At the time that researchers began searching for the final resting place of Blind Willie Johnson, Blanchette Cemetery was obscured by a tangle of brush and trees. This cemetery has many sunken and now unmarked graves and the site of Willie's grave was at that time one of them. But through the diligence of Jack Ortman, an historian from Austin, who traveled to Beaumont weekend after weekend, his burial site, a pauper's grave, was located in the black section of the cemetery. The cemetery across Inca Street is the old Mother of Mercy Catholic Cemetery. The cemetery across Hegele street is unnamed at this time. The catholic church was located somewhere in this vicinity, probably further to the west. Make sure you visit the grave site of Blind Willie Johnson and the monument erected there. It's easy to find the black granite marker in the shape of a cross with a guitar and the tin cup that rests on the left arm of the cross.
From Wikipedia:
Blind" Willie Johnson (January 22, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was a gospel blues singer and guitarist. While the lyrics of his songs were usually religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions and is distinguished by his slide guitar accompaniment and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice. Blind Willie Johnson, according to his death certificate, was born in 1897 near Brenham, Texas (before the discovery of his death certificate, Temple, Texas had been suggested as his birthplace).When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher and then made himself a cigar box guitar. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried soon after her death. Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not known how he lost his sight, Angeline Johnson told Samuel Charters that when Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man. According to this account, the stepmother then blinded young Willie by throwing lye in his face. It is believed that Johnson married at least twice. He was married to Willie B. Harris. Her recollection of their initial meeting was recounted in the liner notes for Yazoo Records's "Praise God I'm Satisfied" album. He was later alleged to have been married to a woman named Angeline. Johnson was also said to be married to a sister of blues artist, L.C. Robinson.[citation needed] No marriage certificates have yet been discovered. As Angeline Johnson often sang and performed with him,[citation needed] the first person to attempt to research his biography, Samuel Charters, made the mistake of assuming it was Angeline who had sung on several of Johnson's records. However, later research showed that it was Willie B. Harris. Johnson remained poor until the end of his life, preaching and singing in the streets of several Texas cities including Beaumont. A city directory shows that in 1945, a Rev. W.J. Johnson, undoubtedly Blind Willie, operated the House of Prayer at 1440 Forrest Street, Beaumont, Texas. This is the same address listed on Johnson's death certificate. In 1945, his home burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed in the August/September Texas heat. He lived like this until he contracted malarial fever and died on September 18, 1945. (The death certificate reports the cause of death as malarial fever, with syphilis and blindness as contributing factors.) In a later interview, his wife, Angeline said she tried to take him to a hospital but they refused to admit him because he was blind, while other sources report that his refusal was due to being black. And although there is some question as to where his exact grave location is, Blanchette Cemetery (which is the cemetery listed on the death certificate but location previously unknown) was officially located by two researchers in 2009. In 2010, those same researchers erected a monument to Johnson in the cemetery, but his exact gravesite remains unknown. His father would often leave him on street corners to sing for money. Tradition has it that he was arrested for nearly starting a riot at a New Orleans courthouse with a powerful rendition of "If I Had My Way I'd Tear The Building Down", a song about Samson and Delilah. According to Samuel Charters, however, he was simply arrested while singing for tips in front of the Customs House by a police officer who misconstrued the title lyric and mistook it for incitement.]Timothy Beal argued that the officer did not, in fact, misconstrue the meaning of the song, but that "the ancient story suddenly sounded dangerously contemporary" to him. Johnson made 30 commercial recording studio record sides in five separate sessions for Columbia Records from 1927–1930. On some of these recordings Johnson uses a fast rhythmic picking style, while on others he plays slide guitar. According to a reputed one-time acquaintance, Blind Willie McTell (1898–1959), Johnson played with a brass ring, although other sources cite him using a knife. However, in enlargement, the only known photograph of Johnson seems to show that there is an actual bottleneck on the little finger of his left hand.[5] While his other fingers are apparently fretting the strings, his little finger is extended straight—which also suggests there is a slide on it as well. Several of Blind Willie Johnson's songs have been interpreted by other musicians (Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Grateful Dead among them), including "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", "It's Nobody's Fault but Mine", "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", "John the Revelator", "You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond", "Motherless Children" and "Soul of a Man". "Dark Was the Night" was also included on the Voyager Golden Record, copies of which were mounted on both of the Voyager Project unmanned space probes. Carl Sagan, who was involved with the selection of the contents of the record, chose the song as he believed it properly encapsulated the essence of loneliness that mankind often faces. Voyager 1 has left the solar system and entered interstellar space, which Voyager 2 is expected to do around 2016.