Any fans of rock n roll here?

[Guest Ohdistortedsmile1789]

Zero exposure until the 60's. Get real. He was one of if not the most famous delta blues artist of his time. Do you think everyone in the world completely forgot about him until the 60's. In 1961 not 1966 there were some recordings released that made him more popular with the crossover audience. His music lived and was appreciated by many people before that. I'm sure many of the mentioned artists would have heard his work. And nobody knows EVERYTHING about the blues. Robert Johnson is often regarded as the most influential guitarist of all time. When the Stones first heard him they could not believe it was only one guitar playing. That was something special about his style--you could swear there was more than one guitar playing. The zero exposure comment is ridiculous but I am done arguing with you---thanks anyway

Well, you are wrong. I presented something that shows how unknown Johnson was, and you presented something irrelevant, all that jazz about The Stones is true, but it happened in the late 60's.

From allmusic.com:

In the mid-'60s, Columbia Records released King of the Delta Blues Singers, the first compilation of Johnson's music and one of the earliest collections of pure country blues. Rife with liner notes full of romantic speculation, little in the way of hard information and a painting standing for a picture, this for years was the world's sole introduction to the music and the legend, doing much to promote both.

Also:

After his first recordings came out and "Terraplane Blues" became his signature tune (a so-called "race" record selling over three or four-thousand copies back in the early to mid-'30s was considered a hit)

So his biggest single sold 3-4,000 copies, and you think that kind of circulation was enough for him to "father" Rock N' Roll?

Robert Johnson was a true original, and made a new blues style that was all his own, but his influences were obvious and well documented. You can hear Skip James and Son House throughout his recordings, and the unrecorded Ike Zinneman was reputed to have tutored Johnson for a year or so, leading up to his miraculous and legendary reemergence as a Blues master, having been a mere novice previously.

No, I don't think you can reasonably say Robert Johnson was the "father" of Rock N' Roll. The credit should be distributed more collectively. Not only were their many older bluesmen who influenced Johnson himself (regardless of what value you put on his level of pre-'66 exposure), but you should know especially that Rock N' Roll pioneer Chuck Berry was a Chess recording artist right there in Chicago, undoubtedly influenced by Muddy Waters and the like.

You claim that a compilation was released in '61, not only have I never heard of this and cannot find a record of it, but Rock N' Roll was already established and moving in other directions by 1961, that scarcely justifies "fathering" Rock N' Roll.

Of course, Robert Johnson had a huge influence on Rock music, but that influence effected, and could have only reasonably effected, a younger generation of Rock musicians who gained popularity in the late 1960's (Hendrix, Clapton, Led Zeppelin and the like). And by now, we are getting close to Heavy Metal. Johnson's mysticism obviously had an impact on the early Heavy Metal of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, and obviously had no impact on the good-timey, teenage-oriented Rock N' Roll of the 50's, which is , after all, what we are talking about here.

[gnr=axl]

I love rock n roll you cant beat it. Elvis and Buddy are absolute legends