So I'm starting a Lone Genius category on the 'blog, where I will offer brief bios of some out-there lone genius types. Previously, I noted the life of Henry David Thoreau. Today's entry is bluesman Robert Johnson.

Johnson, born in 1911, lived 27 years and recorded 29 songs. As a teenager, he was said by bluesman Son House to have had little proficiency at the guitar (though he also played harmonica and piano). After a stint playing Mississippi juke joints, Johnson improved so much that rumors begin to circulate of a deal with the devil, famously set forth in Johnson's much-recorded song 'Cross Road Blues'.

Johnson is considered one of the most expressive bluesmen ever: his influence on later forms like Rock and Roll - everyone from the Butterfield Blues Band to Led Zeppelin to the Rolling Stones - is profound. Though he left only 29 recorded songs, many of them are classics and mainstays of blues band play lists. Johnson is thought to have been murdered by a jealous husband in 1938.

I think its only reasonable to suspect that there are plenty of contemporaries at work in the world who are doing the same sorts of things, some of whom may actually be blogging as they go along...
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Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures