The Amazingly Talented Robert Johnson: Did A Deal With The Devil Really Cause His Death?

Robert Leroy Johnson

“Measure yourself by your best moments, not by your worst. We are too prone to judge ourselves by our moments of despondency and depression.”

He was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician.

He was born May 8th, 1911, in Hazelhurst Misssissippi to to Julia Major Dodds (born October 1874) and Noah Johnson.

A combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent has influenced later generations of musicians.

Quite a few musicians idolized him.

Eric Clapton considers him"the most important blues musician who ever lived." 

He even made a tribute album to Johnson.

Robert Plant, of Led Zeppelin, said "Robert Johnson, to whom we all owed our existence, in some way." 

Plant's group recorded "Traveling Riverside Blues", a song that drew from Johnson's original and quoted a number of his songs.

Fleetwood Mac guitarist Jeremy Spencer, contributed two covers of Johnson-derived songs to the group's early albums.

The lead guitarist, Peter Green, later recorded Johnson's entire catalogue in two albums.

Sam Dunn's documentary Metal Evolution cites Johnson as the "great grandfather to all things heavy metal".

Members of the bands Rush and Slipknot agreed that he played a major role in the development of rock music.

Bob Dylan wrote, "If I hadn't heard the Robert Johnson record when I did, there probably would have been hundreds of lines of mine that would have been shut down, that I wouldn't have felt free enough or upraised enough to write."

On August 16, 1938, he was 27 years old when he died of unknown causes.

He was buried in a homemade coffin furnished by the county.

The exact location of Johnson's grave is officially unknown.
There three different locations wit markers dedicated to him.

There are many theories on how he died.

One is that he was murdered by being poisoned by a married woman's husband.

There is a theory that he died of syphilis.

Another theory is that he sold his soul to the devil for success.

The theory goes, as a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, Johnson had a tremendous desire to become a great blues musician.
He was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight.
There he was met by the devil, who took the guitar and tuned it.
The devil played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson.
This supposedly giving him mastery of the instrument.
In exchange for his soul, Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.