The Complete Blind Willie Johnson

Disc 1
1	I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole 3:03
2	Jesus Make up My Dying Bed 3:12
3	Nobody's Fault But Mine 3:09
4	Mother's Children Have a Hard Time 3:22
5	Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground) 3:20
6	If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down 3:08
7	I'm Gonna Run to the City of Refuge 3:23
8	Jesus Is Coming Soon 3:11
9	Lord, I Just Can't Keep from Crying 3:01
10	Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning 3:04
11	Let Your Light Shine on Me 3:09
12	God Don't Never Change 2:57
13	Bye and Bye I'm Goin' to See the King 2:53
14	Sweeter as the Years Roll By 2:46
Disc 2
1	You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond 3:05
2	When the War Was On 3:03
3	Praise God I'm Satisfied 3:11
4	Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave It There 2:56
5	Take Your Stand 3:01
6	God Moves on the Water 2:59
7	Can't Nobody Hide from God 3:21
8	If It Had Not Been for Jesus 3:23
9	Go With Me to That Land 3:04
10	The Rain Don't Fall on Me 3:19
11	Trouble Will Soon Be Over 3:07
12	The Soul of a Man 3:13
13	Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right 3:05
14	Church, I'm Fully Saved Today 3:07
15	John the Revelator 3:17
16	You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond 3:10

Barnes & Noble

Gospel blues artist Blind Willie Johnson cut some of the most stark and startling music ever committed to wax by an American artist. Between 1927 and 1930, the Marlin, Texas, native recorded 30 sides for Columbia Records, and this collection has them all. Accompanying himself with dexterous slide guitar, Johnson deploys his earth-shaking growl on cuts such as "I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole" and the classic "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down." The raw power and emotion he brings to the performances are astounding. Johnson's sides also provide witness to the world of southern African-American music of the period. The divisions of sacred and secular, blues and spirituals, that many find to characterize early 20th-century black music fall away under the force of Johnson's will. His driving guitar lines are as intricate and howling as anything bluesmen Blind Lemon Jefferson or Robert Johnson had in them, yet his lyrics remain sanctified. Johnson swims deep in the broad river of African-American music and delivers his gospel message with unparalleled insistence and immediacy. These cuts are the template for all that followed. Doubters need only listen to Johnson's wordless lament "Dark Was the Night -- Cold Was the Ground," and believers they will be. Karl Hagstrom Miller

All Music Guide

If you've never heard Blind Willie Johnson, you are in for one of the great, bone-chilling treats in music. Johnson played slide guitar and sang in a rasping, false bass that could freeze the blood. But no bluesman was he; this was gospel music of the highest order, full of emotion and heartfelt commitment. Of all the guitar-playing evangelists, Blind Willie Johnson may have been the very best. Though not related by bloodlines to Robert Johnson, comparisons in the emotional commitment of both men cannot be helped. This two-CD anthology collects everything known to exist, and that's a lot of stark, harrowing, emotional commitment no matter how you slice it. Not for the faint of heart, but hey, the good stuff never is. Cub Koda