Robert Johnson/Leadbelly

The recent death of James Brown has had me thinking of other similarly influential artists of the 20th century. Maybe it's because I'm more familiar with the century I grew up in, but it seems that the 20th century was fertile ground for new art forms, new technology, etc. In the first half of the century we had the birth of swing, jazz, blues, and rock in music. And in the visual arts we had the explosion of what would be known as Modern art. Picasso, Dali, Pollack, Disney. Yes, I said Disney. The thing that ties all the groundbreakers together (aside from the fact that they were visionaries) is that they were all misfits in some way. Not a lot of well adjusted children in this bunch. If they were alive today, you'd find their mugshots on the smokinggun.com.

I don't want to say that if you want to be a groundbreaking pioneer in your field you have to be an asshole, but I guess it doesn't hurt.

Anyway, here's an image of a couple of my all time favorite assh...uh, pioneers. Robert Johnson and Leadbelly. They say Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his prowess on the guitar. He'd show up to gigs late, get drunk, then leave with someone elses wife. If he were alive today he'd probably be a hip hop guy. Thank God (or, you know who) that he was born way back in the day instead.

Leadbelly, whose songs Led Zeppelin covered, was a killer musician. Literally. He did some time for killing a man, then after being released he was charged again for attempted murder. He picked up the nickname "Leadbelly"(his given name was Hudy Leadbetter) from his fellow prisoners after an attempt on his life turned into an old fashioned turn of the tables butt whoopin'.

If not for the documentarian Alan Lomax, we might not know about Leadbelly or many of the other southern musicians whose roots eventually grew into the amazing tree we know as the music of the 20th century.