Blind Willie Johnson - “Dark Was The Night - Cold Was The Ground”
Columbia (# 145320-1)
Recorded on December 3, 1927 in Dallas, Texas.
Dark Was The Night, Cold Was the Ground was included on the Voyager Golden Record, sent into space with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977; this piece was used in the widely seen science show Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan in 1980. Blind Willie Johnson’s music and life were featured in the 2003 film “The Soul of a Man” by Wim Wenders for the PBS series “The Blues.” The film deals extensively with the Voyager spacecraft recording. This recording also got Johnson mentioned on an episode of the television series The West Wing (see “The Warfare of Genghis Khan”); the fictional Deputy White House Chief of Staff Josh Lyman used Johnson’s recording to show the depth and soul behind the space program. As mentioned by Lyman, Johnson’s music left the solar system on December 16, 2004. Dark Was The Night has also been covered by Jack Rose.
The song is also used in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew; Walk the Line, a biopic of country singer Johnny Cash; and The Devil’s Rejects, a serial killer film by rocker Rob Zombie. Ry Cooder, who based his desolate soundtrack to Paris, Texas on “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”, described it as “the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music.”
