The records sold well in their target market of the American south and southwest, with "Terraplane Blues" a regional hit, but their sales figures never totaled more than 5000 or so.

[3][4] Hammond, who had searched for Johnson in 1938 to include him on the bill for the first of his From Spirituals to Swing concerts at Carnegie Hall, prodded Columbia to assemble this album during the height of the folk revival in the 1960s.

The Los Angeles Times wrote that Johnson's recordings for the albums "revolutionized the Mississippi Delta style that became the foundation of the Chicago blues sound".

[17] The Wall Street Journal wrote that "when his album King of the Delta Blues Singers made its belated way to England in the mid-1960s, it energized a generation of musicians".

[18] The Hartford Courant selected King of the Delta Blues Singers for its list of the 25 Pivotal Recordings That Defined Our Times (1999).