Robert Johnson received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the GRAMMY Awards this year. Born in 1911, he'd be approaching 95 if he were alive today. He would have been in his 50s during the blues revival of the 1960s, and so would surely have been rediscovered and re-recorded, along with Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Son House and Bukka White (all of whom were older than Johnson.) We'd surely have more than 29 songs to measure him by. What would we think of him if we could hear the pop songs, hillbilly songs, and novelty songs that made up the mostly unrecorded part of his repertoire - if his legacy was more "She sleeps in the kitchen with her feets in the hall" instead of "I got stones in my passway, all my roads seem dark as night"?

If he were alive today, he would have been alive for the Spirituals to Swing concert in 1938 that John Hammond wanted him for. Who knows what that would have done for him? Big Bill Broonzy got the slot intended for Johnson; after that, he made a movie with Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong, performed all over the world, recorded for major labels like Chess, Columbia and Folkways, published his autobiography in 1955 and died with money in the bank in 1958. Would Robert Johnson have had a life like that? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he would have gotten old and fat and started playing Vegas in big sunglasses and jumpsuits. Maybe he would have become a broken down drunk like some of his contemporaries. Maybe his demons would have kept him roaming the countryside long after he found success, like Woody Guthrie. Maybe he would have become a respected elder statesman like Muddy Waters.

I don't know how to measure his accomplishments or his appeal; the closest I can get to it is that he seems to be from another planet. Great guitar player? Sure, compared to other Delta blues players. Compared to what Segovia, or Lonnie Johnson, or Blind Blake, or Eddie Lang had done by the late 1930s? I don't know. Not on a technical level, perhaps, but he certainly pins the 'what the heck was that?' meter.

Great songwriter? Let's see, who else was writing popular songs at the time: there's George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen... Not blues singers, of course. The best of Johnson's stuff has an immediate, torn-heart scariness about it that's affecting because it's so personal, but does he belong on that list? I don't know. Does that scariness come from the songs, or the singer? Are we scared when Clapton sings "I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees"? Or does it have to be Johnson? Is he a great singer? Yes, for a Delta blues singer, and here we go again.

It all comes down to the same thing for me. Robert Johnson may be king of the delta blues singers to the late 20th century primarily white, primarily middle class, primarily college educated record buying public. Much of his royal status comes from the mystery surrounding him, his remoteness from our lives, the unusual relationship that blues music in general has with people for whom it was never intended, and hype. Not that he wasn't good; not that he hasn't been influential; not that I don't listen to him every now and then. But I can't help thinking of the wizard of Oz.

Tom Heany