Johnny Shines was one of the last Delta bluesmen to travel and perform with Robert Johnson. Born in 1915 and raised in Arkansas, Shines first met Johnson around 1934 and later followed him all the way up to Canada, where the two bluesmen performed gospel music on a religious radio show. Shortly after, Johnson was murdered in 1938. Shines moved to Chicago where the Country Delta style began to dwindle by the ‘50s in favor of electric band blues. He was disgusted enough to sell his guitar and quit the blues for almost a decade ‑ eventually relocating to Holt, Alabama and touring worldwide later in life. He passed away in 1992, a year before that I spoke with Johnny Shines about his musical life with Robert Johnson.
Nick Spitzer:Tell me how it came to pass that you encountered Robert Johnson.
Johnny Shines: I was playing with a boy called M&O. M&O evidently had something against Robert; he wanted somebody to outdo Robert. So he kept asking me about going down to Helena and meeting Robert. Robert was staying down in Helena there with Robert Jr. Lockwood's mother. So one day, I hopped a freight train and went down there, and I met Robert. But I ran into more than I expected. The man was a solid buzzsaw, you know. He was a buzzsaw on that guitar, man. I couldn't do nothing with him. He stole my crowd and everybody else's crowd. So I began then to want to try to learn what he was doing.
NS: What was it that made him such a buzzsaw in your opinion?
JS: He was making chords and runs and things that you didn't hear nobody else make on the guitar, especially in the blues field. About four changes in the blues, that’s all. Johnson was doing quite a few other things, he was making diminishes, all like that, playing the blues.
NS: Did you ever actually just travel with then him on the road when he was playing and play with him, or did you just pretty much learn some things from him.
JS: Well yeah, sometimes we'd play together because people wanted to hire us together, as a duet. We didn’t object to it, but he liked to play by himself, and I liked to play by myself, and we'd play on opposite corners of each other. He'd be on the northwest corner; I'd be on the southeast corner. And he'd play his guitar, and I'd play mine.
NS: When you traveled, how did you actually go places together?
JS: Just like people go now, you go out there and get on a truck, go where you want to go on a truck, or you get out there and catch you a freight train, any way you could.
NS: What was it like trying to catch a freight train holding a guitar, did you ever have trouble getting on a train?
JS: You don't hold no guitar trying to catch a freight train, you turn it bottom side up and wrap it around your neck. You've got both hands free. We rode the blinds, we rode boxcars, any way we could get there. Quickest way to get out of a place, we picked it.
NS: What would be your best memory of being with Robert Johnson?
JS: My best memory of being with Robert Johnson is hearing him play, the haunting sounds that he had. I can hear his tunes in my sleep, and all throughout the day, when he wasn't playing. See, Robert was a fellow, he never picked up his instrument to practice, he always picked it up to play. And he played it. I never saw him practice. If he heard a song over the radio, he played it, chords I don’t think he ever knew anything about. So I would say he was a man born way ahead of his time.
NS: How do you feel about the fact that some of the big rock groups in the ‘60s and ‘70s came along and made such a popular appeal with some of his music, so long after he was gong?
JS: Well that's just how much range he had in his music feel, Robert Johnson himself. He had room enough for you to do anything with it you wanted to. And these people are just taking advantage of it. Nothing wrong with what they did. I'm glad they did it. It made them a few dollars, and they were able to survive. That means Robert didn't do nobody no harm, even though some people think he was born of the devil or his music was the music of the devil. Down in the cemetery he's in, they're not particular about him being in there, but he's there.
NS: Do you think that Robert Johnson had some kind of vision or agreement with the devil for his music?
JS: Not anymore than you have over yours. If you're determined to play music, you'll play it. If you don’t have the determination you’ll never play it. Just a man who had determination to play music. I mean, so far as your soul is concerned, there's not a darn thing you can do with your soul. You have any control over your soul? Neither did he over his. He was a meatman just like you and I.
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