pdf, with thanks to the original sharer
Welding ended his notes with several accounts
of Johnson’s death. It could have been a merciful ending, but like so many
before him, Welding couldn’t resist touching up the death scene with a bit of
personal adornment: “However apocryphal the accounts, they have one thing in common:
all detail an end for a man who all through his adult years felt the hounds of
hell baying loudly and relentlessly on his trail. In the end, he just couldn’t
outrun them any longer.” All this is gleaned from one song, “Hellhound on My
Trail,” and one critic’s need to find a supernatural thread with which to
stitch up an essay. Or perhaps we’re reading too much into Welding’s prose.
After all, Johnny Shines said he heard that Johnson died on his hands and
knees, barking like a dog, whereas Honeyboy Edwards said the mortally poisoned Johnson
was retching with dry heaves. Perhaps it’s just a difference of language and
imagery: puking like a dog or “baying loudly and relentlessly” like hounds from
hell.
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