Robert Johnson discography

A detailed listing of all known recordings by blues musician Robert Johnson. Eleven Johnson 78s were released on the Vocalion label during his lifetime, with a twelfth issued posthumously.^[1] All songs are copyrighted to Robert Johnson, and his estate.

After their initial run in the late 1930s, issued as well on ARC sister labels such as Melotone, Perfect, and Banner, his recordings remained out of print until the appearance of "Preachin' Blues" on the 1959 Samuel Charters compilation for Folkways Records, The Country Blues. In the midst of the American folk music revival, John Hammond convinced Columbia Records in 1961 to issue the first Johnson album, King of the Delta Blues Singers, compiled by Hammond himself. It contained three previously unissued tracks: "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day;" "When You Got a Good Friend" take 2; and "Traveling Riverside Blues" take 1. A sequel LP, assembling the rest of the master recordings, an unreleased second take of "Kind Hearted Woman Blues" and two additional unreleased songs, the first takes of "Phonograph Blues" and "Drunken Hearted Man," was issued in 1970 as King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. II. In the UK, both albums were issued as a two-LP set by Blue Diamond Records in 1985 under the same name, King of the Delta Blues Singers. An omnibus two-CD set, The Complete Recordings, was released in 1990 containing 41 known recordings of 29 songs. Johnson's additional five credited compositions to the 24 issued on Vocalion are "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day," "When You Got a Good Friend," "Traveling Riverside Blues," "Phonograph Blues," and "Drunken Hearted Man."

On September 15, 1998, Columbia/Legacy reissued King of the Delta Blues Singers remastered for compact disc, with the second volume appearing on August 10, 2004. They reproduce the original albums, without the alternates and false starts found on the box set Complete collection. The first volume includes an alternate take of "Traveling Riverside Blues" heretofore undiscovered and previously unissued, which brings the number of known Johnson recordings to forty-two. In Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson author Tom Graves states that Johnson originally made 59 recordings that were shipped to New York. In the book he also lists several "lost" songs that were composed by Robert Johnson but not recorded by him that were recorded by others, including blues artists Johnny Shines and Robert Lockwood Jr..

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