Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground

"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"

Single by Blind Willie Johnson

A-side

"It's Nobody's Fault But Mine"

Released

1927–28

Format

10" 78 rpm single

Recorded

December 3, 1927

Genre

Gospel blues

Length

3:21

Blind Willie Johnson singles chronology

"Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed"
(1927)

"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"
(1927)

"Mother's Children Have a Hard Time"
(1927)

Music sample
"Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"

"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" is a gospel blues song written and performed by American musician Blind Willie Johnson and recorded in 1927. The song is primarily an instrumental featuring Johnson's self-taught bottleneck slide guitar and picking style accompanied by his vocalizations of humming and moaning. It has the distinction of being one of 27 samples of music included on the Voyager Golden Record, launched into space in 1977 to represent the diversity of life on Earth. The song has been highly praised and covered by numerous musicians and is featured on the soundtracks of several films.

Born in 1897, Johnson taught himself how to play guitar and dedicated his life to blues and gospel music, playing for people on street corners and in mission halls. Columbia Records had a field unit that traveled to smaller towns to record local talent. Johnson recorded 30 songs for them at five sessions between 1927 and 1930. Among the first of these was "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground".

The song's title is borrowed from a hymn that was popular in the nineteenth century American South with fasola singers. “Gethsemane”, written by English clergyman Thomas Haweis in 1792, begins with the lines “Dark was the night, cold was the ground / on which my Lord was laid.” Music historian Mark Humphrey describes Johnson's composition as an impressionistic rendition of “lining out”, a call-and-response style of singing hymns that is common in southern African-American churches.

"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" is 3 minutes and 21 seconds of Johnson's unique guitar playing in open D tuning for slide. By most accounts, Johnson substituted a knife or penknife for the bottleneck. His melancholy, gravel-throated humming of the guitar part creates the impression of "unison moaning", a melodic style common in Baptist churches where, instead of harmonizing, a choir hums or sings the same vocal part, albeit with slight variations among its members. Although Johnson's vocals are indiscernible, several sources indicate the subject of the song is the crucifixion of Christ.

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Wikipedia