Motherless Children

The story behind

The song Motherless Children, in the version Eric Clapton recorded, has a history that dates back to 1927. It was originally a gospel blues track that Blind Willie Johnson captured in a solo recording, accompanied only by his acoustic slide guitar. At that time, Johnson was beginning his work with the Columbia label, and he chose Dallas, Texas, as the place to record it. The lyrics of this piece have a personal touch, as Johnson wrote them based on his own experience, as his mother passed away when he was very young. After his mother's death, his father remarried, and it is said that his stepmother threw a substance at him that caused his blindness. The spirit of that experience is reflected in verses like "Motherless children have a hard time, mother's dead, Well don't have anywhere to go, Wandering 'round from door to door". Blues researcher Samuel Charters described Johnson's slide guitar playing as full of "nuance and delicacy", capable of enhancing and bringing more clarity to the emotion of his singing, something that was complemented by a rhythmic bass line played with his fingers. The Columbia label released this initial recording under the title Mother's Children Have a Hard Time, although Charters noted that this was due to a misinterpretation of Johnson's words, and that the correct title would be Motherless Children Have a Hard Time.