Today is believed to be the birthday of the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi in 1911.
He had two photographs taken of himself around the same time. Those were the only recordings he made and the only photographs taken of him in his lifetime, and he died the following year, at the age of 27. Johnson's poorly documented life has spawned a large number of legends. One of them has it that he met the devil one night at the crossroads of two highways and sold his soul in exchange for his skill at the guitar.
As an itinerant performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson had little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime. He only participated in two recording sessions, one in San Antonio in 1936, and one in Dallas in 1937, that produced recordings of 29 distinct songs (with some alternate takes). These songs, recorded at low fidelity in improvised studios, were the totality of his recorded output. About half of these were released as 10-inch, 78 rpm singles from 1937–1939, many after his death at the age of 27. Other than these recordings, very little was known of him during his life outside of the small musical circuit in the Mississippi Delta where he spent most of his life; much of his story has been reconstructed after his death by researchers.
He had two photographs taken of himself around the same time as the recordings. Those were the only recordings he made and the only photographs taken of him in his lifetime, and he died the following year, at the age of 27. Johnson's poorly documented life has spawned a large number of legends. One of them has it that he met the devil one night at the crossroads of two highways and sold his soul in exchange for his skill at the guitar.
Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, near Greenwood, Mississippi, of unknown causes. His death was not reported publicly; he merely disappeared from the historical record and it wasn't until almost thirty years later, when Gayle Dean Wardlow, a Mississippi-based musicologist researching Johnson's life, found his death certificate, which listed only the date and location, with no official cause of death. No formal autopsy was done, as a dead black man found by the side of the road near a farm in the 1920's was nothing to worry much about. A pro forma examination was done to file the death certificate, and no immediate cause of death was determined. It is likely he had congenital syphilis and it was suspected by later medical professionals that may have been a contributing factor in his death. However, thirty years of local legend and oral tradition had, like the rest of his life story, built a legend which has filled in gaps in the scant historical record.
As legend has it, Johnson had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles from Greenwood. According to one theory, Johnson was murdered by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. In an account by the blues musician Sonny Boy Williamson, Johnson had been flirting with a married woman at a dance, and she gave him a bottle of whiskey poisoned by her husband. When Johnson took the bottle, Williamson knocked it out of his hand, admonishing him to never drink from a bottle that he had not personally seen opened. Johnson replied, "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand." Soon after, he was offered another (poisoned) bottle and accepted it. Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days his condition steadily worsened. Witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain. The musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick claimed to have tracked down the man who murdered Johnson and to have obtained a confession from him in a personal interview, but he declined to reveal the man's name.
The LeFlore County registrar conducted an investigation into Johnson's death. A clarifying note was written on the back of Johnson's death certificate:
"I talked with the white man on whose place this negro died and I also talked with a negro woman on the place. The plantation owner said the negro man, seemingly about 26 years old, came from Tunica two or three weeks before he died to play banjo at a negro dance given there on the plantation. He stayed in the house with some of the negroes saying he wanted to pick cotton. The white man did not have a doctor for this negro as he had not worked for him. He was buried in a homemade coffin furnished by the county. The plantation owner said it was his opinion that the man died of syphilis."
His music had only a small, but influential, following during his life and in the years after his death. As early as 1938, his music was being sought by influential producers such as the legendary John Hammond, who tried to recruit him to record and tour without even knowing of his death. Brunswick Records, which owned the original recordings, was eventually bought by Hammond's Columbia Records, which would later release the recordings to a wider audience. Musicologist Alan Lomax, who seems to have traveled down every dirt road in the nation seeking out folk musicians with a wire recorder in tow, went to Mississippi in 1941 to record Johnson, also not knowing of his death.
A compilation album, titled King of the Delta Blues Singers, was released by Columbia in 1961, which finally brought his work to a wider audience. The album would become a massively influential record, especially on the nascent British blues movement which was just getting started at the time; Eric Clapton has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived." Musicians as diverse as Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and Robert Plant have cited both Johnson's lyricism and musicianship has key influences on their own work. Many of Johnson's songs have been covered over the years, becoming hits for other artists, and his guitar licks and lyrics have been borrowed and repurposed by a many later musicians.
Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first induction ceremony, in 1986, as an early influence on rock and roll. He was awarded a posthumous Grammy Award in 1991 for The Complete Recordings. His single "Cross Road Blues" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and he was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. In 2003, David Fricke ranked Johnson fifth in Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
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