With the success of Sinners, the ‘Prince of the Delta Blues’ expands his kingdom

By Leonardo Bevilacqua | Originally published by Mississippi Today

Throughout his life, Keith Johnson has heard fears of the death of the blues. 

Older Mississippi Delta blues musicians wondered if the genre would catch on with younger performers. They questioned whether younger local artists would be willing and able to perform the music.

Johnson, a Glen Allan native, heard that fear from artists at local concerts. He also heard it from extended family in between stories of his famous ancestors, Muddy Waters and Ollie Morganfield

But the conversations changed with the premiere of “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s horror film based in the Mississippi Delta, which won four Academy Awards and earned a record-setting 16 nominations. The movie is about a Clarksdale juke joint’s opening night that is crashed by vampires who are summoned by the mystical allure of blues music.

“It was powerful to me, just watching the blues get highlighted, having people from across the world, having their eyes on blues music in Mississippi,” Johnson said in an interview with Mississippi Today. “No one has really ever highlighted the blues on a platform as big as that one.”

In just a year, Johnson, a human resources professional who performed blues music on weekends and after work, began as part of Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience. Johnson performed “I Lied To You,” the breakout hit song from the film, in Central Park as part of a music festival.

Johnson, 32, is one of a cadre of young performers bringing the century-old genre to audiences in New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh. He is not only singing classics like “Death Letter Blues,” but also sharing the history of the music borne of oppression in the Delta’s cotton fields.  

As blues music reaches younger listeners, the history of its genesis does too. For Johnson, that history is an important part of blues performances: connecting listeners with a place he calls home and a past and present sometimes divorced from the familiar blues tunes.

“I think it’s important that we tell our own stories,” Johnson said. “Blues is everyday life. The blues kind of makes the wrong go still.” 

A different kind of Delta

Johnson grew up in a different Delta than his famous forebears, but the same inspirations, hardships and music were there, he said. He grew up in Glen Allan, a rural community 29 miles south of Greenville surrounded by farmland. 

Since 1979, factories in the region had begun to close, forcing families to move for better opportunities and plunging cities into disrepair and neglect. More families were choosing to leave their ancestral homes for neighborhoods in other states and regions.

The highlight of Johnson’s week when he was growing up was listening to local musicians at Saint Peter’s Missionary Baptist Church. The church was also Johnson’s first touchstone with music and oratory. It was where he first pictured a career in music. 

He said he saw how a song bestowed the singer with a majesty that belied their humble origins and personal tragedies. He would hum along to hymns, tap his dress shoes against the wood flooring and imagine himself up on the dais, singing his own songs in his resonant baritone.

“I think when you’re writing songs, when you’re performing, it has to come from a place of authenticity, a place of passion. Maybe it’s pain, maybe it’s a certain happiness, but it has to be real authentic,” Johnson said.

As a teacher and mentor, Darren Hughes noticed Johnson’s ambition early on. It was clear to him that Johnson was serious about learning chords and practicing challenging songs. Johnson was one of the first people Hughes reached out to for a performance slot when organizing the Straight Off the Lake music festival in Glen Allan in 2018. Hughes wanted the festival to spotlight local talent in Washington County.

He said he remembers hearing stories of the sharecroppers who, after a grueling day of manual labor,  performed music that became known as the Delta Blues. They would reconnect with their families and sing on their porches. While blues was borne of oppression, the act of playing the music was a joyful release, he was told.

“The rejoicing part about it is when they were able to finally get home and be with family out on the front porch,” Hughes said. “The family would sing all night. That was the fun part about it. Waiting to get home to get out on the front porch. That’s the blues to me.”

“It’s embracing.”

For Hughes, performing the blues is about connecting with the lyrics and having fun. He first caught “the bug,” as he calls it, watching Denise LaSalle perform “Precious, Precious” at Greenville’s Delta Blues Festival as a 20-something in 1990s Greenville. He said he was moved to experience the same awe she inspired in him.

“If you can capture that imagination, then you’ll know how fun it is for the performer to perform that song,” he said. “It brings peace to my mind. It’s relaxing to me.”

Finding his voice

Johnson said he felt vindicated when he saw “Sinners” in a crowded movie theater in Greenville last year. Not only did he see the type of characters he grew up hearing about, he said he saw himself. The sacrifices he made to accommodate his dream job and day job, and support his burgeoning family felt correct. 

After Johnson had performed at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale for three years, Morgan Freeman picked Johnson for his tour. To date, Johnson has performed in Seattle, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Portland, New York and Chicago. He elbowed his way through the crowded streets around Times Square and dipped his toes into the Atlantic Ocean in Florida.

But in each note and in each conversation after a show, the conversation often returns to the Delta: Johnson’s home. He talks about his neighbors, his musical ancestors and the oath he took to protect their legacy.

Johnson’s favorite scene in “Sinners” is when veteran blues musician Delta Slim recounts how the white Coahoma County sheriff forced him and friends to perform at a plantation owner’s party in exchange for freedom and tips. In a pained aside, Slim admits to Sammie Moore, a young blues singer played by Miles Caton, that he spent his tip money on booze and his co-performer was lynched for carrying a suspiciously large sum of cash as a Black man.

“You don’t have to channel something from 40 or 50 years from now because there’s suffering happening today,” Johnson said. “Again, the Delta is poor — rich soil, but poor people. Probably certain investments need to come to the Delta.”

The final stop of the Symphonic Blues Experience was March 27 at Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson. For many of the show’s performers, it was the first tour stop that their families could attend. The audience was packed with people who clapped in the aisles and wiped away tears from soulful solos. 

Adrian Miles Forrest, known to his audiences as “Rev Slim,” was able to perform for his niece, sister, brother, aunt, cousin, father, mother, wife and pastor. His father caught the show for the first time in Jackson. Forrest plays bass guitar during the show and sings.

“To the other states, it was an experience; to Mississippi, it was a celebration,” he said about the Jackson tour stop. “Getting to see people from my neck of the woods is a moment I will always appreciate.” 

As a child, Forrest taught himself how to be a blues performer by listening to chords and lyrics on the radio. In March, he performed in front of hundreds at the tour stop in Jackson. 

It was a tremendous honor to entertain the broader Mississippi community and be part of a newer generation keeping the music in circulation, Forrest said.

For Johnson, the blues is far from dead. He sees audiences who are younger and more diverse. 

“You do have some young people like myself who are very interested in this genre and who want to carry it forward,” Johnson said. “It’s my duty to make sure this thing keeps going on and on and on. It’s music that affects people. We subconsciously take in the message in the song, and the spirit in the music.”

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article