Talent scout H. C. Speir had arranged the session with Brunswick Records who set up a temporary studio in the hotel where Johnson recorded a number of songs including the blues classic Sweet Home Chicago.
In the 1960s, Speir was extensively interviewed by blues scholar Gayle Dean Wardlow about the recordings he had made.
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In 1926, through selling blues records in his store, he began working as a scout for the record companies producing the records, such as Okeh, Victor, Gennett, Columbia, Vocalion, Decca and Paramount.
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This audition process — along with the ensuing recording sessions — was dramatized in the Wim Wenders-directed installment of the television mini-series Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey, entitled The Soul of a Man, which aired on PBS in 2003.