St. Matthew was broadcast. Lazarus was woken from the dead with this music. Got the Yazoo album of Johnson's apocalyptic religious songs at Wazoo in Ann Arbor in the late 80s. R. Crumb has drawn Johnson (see above). I like the colour in the tie. Read a very informative and elegantly written piece on it by Mike McGonigal in Yeti, one of the few magazines that keeps me loving magazines. Thanks to Nick for lending it to me.