I am about to become, hopefully just temporarily until the wave passes, the most unpopular man on the Internet.
But all I'm going to do is pose a question, presented solemnly, earnestly, despite its potentially outlandish premise. As I write this, the world is into the fourth day of mass mourning, over the untimely suicide of über-comic Robin Williams. I'd be remiss here not to say at the outset that I was a fan, though I'm sure, not the ultimate fan. There are people who outright worshipped this man, and do still. The joy and laughter he brought to an entire world in dire need of it is undebatable. And I'm certainly not about to attempt such.
Yet when I ponder Williams's depression-soaked demise, against the level of fame and fan adoration he achieved – an epic grandiosity, much like Bob Dylan's in the world of music; a level unearned by any three of Williams's contemporaries combined – one not-so-humorous scene pops into my head. I've heard it referenced before, regarding a few others who also acquired an almost Christlike status within their spheres. I already mentioned Bob Dylan; he's one of them.
The name I am about to mention will tell you exactly where I'm going with this. Maybe you'll want to stop reading now, out of respect for Robin Williams. I don't blame you. But I've committed myself to explore this dark alley. Here we go.
In the early part of the 20th century, the late 1920s and early 30s to be exact, there was an obscure blues guitarist and singer who plied his craft mainly on street corners and occasionally in dangerous "Jook Joints." As an entertainer, he was deemed at best, unremarkable. Some considered him mediocre.
His own idol was another Bluesman named Son House. But perhaps it was not House's talent he envied necessarily, but his success. House commanded respect where ever he performed, and had all the money and women that he could possibly desire, and keep track of. He made phonograph records, music that was played on the radio, that would survive him. The young man greedily craved the same life.
The young blues musician was named Robert Johnson.
As legend has it, the south then was robust with backstreet voodoo and superstition, much like certain quarters of it still are today. Johnson learned of a certain fast-track approach to the success he yearned for.
He came to a lonely crossroads one midnight, and made a bargain. He fell to his knees and surrendered his guitar to a mysterious "someone" who proceeded to tune the instrument, and ask Johnson if he wanted to remain a lonesome singer on a street corner, or produce a sound that would mesmerize all who heard it – a sound that no one had ever experienced before – and enable him to bask in a level of renown he could not imagine.
Johnson's answer was the latter.
Whether he actually did it, or the tale is merely a fantastic oral tradition survived to the present day, is still debated. It could be partially true: Johnson ventured forth and only believed in a fever dream that he'd really done it. Whichever the case, it apparently worked.
Overnight it seems, Johnson was suddenly an untouchable, musically. His hands were at once wizard-like on the guitar that he'd previously just strummed a ragged beat upon. He wrote songs that demonically possessed joint crowds, and had other men's women swooning over him. He was a blues pied piper.
The songs he produced, like Son House, he was asked to record – which he did over the course of 1936 and '37. Most of them have attained genre anthem status and become the darlings of modern collectors and audio restorationists. “Hellhound On My Trail,” “Sweet Home Chicago” and the enigmatic “Cross Road Blues” are among approximately 30 songs that Johnson committed to phonographic recordings.
In 1938, enjoying the highlife that his acclaim produced, perhaps a little too flamboyantly, Johnson was poisoned with bad hooch, by a jealous rival. His untimely death was exactly what his legend needed to skyrocket.
Modern music critics seem in colluded consensus that Robert Johnson was the single most important forefather of Rock-n-Roll. No less than such Rock giants as Keith Richards and Eric Clapton agree. No Robert Johnson would have meant no rock music, at least as we came to know it.
Now, back we come to Bob Dylan. Hate me yet?
Perhaps the single most influential songwriter of the post World War II world, the likes of which unseen since Woody Guthrie and Irving Berlin, Bob Dylan's music took charge of not just the direction of modern folk music, and of rock music, but literally an entire chunk of Americana.
Like Johnson, he first appeared on the scene as a somewhat unremarkable commodity. All that changed, seemingly overnight. Dylan's transformation into an untouchable, came as suddenly, it would appear, as Robert Johnson's.
Dylan's music redrew the boundaries that it did not obliterate, of folk, then rock – and ultimately all of popular music. His legend is nearly unparalleled today, matched by an elite few but even then, only arguably. Recounting his biography is hardly necessary here. Except for one tiny moment…
Dylan was once interviewed for the show
60 Minutes, by the late television journalist Ed Bradley. At one point, a cryptic little exchange occurred between them, and it was left in the final edit of the segment – in which Bradley brought up Dylan's career longevity, and his uniquely lofty perch in the cultural psyche.
Bradley: You still do these songs; you're still on tour…
Dylan: I do but I don't take it for granted.
Bradley: Why do you still do it? Why are you still out here?
Dylan: Well it goes back to that destiny thing. I made a bargain with it, you know, a long time ago, and I'm holding up my end.
Bradley: What was your bargain?
Dylan: To get… um… where I am now.
Bradley: Should I ask who you made the bargain with?
Dylan:
(Nervous chuckle) With… the Chief… The Chief Commander.
Bradley:
(Mirroring Bob's chuckle) On this earth?
Dylan: On this earth, and in the one we can't see…
The 2nd Book of the Corinthians, refers to a specific individual as "The Lord of This Earth," and it isn't Jesus. Bob Dylan went through a "Christian" phase of his career, and likely knew to whom he was referring as well, but never mentioned a name, merely a sheepishly spoken title: The Chief Commander. Bradley did not, in the final cut anyway, press the issue further.
A bargain. Just like Robert Johnson's. With practically an identical outcome, all but for the untimely end. Maybe that part is optional, if one hold's up one's end of the deal properly. Still, it doesn't bode well for one's potential in the hereafter.
You hate me now. You're about to double down.
One might add Elvis Presley to this elite list, but the level of godlike fame in the possession of Johnson, and Dylan, is echoed by only two persons in late 20th and early 21st century popular culture: music icon Michael Jackson, and comedian Robin Williams. They are not just famous, but cosmic in the minds of their fans.
They are Draculas, holding spellbound an entire population, even in death, on a level that most cultural critics would call psychologically impossible. In the 1930s, Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler were the two most famous, most visible men on the planet – and oddly in physical appearance they were good-vs-evil mirror twins.
Only religious icons hold greater sway, over much longer periods of history.
Please agree to hate me less as time wears on. My question is simple.
I was witness to the formative years of Williams's stand-up career, though perhaps not as closely as his peers were, I admit. Still, as a set of eyes and ears in the audience, I did not think Robin Williams would be the untouchable that he suddenly became – in overnight fashion.
In private, he was the gentlest, most unassuming of souls – hardly a man one would think turned into a manic sorcerer of spontaneous insane comedy – at will, as if… yes,
possessed – onstage.
Williams once said that his depression did not kick into high gear until his 2009 heart surgery… and it dawned upon him, that he was mortal.
Very early on, did Robin Williams ever, in utmost secrecy, meet someone at the crossroads? Did the realization of what he'd "purchased," at the start of his career, finally sink in?
I'll leave this perhaps frivolous subject open for debate. With due apologies.
