His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930, thirty songs in all, display a combination of powerful chest voice singing, slide guitar skills and originality that has influenced generations of musicians.

As a result, Johnson is credited as one of the most influential practitioners of the blues and his slide guitar playing, particularly on his hymn Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground, is highly acclaimed.

[2] His family, which according to the blues historian Stephen Calt included at least one younger brother (named Carl), moved to the agriculturally rich community of Marlin, where Johnson spent most of his childhood.

[7] Adam Booker, a blind minister interviewed by the blues historian Samuel Charters in the 1950s, recalled that while visiting his father in Hearne, Johnson would perform religious songs on street corners and had a tin cup tied to the neck of his Stella guitar to collect money.

[6] In 1926 or early 1927, Johnson began an unregistered marriage with Willis B. Harris who occasionally sang on the street with him and accompanied him on piano at benefits for the Marlin Church of God in Christ.

[10] By the time Johnson began his recording career, he was a well-known evangelist with a "remarkable technique and a wide range of songs" as blues historian Paul Oliver notes.

Among the songs he recorded in that day were Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed, It's Nobody's Fault but Mine, Mother's Children Have a Hard Time, Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground, and If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down".

[14] His melancholy humming of the guitar part creates the impression of unison moaning, a style of singing hymns that is common in southern African-American church groups.

[15] In 1928, the blues critic Edward Abbe Niles praised Johnson in his column for The Bookman, emphasizing his "violent, tortured, and abysmal shouts and groans, and his inspired guitar playing".

[16] Johnson and Harris returned to Dallas on December 5, 1928 to record I'm Gonna Run to the City of Refuge, Jesus Is Coming Soon, Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying and Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.

He completed ten sides in 16 takes at Werlein's Music Store in New Orleans also recording some duets with an unknown female singer who is thought to have been a member of Reverend J. M. Gates's congregation.

[6] Jazz historian Richard Allen recalls hearing a story that Johnson was arrested while performing in front of the Custom House on Canal Street for allegedly attempting to incite a riot with his impassioned rendition of If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down.

[13] By most accounts, including one by the reputable blues guitarist Blind Willie McTell, Johnson used a knife as a slide but other claims by Harris and the bluesman Thom Shaw say he used a thumb pick or brass ring on his recordings.

He is also one of the few bottleneck artists with the ability to consistently sound three or four discreet melody notes upon striking a string once, a skill that reflects uncanny left-handed strength, accuracy and agility".

[21][27] In 2016, Alligator Records released the tribute album God Don't Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson produced by Jeffrey Gaskill with covers by various artists including Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Sinead O'Connor and Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi.

[31] In 1977, Carl Sagan and a team of researchers were tasked with collecting a representation of the human experience here on Earth and sending it into space on the Voyager probe for other life forms in the universe.

[34] In 2017, the story of Blind Willie Johnson's inclusion on the Voyager probe was told in the multi-award-winning documentary series American Epic directed by Bernard MacMahon.