MUD IS HEAVEN
You can't put your arms around a memory, and in the case of BLIND WILLIE'S JOHNSON, you wouldn't want to. No blood relation to the holy-blues singer and sanctified guitarist whose good name they defiled, Blind Willie’s Johnson was a mongrel pack of blues-wailing traffickers in narcotic electric mud from the underbelly of Austin’s music scene in the 1990s. Their dense and defiant shield wall of over-modulated mouth harp, sidewinding slide guitar, mud-crawling riffs, quicksand grooves, and gut-bucket vocalizations made no concessions to trends, traditions, or conventional notions of the blues.
DESECRATION ROW
Recorded in a previous century and left to ferment to imperfection for more years than you can shake a stick at, DESECRATION ROW was unleashed on a world gone wrong in 2025. The album is chock full of previously unreleased odes to mud, blood, dirt, death, drugs, moonshine, murder, manual labor, mental illness, carcinogenic fumes, hallucinogenic properties, scraggly women and lascivious rattlesnakes by a band at the unmarked crossroads of prime-evil blues and swampy proto-punk power.
BLIND WILLIE'S JOHNSON was / is MICK BUCK (vocals, guitar), DENNIS KU (slide guitar, vocals), TOM PATTON (harmonica), SETH TIVEN (bass, guitar, vocals), JASON VARGO (drums), plus original members JEAN CAFFEINE (drums, vocals) and RON POLITO (harmonica).
DESECRATION ROW is the inaugural release from SO ALONE RECORDS, a small-time, independent Nashville-based label and digital archive sworn to the preservation and dissemination of previously unreleased or unjustly neglected recordings of filth-encrusted blues, dirty-ass rock & roll, and other unclean sounds. The album is streaming at all the usual platforms. The limited-edition CD with three bonus tracks can be yours at Desecration Row | Blind Willie's Johnson
A BAD MOJO WARNING
A psycho-swamp-noir tour de force, BODCAW was written and first performed in the 1970s by the legendary BIG RED & GREEN ONES from El Dorado, Arkansas. Ne'er-do-wells BLIND WILLIE' S JOHNSON recorded this screaming mud-dog rendition in 1993. It was infamously heard in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation," the big screen debut of Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger. Remastered for maximum swampitude in 2026, this single couples the studio version with an unhinged, gasoline huffing live performance. It's available to download at Bodcaw | Blind Willie's Johnson or you can stream it 'til you scream it at yo' favorite platform.
TAPES FROM THE CRYPT
KILL THAT DIRTY GROUNDHOG
IT'S A SLOW DEATH
IT'S A SLOW DEATH
DOWNRIGHT MEAN documents the band's first two sessions, recorded in 1992 and 1993. Their proclivity for raw, one-chord blues was captured on skull-rattling treatments of John Lee Hooker’s “Ground Hog Blues” and R.L. Burnside’s “Going Down South.” The album also serves up a mess of original tunes and crack-pipe renditions of “Bodcaw” and Mississippi Fred and Annie Mae McDowell's gospel-blues duet "Get Right Church," along with barbed-wire takes on Frankie Lee Sims's “Married Woman” and Schoolboy Cleve's "She's Gone." Stream, Baby, Stream, or better yet download the damn thing at Downright Mean | Blind Willie's Johnson
IT'S A SLOW DEATH
IT'S A SLOW DEATH
IT'S A SLOW DEATH
From the stash of previously untapped tapes in the vault at So Alone Records, GRAVEYARD MIND, documents the final, nail-in-the-coffin session by BLIND WILLIE'S JOHNSON. Recorded in 1995, the five-song EP combines the band's sonic assault on antiquated blues songs associated with Mississippi Fred McDowell, Mance Lipscomb, and Robert Wilkins with ferocious renditions of the Flamin' Groovies' "Slow Death" and No Music's "Same Old Shit." Download it at Graveyard Mind | Blind Willie's Johnson or stream on, brothers and sisters, at the usual locations.
Contact BLIND WILLIE'S JOHNSON
Lady Bo sez: "Is there something on your mind?"
