Robert Johnson

Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) is among the most famous Delta Blues musicians. He is an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Considered by some to be the "Grandfather of Rock-and-Roll," his vocal phrasing, original songs, and guitar style influenced a range of musicians, including Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band, The White Stripes, The Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton, who called Johnson "the most important blues musician who ever lived."

Life and career

Johnson's life is not well documented, and a near-mythic legend has surrounded him for decades that has made scholarship difficult. Serious research was not undertaken until the late 1960's and early 1970s, most notably by researchers Mack McCormack and Stephen LaVere. The two known images of Johnson were located in 1974, in the possession of the musician's half-sister Carrie Thompson.

There are five significant dates in his career: Monday, Thursday and Friday, November 23, 26, and 27, 1936 he was in San Antonio, Texas, at a recording session. Seven months later, on Saturday and Sunday, June 19–20, 1937, he was in Dallas at another session. Other facts about him are less well established. Director Martin Scorsese says in his foreword to Alan Greenberg's filmscript Love In Vain: A Vision of Robert Johnson, "The thing about Robert Johnson was that he only existed on his records. He was pure legend."

Beginnings

Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi sometime around May 8, 1911, the 11th child of Julia Major Dodds, who had previously borne 10 children to her husband Charles Dodds. Born out of wedlock, Johnson did not take the Dodds name.

Twenty two-year-old Charles Dodds had married Julia Major in Hazlehurst, Mississippi—about 35 miles from Jackson—in 1889. Charles Dodds owned land and made wicker furniture; his family was well off until he was forced out of Hazlehurst around 1909 by a lynch mob following an argument with some of the more prosperous townsfolk. (There was a family legend that Dodds escaped from Hazlehurst dressed in women's clothing.) Over the next two years, Julia Dodds sent their children one at time to live with their father in Memphis, where Charles Dodds had adopted the name of Charles Spencer. Julia stayed behind in Hazlehurst with two daughters, until she was evicted for nonpayment of taxes.

By that time she had given birth to a son, Robert, who was fathered by a field worker named Noah Johnson. Unwelcome in Charles Dodds' home, Julia Dodds became an itinerant field worker, picking cotton and living in camps as she moved among plantations. While she worked in the fields, her eight-year-old daughter took care of Johnson. Over the next ten years, Julia Dodds would make repeated attempts to reunite the family, but Charles Dodds never stopped resenting her infidelity. Although Charles Dodds would eventually accept Johnson, he never would forgive his wife for giving birth to him. While in his teens, Johnson learned who his father was, and it was at that time that he began calling himself Robert Johnson.

Around 1914, Johnson moved in with Charles Dodds' family, which by that time included all of Dodds' children by Julia Dodds, as well as Dodds' mistress from Hazlehurst and their two children. Johnson would spend the next several years in Memphis, and it was reportedly about this time that he began playing the guitar under his older half-brother's tutelage.

Johnson did not rejoin his mother until she had remarried several years later. By the end of the decade, he was back in the Mississippi Delta living with his mother and her new husband, Dusty Willis. Johnson and his stepfather, who had little tolerance for music, did not get along, and Johnson had to slip out of the house to join his musician friends.

It is not known whether Johnson attended school in the Delta during this time. Some later accounts say that he could neither read nor write, while others tell of his beautiful handwriting. In any case, everyone agrees that music was Johnson's first interest, and that he had his start playing the Jew's harp and harmonica.

Bluesman

In February 1929, Johnson married Virginia Travis in Penton, Mississippi, and became serious about playing the guitar. While they were married, they lived with his half-sister and her husband. His wife died in childbirth at the age of 16 in April 1930. By some accounts, Johnson briefly moved back with his mother and stepfather, where he encountered the same problems that he had found intolerable when he was growing up and soon left. In May 1931, he married Calleta "Callie" Craft, an older woman with three children. By that time, his fellow musicians were beginning to take note of his precocity on the acoustic guitar.

Johnson began traveling up and down the Delta, traveling by bus, hopping trains, and sometimes hitchhiking. According to Blues folklore, while traveling on a cross-road in the Delta, Robert sold his immortal soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar. The source of this story is unclear, however; it may have been claimed by Johnson himself or his detractors during his lifetime or it may have been the later invention of Son House, who related the tale (adapted from an autobiographical story told by Tommy Johnson) to awestruck fans during the 1960s blues revival. Other stories say that he was taught by a mysterious figure called Ike Zimmerman.

When Johnson arrived in a new town, he would play on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. He played what his audience asked for—not necessarily his own compositions. Anything he earned was based on tips, not salary. With an ability to pick up tunes at first hearing, Johnson had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted. Also working in his favor was an ability to establish instant rapport with his audiences. In every town he stopped, Johnson would establish ties to the local community that would serve him in good stead when he passed through again a month or a year later. Sometime during his travels he moved Callie and the children from Copiah County north to the Delta country of Clarksdale, Mississippi, but abandoned them soon thereafter.

Fellow musician Johnny Shines was 17 when he met Johnson in 1933. He estimated that Johnson was maybe a year older than himself. In Samuel Charters' Robert Johnson, the author quotes Shines as saying, "Robert was a very friendly person, even though he was sulky at times, you know. And I hung around Robert for quite a while. One evening he disappeared. He was kind of peculiar fellow. Robert'd be standing up playing some place, playing like nobody's business. At about that time it was a hustle with him as well as a pleasure. And money'd be coming from all directions. But Robert'd just pick up and walk off and leave you standing there playing. And you wouldn't see Robert no more maybe in two or three weeks.... So Robert and I, we began journeying off. I was just, matter of fact, tagging along."

During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-term relationship with Estella Coleman, a woman who was about 15 years older than himself and the mother of future musician Robert Jr. Lockwood. But Johnson reportedly also cultivated a woman to look after him each town he played in. Johnson would reportedly ask homely young women living in the country with their families whether he could go home with them, and in most cases the answer was yes—until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was ready to move on.

Recording Sessions

Around 1936, Johnson met H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas. At the recording session, held on November 23, 1936, Johnson reportedly performed facing the studio wall. This has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer, a conclusion played up in the highly inaccurate liner notes of the 1961 album King of the Delta Blues Singers. Johnson probably was nervous and intimidated at his first time in a recording studio (a new and alien evironment for the musician), but in truth he was probably focusing on the demands of his emotive performances. In addition, playing into the corner of a wall was a recording technique popular in the 1930s. In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played 16 selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these. When the recording session was over, Johnson presumably returned home with cash in his pocket; probably more money than he'd ever had at one time in his life.

Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On In My Kitchen," "Kind Hearted Woman," "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Cross Roads Blues." "Come On In My Kitchen" included the lines: "The woman I love took from my best friend/Some joker got lucky, stole her back again,/You better come on in my kitchen, it's going to be rainin' outdoors." In "Crossroad Blues," another of his songs, he sang: "I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees./I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees./I asked the Lord above, have mercy, save poor Bob if you please./Uumb, standing at the crossroads I tried to flag a ride./Standing at the crossroads I tried to flag a ride./Ain't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by."

When his records began appearing, Johnson made the rounds to his relatives and the various children he had fathered to bring them the records himself. The first songs to appear were "Terraplane Blues" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down," probably the only recordings of his that he would live to hear.

In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session held in the H C Speir warehouse at 508 Park Avenue. Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Among them were the three songs that would largely contribute to Johnson's posthumous fame: "Stones In My Passway," "Me And The Devil," and "Hell Hound On My Trail." "Stones In My Passway" and "Me And The Devil" are both about betrayal, a recurrent theme in country blues. The terrifying "Hell Hound On My Trail" - utilising another common theme of fear of the Devil - is often considered to be the crowning achievement of blues-style music. Other themes in Johnson's music include impotence (Dead Shrimp Blues and Phonograph Blues) and infidelity (Terraplane Blues, If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day and Love in Vain).

Six of Johnson's blues songs mention the devil or some form of the supernatural. In "Me And The Devil," he began, "Early this morning when you knocked upon my door,/Early this morning, umb, when you knocked upon my door,/And I said, ' Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go,'" before leading into "You may bury my body down by the highway side,/ You may bury my body, uumh, down by the highway side,/So my old evil spirit can get on a Greyhound bus and ride."

It has been suggested that the Devil in these songs does not solely refer to the Christian model of Satan, but equally to the African Trickster God, Legba. [1]

Death at the Crossroads

Robert Johnson's tombstone

In the last year of his life, Johnson is believed to have traveled to St. Louis and possibly Illinois. He spent some time in Memphis and traveled through the Mississippi Delta and Arkansas. By the time he died, at least six of his records had been released.

His death occurred on August 16, 1938, at the approximate age of 27 (making him the founder of The 27 Club) at a little country crossroads near Greenwood, Mississippi. He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Greenwood.

That evening Johnson began flirting with a woman at the dance. Some say she was the girlfriend of the bartender, while others suggest she was a married woman he had been secretly seeing. When he was offered an open bottle of whiskey, his friend and fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson knocked the bottle out of his hand, informing him that he should never drink from an offered bottle that has already been opened. Robert Johnson allegedly said, "don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand". Soon after, he was offered another open bottle and accepted it. That bottle was laced with strychnine. Johnson is said to have survived the initial poisoning only to succumb to pneumonia three days later, in his weakened state.

David Connell, in an article in the British Medical Journal in 2006 entitled Retrospective blues: Robert Johnson — an open letter to Eric Clapton, has suggested that the cause of Johnson's death may have been Marfan's syndrome, which is connective tissue disorder. The most obvious symptoms of this are arguably visible in the photographs of Johnson, such as his long fingers, legs and arms. Other symptoms are curved spine, eye problems (Johnson was said to have 'one bad eye') and a slim body.

Johnson was buried in the graveyard of a small church near Morgan City, Mississippi, not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave. The precise location of his grave remains a source of ongoing controversy. His life was short but his music would serve as the root source for an entire generation of blues and rock and roll musicians.

Among the Mississippi Delta bluesmen believed to have exerted the strongest influences on Johnson's music are Charley Patton, Willie Brown, Howlin' Wolf, Tommy Johnson, and Son House. Peter Guralnick, in Searching for Robert Johnson, quotes Son House, "We'd all play for the Saturday night balls, and there'd be this little boy standing around. That was Robert Johnson. He was just a little boy then. He blew harmonica and he was pretty good with that, but he wanted to play guitar."

Robert Johnson has a son named Claude and grandchildren currently living in Crystal Springs, Mississippi.

Posthumous Releases

Primary Compilations of Johnson's Work

Johnson's recordings have remained continuously available since John Hammond convinced Columbia Records to compile the first Johnson LP, King of the Delta Blues Singers, in 1961. A sequel LP, assembling the rest of what could be found of Johnson's recordings at that time, was issued in 1970. An omnibus two-CD set (The Complete Recordings) was released in 1990 [Sony/Columbia Legacy 46222], containing all 41 known recordings of his 29 compositions.

A 1996 plastic jewel-case remaster of the "Complete" set [Sony/Columbia Legacy 64916] corrected fidelity and pitch problems from the cardboard-packaged box. The more recent CD re-releases of "King of the Delta Blues Singers" Volumes 1 & 2 improve the sound quality far more dramatically, but don't include 10 alternate takes (and two accidental introductions) found on "Complete." Volume 1 includes a recently discovered alternate take of "Traveling Riverside Blues" which is not included on the "Complete" collection. This now brings the number of known Johnson recordings to 42.

Recording pitch question

Johnson's recorded work has become more widely heard since the Columbia double CD release. Some musicians have opined that the recordings run too fast. Johnson mainly used open tunings like open A and open E, and often used a capo to change the pitch of the song. This means that some passages would be played very high upon the neck of the guitar, which would make them very difficult to execute, or in some cases impossible to play at all (for example, the intro of "Walkin' Blues, which should be played on the 16th fret of a 12-fret-to-the-body-guitar). Some passages of Johnson's guitar playing sound constrained and not natural to the modern ear (as modern music would sound when it is sped up), and some of his vocals sound out of tune and robotic. When Johnson's music is slowed down (one article [2] even suggests slowing it down as much as 20%), Johnson's music sounds more natural, his guitar sounds warmer and fuller and more in line with other recordings from the late 1930s. His voice becomes more expressive although it loses some of Johnson's trademark emotional "whine". Speeding up recorded music is common in popular music, as it makes music sound fresher and it adds punch and energy. A slowed-downs collection of Johnson's songs is available on the CD 'Steady Rollin' Man'.

Influence

Template:original research Johnson is widely cited as "the greatest blues singer of all time" or even the most important musician of the 20th century, but many listeners are disappointed by their first encounter with his work. This reaction may be because of their unfamiliarity with the raw emotion and sparse form of the Delta style or because of the thin sound of the recordings when compared to modern music production standards. The amazing originality of Johnson's lyrical vision and phrasing also tends to be lost on modern ears, because his innovations have been so fundamentally absorbed into blues and (later) rock and folk music.

The claims made for Johnson's originality and even his influence are often greatly exaggerated. He certainly did not invent the blues, which had existed on record for over fifteen years before he recorded. Amongst his influences were Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Peetie Wheatstraw, and Son House who, more than anyone else (except his friend Charley Patton), can claim to have heavily influenced what is now considered the mainstream of the Delta blues, with his rough voice and searing slide guitar riffs played on a steel-bodied National guitar.

But Johnson added to this the keening whimsy of then-obscure Skip James and the jazzy inventiveness of Lonnie Johnson. Indeed, a couple of his songs are nothing other than imitations of his famous namesake. Johnson had also listened to Leroy Carr, who was probably the most popular male blues singer of the time, and based several songs on the records of the urban blues recording stars Kokomo Arnold (source for both "Sweet Home Chicago" and "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom") and Peetie Wheatstraw.

What Johnson did with these and other diverse influences was create a new sound that was at once immediate and artful. His use of the bass strings to create a steady, rolling rhythm can be heard on songs like "Sweet Home Chicago". His penchant for strange snatches of melodic invention on the upper strings, mingling with a quite different vocal line, appears on "Walking Blues". Johnson played with the young Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II, and allegedly trained his own stepson, Robert "Junior" Lockwood, as well.

There is a direct line of influence from Johnson to rock music. Blues musician and historian Elijah Wald feels that Johnson's major influence is on rock—particularly on white rock. He has made the controversial appraisal that As far as the evolution of black music goes, Robert Johnson was an extremely minor figure, and very little that happened in the decades following his death would have been affected if he had never played a note. Assessments such as Eric Clapton's of Johnson as "the most important blues musician who ever lived," Wald demonstrates convincingly, came with the best of intentions to expand Johnson's reputation past its enormous impact on rock. The truth was that Johnson, although well traveled and always admired in his performances, was little heard by the standards of his time and place, and his records even less so. ("Terraplane Blues," sometimes described as Johnson's only hit record, outsold his others but was still a very minor success at best.) If one had asked black blues fans about Robert Johnson in the first twenty years after his death, writes Wald, "the response in the vast majority of cases would have been a puzzled 'Robert who?'"

Years after his death, however, Johnson's recordings saw a wide release and a fan club grew around them, including rock stars such as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. When Keith Richards was first introduced to Johnson's music by his band mate Brian Jones, he replied, "Who is the other guy playing with him?", not realizing it was all Johnson playing on one guitar. Clapton described Johnson's music as "the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice". The song "Crossroads" by British blues rock/psychedelic band Cream is a cover version of Johnson's "Cross Road Blues", about the legend of Johnson selling his soul to the Devil at the crossroads, although Johnson's original lyrics ("Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride") suggest he was merely hitchhiking rather than signing away his soul to Lucifer in exchange for being a great blues musician.

An important aspect of Johnson's singing, and indeed of all Delta Blues singing styles, and also of Chicago blues guitar playing, is the use of microtonality -- his subtle inflections of pitch are part of the reason why his singing conveys such powerful emotion.

John P. Hammond (the son of the aforementioned John Hammond) produced a documentary in the early 1990s about Johnson's life in the Delta area.

In the summer of 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed Johnson at number five in their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time [3]

Major artists influenced by Johnson

Many artists have recorded Johnson's songs. The following musicians have been heavily influenced by him, as evidenced by recording several of his songs:

• The Allman Brothers Band have covered in live performances "Drunken Hearted Boy" and others. Their guitarist, Dickey Betts, has covered "Come On In My Kitchen" on his most recent live album.
• Rory Block released in 2006 an album consisting solely of covers of Johnson's songs, The Lady and Mr. Johnson. In addition, she had previously performed or recorded "Come On In My Kitchen", "Hellhound On My Trail", "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day", "Rambling On My Mind", "Walking Blues", "Cross Road Blues", "Kindhearted Man" (a reworking of "Kind Hearted Woman Blues"), "Terraplane Blues", "When You Got a Good Friend", "Me and the Devil Blues", "Stones in my Passway", "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Traveling Riverside Blues"
• Eric Clapton released in 2004 an album consisting solely of covers of Johnson's songs, Me and Mr. Johnson. In addition, he had previously performed or recorded "I'm a Steady Rolling Man", "Malted Milk", "Walkin' Blues", "From Four Until Late", "Crossroads", "If I had Possession over Judgment Day", and "Ramblin' On My Mind". With Cream he recorded "Cross Road Blues" (reworked as "Crossroads") and "From Four Until Late".
• Bob Dylan ("Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "Milkcow's Calf Blues", "Rambling On My Mind", "I'm A Steady Rolling Man")
• Fleetwood Mac ("Hellhound On My Trail", "Kind Hearted Woman", "Preachin' Blues", "Dust My Broom", "Sweet Home Chicago")
• Peter Green Splinter Group (all 29 songs)
• Gov't Mule ("32-20 Blues")
• John Hammond Jr. ("32-20 Blues", "Milkcow's Calf Blues", "Traveling Riverside Blues", "Stones In My Passway", "Crossroads Blues", "Hellbound Blues" ("Hellhound On My Trail"), "Me And The Devil Blues", "Walking Blues", "Come On In My Kitchen", "Preaching Blues", "Sweet Home Chicago", "When You Got A Good Friend", "Judgment Day", "Rambling Blues")
• Keb' Mo ("Come On In My Kitchen", "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", "Kindhearted Woman Blues", "Love In Vain")
• Led Zeppelin ("Traveling Riverside Blues", "The Lemon Song") Zeppelin's version of Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues" consisted of an amalgamation of several Johnson songs (such as "Cross Road Blues" and "Kind Hearted Woman") as well as new material by the band. Furthermore, lyrics from Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues" were used by Zeppelin in "The Lemon Song".
• Robert "Junior" Lockwood ("32-20 Blues", "Stop Breakin’ Down Blues", "Little Queen Of Spades", "I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom", "Ramblin’ On My Mind", "Love In Vain Blues", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "Walking Blues", "I’m A Steady Rollin’ Man", "Sweet Home Chicago")
• Phish "Alumni Blues", an early Phish original, was influenced by Johnson's "Walking Blues" and both songs share opening lyrics. "Crossroads Blues" was included in Phish's live repertoire from 1993-98.
• The Rolling Stones ("Love in Vain", "Stop Breaking Down")
• The White Stripes covered "Stop Breaking Down Blues," dropping "Blues" in the title, on their self-titled debut album. They have also recorded "Stop Breaking Down Blues" as the b-side to their 2002 single, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground". They have covered many Robert Johnson songs on stage, including "Stones In My Passway" and "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day".
• Widespread Panic played "Me and The Devil" on their 1988 debut album Space Wrangler; "Stop Breakin' Down Blues" appeared on the 2005 Live at Myrtle Beach release. They have also played "Crossroads" live.
• Lucinda Williams covered "Stop Breaking Down Blues" on her debut album Ramblin', also dropping the word "Blues" from the title.
• Johnny Winter ("Kind Hearted Woman", "Me And The Devil", "When You Got A Good Friend")

Songs

The entire collection, minus one song, is available on The Complete Recordings (1990, 1996)

• "32-20 Blues" (.32-.20 is a revolver or rifle cartridge)
• "Come On In My Kitchen" [two versions]
• "Cross Roads Blues" [two versions]
• "Dead Shrimp Blues"
• "Drunken Hearted Man" [two versions]
• "From Four Till Late"
• "Hellhound on My Trail"; see also Hellhound
• "Honeymoon Blues"
• "I'm a Steady Rollin' Man"
• "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" (sometimes called "I Believe My Time Ain't Long")
• "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day"
• "Kind Hearted Woman Blues"
• "Last Fair Deal Gone Down"
• "Little Queen of Spades" [two versions]
• "Love in Vain" [two versions]
• "Malted Milk"; malted milk is a sweet beverage
• "Me and the Devil Blues" [two versions]
• "Milk Cow's Calf Blues" [two versions]
• "Phonograph Blues" [two versions]
• "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)"
• "Rambling on My Mind" [two versions]
• "Stones in My Passway"
• "Stop Breakin' Down Blues" [two versions]
• "Sweet Home Chicago"
• "Terraplane Blues"
• "They're Red Hot"
• "Traveling Riverside Blues" [two versions--only one appears on "Complete" collection]
• "Walkin' Blues"
• "When You Got a Good Friend" [two versions]

Films about Robert Johnson

• Crossroads, 1986 which is loosely based on the theme of a blues artist selling his soul to the devil and, more specifically, about a young white blues guitarist's search for Johnson's 'missing' thirtieth song (there are only 29 individual songs in Johnson's recorded repertoire). Johnson is played by Tim Russ, while Joe Seneca plays Willie Brown (a contemporary of Johnson's mentioned in the song "Cross Road Blues"). Some scenes in the movie are meant to portray moments in Johnson's career as flashbacks, e.g. a recording session at the very start of the movie, and a portrayal of the "selling his soul to the devil" - events which are part of the legend about him.
• The Search for Robert Johnson, 1992
• Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? The Life and Music of Robert Johnson, 1997
• Hellhounds On My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson (2000). Directed by Robert Mugge.
• Eric Clapton - Sessions for Robert Johnson, 2004 documentary

Trivia and tributes

• Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson, a 1991 CD from Yazoo Records, includes many of the records Johnson himself heard and learned from.
• On Bill Morrissey's 1992 album Inside there is a song about Johnson's life, entitled "Robert Johnson."
• The Sherman Alexie 1995 novel "Reservation Blues" has a fictional account of Johnson faking his death and hiding out on an Indian reservation.
• French singer/song writer Francis Cabrel refers to Robert Johnson in the song "Cent Ans de Plus" on the 1999 album "Hors-Saison". Cabrel cites the artist as one of a number of blues influences, including Charley Patton, Son House, Blind Lemon, Howlin' Wolf, Blind Blake, Willie Dixon and Ma Rainey.
• The Coen Brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) contains a character named Tommy Johnson, an amalgam of Robert Johnson, the real-life Tommy Johnson and their contemporary Skip James. Tommy Johnson claims to have sold his soul to the devil, a clear reference to the urban legend surrounding the sale of Robert Johnson's soul to the devil.
• The song "The Wasteland" by Elton John (2001) mentions Robert Johnson in the chorus.
• Johnson's song, Terraplane Blues, was about a Hudson Terraplane.
• The webcomic Achewood in (2003) portrayed Johnson as a resident of Hell, performing nightly in the Brookside Lounge of Hell's Best Western, despite its being closed. [4]
• On Tim McGraw's 2004 album "Live Like You Were Dying" the opening track entitled "How Bad Do You Want It?" features an intro and outro that talks about Robert Johnson (according to legend) selling his soul to the devil.
• In the 2006 motion picture Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, the "pick of destiny" (supposedly a part of satan's actual tooth) is said to have disappeared for centuries, only to turn up in the hands of Robert Johnson at the turn of the century in the American South. Thus coinciding with the legend that Johnson sold his soul to the devil to be a masterful guitar player.
• The legend of Johnson selling his soul to the devil is featured and portrayed in season 2 (2006) episode 8 of Supernatural, "Crossroad Blues." The man playing Johnson at the start of this episode is dressed and posing as Johnson was in one of the only two surviving photographs of him.
• British rock band Thunder's eighth album (released October 2006) is entitled Robert Johnson's Tombstone, as is the title track of the album.
• Elvis Presley, another great entertainer from the south, also died on August 16th, 39 years later.
• Currently, a manga running in the Japanese magazine Afternoon called 俺と悪魔ブルーズ ("Me and the Devil Blues") is clearly influenced by events of Johnson's life, and the protagonist is named "RJ". However, it does not attempt to be biographical.

References

• Blues World - Booklet No.1 - Robert Johnson - Four Editions, First published 1967
• Love in Vain: The Life and Legend of Robert Johnson (1983), Alan Greenberg, Doubleday Books, ISBN 0-385-15679-0
  • 1994 revised edition retitled Love in Vain: A Vision of Robert Johnson, with foreword by Martin Scorsese, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80557-X
• Searching for Robert Johnson (1989), Peter Guralnick, E. P. Dutton hardcover: ISBN 0-525-24801-3, Plume 1998 paperback: ISBN 0-452-27949-6
• Robert Johnson: Lost and Found (2003), Barry Lee Pearson and Bill McCulloch, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-02835-X
• Hellhound on My Trail: The Life of Robert Johnson, Bluesman Extraordinaire (2004), Robert Wolf, ISBN 1-56846-146-1
• Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture (2004), Patricia R. Schroeder, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-02915-1

External links

• The Official Robert Johnson Website
• A Revolutionary Critique of Robert Johnson
• The Greenwood Blues Heritage Museum & Gallery (dedicated to the Life and Music of Robert Johnson)
• Website at the University of Virginia
• Currently available recordings
• 'Trail of the Hellhound' website by the National Park Service
• Use of microtones in the vocals of Robert Johnson
• Site for "Escaping the Delta," with links to related material
• Delta Guitar Player Robert Johnson
• Robert Johnson at Find-A-Grave
• Deal with the Devil: Understanding Robert Johnson, His Music and His Impact by the Soul of Rock 'n' Roll
• 1980 Blues Foundation Hall of Fame induction

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