[TR24][OF] Various Artists - God Don't Never Change - The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson - 2016 (Blues / Gospel)

The Soul Of A Man performed by Tom Waits
Tom Waits: Vocals • Casey Waits: Drums • Kathleen Brennan: Background Vocals
Produced by Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan • Engineered by Karl Derfler • Production Coordinator: Jodie Wilson
Traditional: Blind Willie Johnson/Arranged by Tom Waits. © 2014 Jalma Music, ASCAP Tom Waits, Under License to Burning Rose Productions, Ltd.
Samples: Smith Casey “Country Rag (East Texas Rag)” from the John and Ruby Lomax Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Used courtesy of Odyssey Productions, Inc.

It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine performed by Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams: Vocals and Guitar • Doug Pettibone: Guitar • David Sutton: Bass • Butch Norton: Drums
Produced by Tom Overby and Lucinda Williams • Mixed and Engineered by David Bianco • Recorded at Dave’s Room, North Hollywood, CA

Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning performed by Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi
Susan Tedeschi: Lead Vocal, Handclaps • Derek Trucks: Guitar, Handclaps • Mike Mattison: Vocal, Handclaps • Mark Rivers: Vocal, Handclaps
Recorded and Mixed at Swamp Raga by Bobby Tis

Jesus Is Coming Soon performed by Cowboy Junkies
Margo Timmins: Vocals • Michael Timmins: Guitars • Peter Timmins: Drums • Alan Anton: Bass
Produced, Recorded and Mixed by Michael Timmins at The Hangar, Toronto, ON
Includes a sample of Blind Willie Johnson “Jesus is Coming Soon.” Used courtesy of Document Records, Ltd.

Mother’s Children Have A Hard Time performed by Blind Boys Of Alabama
Jimmy Carter and Billy Bowers: Lead Vocals • Jason Isbell: Slide Guitar
Joey Williams: Guitar • Peter Levin: Keyboards • Jimbo Hart: Bass • Chad Gamble: Drums
Produced by Jason Isbell • Engineered and Mixed by Jimmy Nutt • Recorded at Fame Recording Studios, Muscle Shoals, AL

Trouble Will Soon Be Over performed by Sinead O’Connor
Sinéad O’Connor: Vocals • Kenneth Papenfus: Guitars, Backing Vocals • Carl Papenfus: Drums, Bass, Backing Vocals
Additional Backing Vocals by Joanne Papenfus and Nicola Papenfus
Engineered, Produced and Mixed by Papenfus/Papenfus

Bye And Bye I’m Going To See The King performed by Luther Dickinson featuring The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band
Luther Dickinson: Guitar, Vocal • Shardé Thomas: Vocal, Fife, Drums • Amy Lavere: Upright Bass, Vocals
Recorded at Zebra Ranch by Kevin Houston

God Don’t Never Change performed by Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams: Vocals and Guitar • Doug Pettibone: Guitar • David Sutton: Bass • Butch Norton: Drums
Produced by Tom Overby & Lucinda Williams • Mixed and Engineered by David Bianco • Recorded at Dave’s Room, North Hollywood, CA

John The Revelator performed by Tom Waits
Tom Waits: Vocals, Cigar Box Banjo • Casey Waits: Drums
Produced by Waits/Brennan • Engineered by Karl Derfler • Production Coordinator: Jodie Wilson
Traditional/Arranged by Tom Waits, Adapted by Son House. © 2015, Jalma Music, ASCAP, Sondick Music, BMI P Tom Waits, Under License to Burning Rose Productions, Ltd.

Let Your Light Shine On Me performed by Maria McKee
Maria McKee: Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Organ, Percussion
Recorded and Mixed by Jim Akin

Dark Was the Night–Cold Was the Ground performed by Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones: Vocals, Guitar, Tambourine • Lee Thornburg: Horns
Engineered, Produced and Mixed by Sheldon Gomberg • Recorded at The Carriage House, Los Angeles, CA
Musical arrangement by Rickie Lee Jones © 2014, used by permission.

Produced by Jeffrey Gaskill
Executive Producers: Jeffrey Gaskill, Burning Rose Productions, Ltd. and Mila Bagry
Associate Producer: Michael B Borofsky
Sequenced at Jiminy Peak, Hancock, MA
Mastered by Toby Mountain at Northeastern Digital, Southboro, MA
Cover illustration by Marc Burckhardt
Packaging design by Kevin Niemiec
Photos courtesy of Jeffrey Gaskill
Business and Legal Affairs: Michael C. Lesser, Esq.
Legal: Sawnie “Trip” Aldredge, Esq.

All songs Public Domain except as noted

VERY SPECIAL THANKS: Pam K. Kelly and Judge R. Steven Sharp of Marlin, Texas, USA

THANK YOU: Cary Baker, Michael Corcoran, Paul Gaskill, Ginny Gaskill, Chris Goldsmith, Dan Griffin, John Hanssen, Sarah Hanssen, Andy Kaulkin and Anti-, Ray Charles Lang, R.R. Macleod, Scott Marshall, Robert “Mack” McCormick, Regina McCrary, Brian O'Neal, Tom Overby, Jeff Rosen, Sandrine Sheon, Todd Solomon and James Truesdale

ARTIST REPRESENTATION: Michael Andrews, Simon Napier-Bell, Kathleen Brennan, Blake Budney, Julianne Deery, Charles Driebe, Zach Hundley, Ryan Kingsbury, Tom Overby, Mark Spector, Peter Wark, Björn de Water, Simon Watson, and Jodie Wilson

Liner Notes

In 1977, NASA sent the Voyager 1 spacecraft on a one-way trip out of our galaxy and into the far recesses of outer space. The hope was that one day some other lifeform would come upon it and gain some insight into the essence of mankind. To that end, a gold record and player were included, featuring sounds and music to illuminate the human condition. Included on that record—along with a recording of a human heartbeat and music by Beethoven and Bach—was Blind Willie Johnson’s haunting and ethereal “Dark Was The Night—Cold Was The Ground,” a timeless representation of the humanity of Earth’s inhabitants.

Appropriately, a newly recorded version of “Dark Was The Night—Cold Was The Ground” (performed by Rickie Lee Jones) closes God Don’t Never Change: The Songs Of Blind Willie Johnson. The eleven-track album features inspired interpretations of the iconic slide guitarist/vocalist’s most seminal material. Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, Cowboy Junkies, The Blind Boys Of Alabama (accompanied by Jason Isbell), Sinéad O’Connor, Luther Dickinson with The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band, Maria McKee, and Rickie Lee Jones all deliver deeply moving and highly personal reinventions of Johnson’s otherworldly “gospel blues” music.

Blind Willie Johnson recorded a total of 30 tracks for Columbia between 1927 and 1930, creating a priceless legacy. He created unforgettable music by marrying the raw gospel fervor of his vocals with the steely blues fire of his guitar. His songs were mostly traditional or came from hymnals, but when Johnson performed them, his soul-shaking voice and amazing slide guitar transformed each one into something wholly original. Johnson was among the best-selling black gospel artists of the era, but the Great Depression ended his recording career.

Rock fans will no doubt recognize many of Johnson’s songs, which have been recorded over the years by artists ranging from Led Zeppelin to Eric Clapton to Bob Dylan. Johnson’s recording of “John The Revelator” was included in The Anthology Of American Folk Music, archivist Harry Smith’s six-LP collection released in 1952, that set the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s into motion.

According to Luther Dickinson, “Blind Willie Johnson touches everybody. His music is so of the earth that it still sounds completely modern. It’s timeless and like nothing else ever recorded. If we could hip anybody to Blind Willie Johnson, their lives would be enriched for sure.”

Derek Trucks wholeheartedly agrees, saying, “I never heard a slide player, even to this day, play with that much emotion. I’ve only heard a few things that have hit me quite that strongly. There’s something so honest about his recordings. He’s one of the few handful of musicians whose music really feels sacred to me. Johnson’s songs, lyrics and the ability to pair the slide with the voice were amazing. It feels like it came out of a different world.”

Produced by Jeffrey Gaskill (producer of the twice Grammy-nominated compilation, Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan), God Don’t Never Change: The Songs Of Blind Willie Johnson highlights the music of one of the most charismatic and influential slide guitarists and vocalists who ever walked the Earth. As Gaskill states, “Blind Willie Johnson’s music is imperishable. His music speaks to us as it laments the human condition; it speaks to us as it praises the steadfastness of an unchanging God. It travels through time with the same bold call of repentance that was once delivered to listeners on Texas street corners. Ultimately, it is the message that endures.” God Don’t Never Change: The Songs Of Blind Willie Johnson is, according to Gaskill, “my life’s work.” The project was years in the making, and Gaskill is thrilled that it’s finally ready to be released. “You gotta serve somebody,” he says, referencing his earlier compilation, “and I got the songs of Blind Willie Johnson.”

Johnson’s life has been shrouded in mystery, but scholars, most notably the album’s liner notes author, Michael Corcoran, have unearthed a few details. Born in Pendleton, Texas in 1897, Johnson grew up around Marlin, Texas. A legendary story has his stepmother, in a fit of rage, throwing lye in his face when he was a child, blinding him for life. From his teenage years, he traveled the region as a street singer, moving between Dallas, Galveston, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio (even travelling as far as New York City) and finally settling in Beaumont, where he thundered out his street corner evangelism, spreading his sacred message through his transfixing music. He died in 1945 in Beaumont, Texas at the age of 48.

On God Don’t Never Change: The Songs Of Blind Willie Johnson, each artist sounds as if he or she was born to preach Johnson’s gospel. The collective work is much more than a simple ‘tribute’ album. These eleven performances are a powerful and cohesive affirmation of faith as deep as the soul of a man, with an eternal message that is as boundless as the dark, cold night at the farthest edge of the universe.

—Marc Lipkin
Alligator Records

An Imperishable Message

Like John the Baptist, Blind Willie Johnson was an itinerant preacher, a voice of one crying in the wilderness.

When you listen to Willie Johnson, first and foremost you are impressed by the musicianship and the unsurpassed guitar work. Then you recognize that this man is onto something deep, down-to-the-core deep. Johnson made music of substance and purpose. He had an important message, and he sang that message loudly from street corners, not so much to his fellow man as at him: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord; make straight paths for him.’

In 2002, while I was finishing my first compilation, Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan, a friend mentioned a 1920s gospel singer who played in a bluesy style. I hadn’t yet heard of Johnson, but I soon discovered I was more than a little familiar with most of his 30 songs. How had I overlooked the master musician responsible for “Dark Was The Night—Cold Was The Ground,” “John The Revelator” and “Mother’s Children?” How could this man have had such an impact on American music yet be so invisible, hidden in plain sight?

By the spring of 2003, I was on a pilgrimage. I found myself in Beaumont, Texas where, like others, I “discovered” the death certificate of one Willie Johnson, blind musician. I found an empty lot at 1440 Forrest Street that in 1945 had been the home and House of Prayer of Rev. William J. Johnson. As the sun went down, I was on the outskirts of town at the African-American Blanchard Cemetery, Johnson’s most likely burial site. It was an overgrown ruin, fittingly overlooked, inhabited by tall weeds and what I imagined as large, unwelcoming snakes.

In 2008, I began inviting a number of artists to participate in a tribute to Blind Willie Johnson and what is now God Don’t Never Change—The Blind Boys of Alabama, a group that started in 1939; Cowboy Junkies, who radiate that haunting, ethereal feel of the early blues; Luther Dickinson, whose work both as a solo artist and with the North Mississippi Allstars exudes the influence of Blind Willie Johnson; Lucinda Williams, who comes from the part of the country where Louisiana meets Texas; Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, to bring out the best in his sweet slide and her bluesy voice; and Rickie Lee Jones, who would reveal the words to Johnson’s acclaimed song “Dark Was The Night" with her raw emotional depth. Sinéad O’Connor was sure to conjure magic here, as was Maria McKee, and of course one can easily compare the rough, gravelly voice of Tom Waits to that of Willie Johnson. I quickly had all of these enthusiastic artists as well as a number of record labels excited, but unfortunately, given the changing economics of the music industry, moving forward at that time wasn’t feasible.

Then, in 2010, I found myself back in Beaumont, when an historical marker was being placed at Forrest Street and a memorial erected in what was now a well-groomed graveyard. On this second pilgrimage, I also made my way to Marlin, Texas, and the abandoned Hunter Street home once occupied by Johnson and his then wife and singing partner Willie B. Harris. It was in Marlin that blues researcher Dan Williams discovered and visited Harris in the 70s and journalist Michael Corcoran interviewed Johnson's only known daughter, Sam Faye Kelly, shortly before her death in 2005. Local historians place Johnson performing at the corner of Wood and Commerce Streets as well as attending the Powerhouse Church of God in Christ a few blocks away on Commerce.

Even then, it wasn’t until January of 2013 that I had the vague notion of what would eventually prove to be the seeds of a successful Kickstarter campaign that helped make this compilation a reality. With the extraordinarily kind help of local historian Pam K. Kelly and County Judge R. Steven Sharp, I was able to obtain three boards that had fallen free from the dilapidated structure that Willie Johnson once called home. I delivered that hallowed wood into the capable hands of George Brin in Putnam, Connecticut. George carefully cleaned up this aged Southern Yellow Pine and hand crafted magnificent finger jointed boxes, book matched front and back to create ten extraordinary cigar box guitars. While these rare guitars of “The Blind Pilgrim Collection” went to the highest backers, without the support of each and every one of the project’s 956 champions, this compilation would not have been possible.

And finally, in 2015, this album found a similar reception among Bruce Iglauer and his faithful custodians of the blues at Alligator Records. I cannot thank them enough for helping me turn the corner and deliver this work to your ears.

Like Bob Dylan’s gospel music, Blind Willie Johnson’s music is imperishable. His music speaks to us as it laments the human condition; it speaks to us as it praises the steadfastness of an unchanging God. It travels through time with the same bold call of repentance that was once delivered to listeners on Texas street corners. As each of these extraordinary artists delivers their own unique rendition of a Blind Willie Johnson song, ultimately, it is the message that endures.

—Jeffrey Gaskill
Producer