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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2007 > November > 21 > Entry
The real Blind Willie Johnson?
Blues fan Jeff Anderson has found a remarkable document, the 1918 draft registration card of a Willie Johnson, who was blind. But is it the great gospel bottleneck slide player Blind Willie Johnson, who recorded such songs as “If I Had My Way,” “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” and “Motherless Children Have a Hard Time” in the 1920s?
Some of the info on the draft registration card contradicts that of Blind Willie’s death certificate, which I hung much of this 2003 article on. But, then, some of the info Anderson found makes more sense. Especially this part: Johnson’s widow, Angeline Johnson, said that Johnson had been blinded at about age 7 when a girlfriend of Blind Willie’s father threw lye in his face to avenge a beating. In the 1918 document, when Johnson was 21, he says he’d been blind for 13 years. Intriguing.
The death certificate, with information provided by Angeline Johnson, has Blind Willie’s birthdate at Jan 22, 1897; draft card puts it at Jan. 25, 1897. Considering record-keeping of the time, especially among itinerant African Americans, that’s close enough. Death certificate says he was born in Independence, near Brenham; draft card puts his birth at Pendleton, near Temple, which has long been thought of as Blind Willie’s birthplace. Could it be that Angeline said “Pendleton” and the doctor heard “Independence?” Or wasn’t listening very closely? With Blind Willie’s mother, Mary Fields, coming from Moody and his father (named Willie Johnson Sr. on the death certificate, but Dock Johnson on the draft card) living in Temple, it makes much more sense that Blind Willie was born in Pendleton, which is just a few miles from those towns.
One thing on the draft card throws doubt that it belonged to Blind Willie Johnson. It listed his 1918 home as a Houston address, 912 Fuller Street in the Fourth Ward. In hours and hours of researching Blind Willie’s life, I couldn’t find any connection to Houston. Temple and nearby Marlin have evidence that Johnson lived there. He died in Beaumont in 1945, and Dallas and Atlanta was where he recorded. I called the helpful folks at the Houston Public Library and they looked up 912 Fuller Street in the 1919 city directory. I was hoping that maybe it was the address of a blind vocational school or Pentecostal church, but the owner of the building was a Narcissa Waters.
I guess we’ll never know for sure where and how the mysterious Blind Willie Johnson lived, but this newly discovered document should reopen the conversation. And maybe turn up some new leads.
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By Chris Dunham
November 22, 2007 9:55 AM | Link to this
For what it’s worth, Jelly Roll Morton was living at 906 Fuller Street in 1913, and playing piano at local brothels. At that time, the Fourth Ward was home to Houston’s red-light district, but in 1917 the city cracked down on prostitution, gambling, and bootlegging. The Houston Riot occurred that summer, and in its wake Jim Crow laws were brutally enforced. Boosters continued selling the city to blacks and whites as “Heavenly Houston,” so maybe Blind Willie came to town looking to save souls.
By V. M. Black
November 26, 2007 12:43 PM | Link to this
Very, very interesting info!
Thanks, Corky and Chris D.