ALL THOSE OLD-TIME singers with "Blind" in their names: Blind ...

The one who's stayed longest and deepest with me is Blind Willie Johnson, a black preacher from Texas whose total output, recorded 1927-30, was gospel songs. I first heard him on another of those sleeveless LPs I picked up somewhere, then I bought a Yazoo CD about 15 years ago. Now, bless us all, that total output is available as a two-CD set, The Complete Blind Willie Johnson (Columbia).

It puzzles me that most of the album notes and outside comments I've seen about Johnson concentrate almost solely on his guitar work. Now he's a fabulous slide-guitar player-arguably the best of all time-but I don't see how they can ignore or downplay his voice.

Johnson comes on with a guttural growl like the Earth talking. I don't think I've ever put him on without standing there slightly dumbfounded by that sound. Yet it's also wholly musical. In fact, what most hits me is the seamless blending of guitar and voice, as though they were one instrument. That, more than anything else, makes the man unique.

The other thing about him is his unrelentingly positive outlook. Though he had a choice of hundreds of gospel songs of the day, he says nothing of hellfire, does not exhort or proselytize. He merely lays the pattern and joy of his life and his assurance of God's love out for you to share.

It's a humble, straightforward approach that I find deeply affecting, even though I've had no use for Christianity or religion in general for the past 40 years. I've seldom been so infuriated as by this bit from the Yazoo notes (strangely out of place in an excellent analysis of his guitar work): "?Johnson offers a jarring contrast between the vividness of his musical landscape and the aridity of his intellectual horizon, as presented in his lyrics."

If I were to believe, I might want to believe in something like this, from "Trouble Will Soon Be Over": "God is my strong protection, he's my bosom friend." Can the writers of CD notes find as much warm satisfaction in their lives as did this blind street singer?

"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground," a meditation on Christ's crucifixion, is probably unlike anything else recorded. Here, Johnson hums the tune without words, a low moan over a perfectly coordinated guitar that carries a depth of agony combined, somehow, with hope.

But as so often seems to be the case, my favorite song is one that seldom gets much attention (it was left off the Yazoo collection). "Let Your Light [from the Lighthouse] Shine on Me" features a picked guitar, not his more notable slide, and starts off with a slow, easy tenor-no gruffness. After the first lines, he suddenly doubles the tempo, rippling along in delight, then as abruptly drops to his almost animal growl. My description makes it sound like a lumpy tour de force, but it may be as close to the embodiment of glory as we're likely to be exposed to. The following track, "God Don't Never Change," where he reverts to his usual style, carries the same sense of personal salvation, of a God who acts out of love, not pique.

The sound on The Complete? is as good as anything remastered from the period-clear and open, with just enough of the original fuzz retained to let you know its age-and Samuel Charters' notes are engaging, personal, enlightening. A fine, fine piece of work altogether.

What's Out There: The Complete Blind Willie Johnson. All we'll ever have, and all we need.