Short Stuff: Robert Johnson and the Devil

He was a hepcat. He was super happy. He wore like sandals year round without socks with suits, I believe. So yeah, this is about the blues, and specifically Robert Johnson. Um. And this is I have an interesting relationship with the blues. Yeah, and that I love occasionally putting on like Sun House or Robert Johnson or something like that, um and enjoy it for a bit, but then I have to turn

it off. And I also recognize that blues is the foundation of rock and roll, like full stop, but I also hate like I just call it the blind Willie's Blues. It's a place here in Atlanta. This legendary blues barber Like, it's like the blues version of smooth jazz. Yeah, it's like where you see like the fifty two year old and flip flops and cargo shorts up there playing the blues. That's the stuff that makes me hate the blues despite loving rock and roll and recognizing that blues is the

foundation of that. I'm with you, so you can collective, you can. It is complicated. Actually, that's really really good way to put it. All right, So we're talking about Robert Johnson and whether or not he sold his soul to the devil at the Crossroads to gain more talent as a blues guitarist and singer. Spoiler, that did not happen, because there is no there is no devil. What I've wasted my life. But we're gonna talk a little bit about Robert Johnson's history and uh, and he's certainly man

who sang the blues for a reason, a lot of reasons. Yeah, he had a pretty rough life. So he was as a little kid. He he got moved from place to place, mostly between uh little towns in Mississippi and I believe Memphis and um he uh, he lost his dad early and I think his dad left, his stepfather abused him. Um, and he uh, yeah, he just kind of had a

rough especially after he became an adult. He married his girlfriend, Virginia, and they had a kid, and Virginia and the baby died during childbirth, and so he kind of, um got unmoored after that and very very quickly, um started singing the blues more than ever, became a pretty hardcore alcoholic, I believe as a result. So yeah, he he definitely had it rough, and he lived the life that that you could live to be the foundation of the Blues basically,

which he grew up to be. And they they think he even he's a member of the twenty seven club, perhaps the first even if you really think about it. But he died at twenty seven years old, supposedly out of and you know, records are tough on guys like Robert Johnson, but supposedly was poisoned by the husband of one of his lovers on you know, when he was

twenty seven years old. Right. So, but in that time, though, he managed to create like a body of work that, like you said, is is basically pointed to is one of the major blocks in the foundation of rock and roll. Um, this is in the thirties that he was he was playing prolifically, right, Yeah, and he you know, he followed in the footsteps of Uh. You know, he wasn't the first blues guitarist by any means. No, No, he wasn't.

He wasn't. In fact, Um, there's the story, and this is the whole thing where it's like, you know, why why did he sell the sol of double? What's the what's the story? We're gonna tell you this story. The whole thing starts back in and robin Inville, Mississippi, and there is a duke joint where the blues is being played by a couple of legends, um sonhouse who you mentioned, Uh? And I think who else was there that night? Willie Brown was playing that night and these guys were already

established as Delta Blues Mett right and Um. The house was packed, and I guess in between sets, a very young Robert Johnson, uh came up to the stage and grabbed and I'm sure the stage is just a chair that was on the same level as the other chairs or wherever people were sitting and understanding, Um, and he grabs the guitar not even his guitar, I mean the audacity, right, and he starts playing, and because it's Robert Johnson, you would assume that everybody was just stopped, transfixed at how

amazing he was. That is not how it went down at all. As a matter of fact. No, he wasn't very good. Uh, and Sonhouse, you know, even says, uh, why don't he said that? People came and told him, why don't some of y'all go down and make that boy put that thing down? He's running us crazy, right because his playing was so bad and this is humiliating enough, they went over and basically said, you you not only need to stop playing, you need to leave this juke joy.

You just showed you're actually not not cool enough to even sit here as like an audience member anymore. So he left and he disappeared, and he vanished. And then a year later, as legend has it, right, uh, at another blues place again, Willie Brown and um Sonhouse, we're playing and Robert Johnson shows up, and he shows up with a guitar, his own guitar this time, and he starts playing and it's like nothing anyone else has ever heard.

This guy has turned insanely good, almost overnight, and he's got a seventh string on his guitar and everyone was like what yeah, and he used it to great effect. Eric Clapton put it, um kind of succinctly. He said that, Um, he was simultaneously playing a disjointed baseline on the low strings, rhythm on the middle rings, and lead on the trouble strings, which had the effect of sounding like there were multiple people playing when it was really just him on that

seven string guitar. That's how fast and how varied the music he was playing was, and no one had ever heard anything like it. Yeah. So uh. The legend is that he went down to the crossroads during that time, sold his soul to the devil, and Satan granted him with these special talents in exchange for his soul. But like you already spoiled that, that actually probably didn't happen. So should we take a break. We should take a break. We'll do some more explaining when we get back. M okay, chuck.

So we've established that there actually isn't a devil unless it's the greatest trick you ever pulled. We may have just fallen victim to that, but um, not only, so does that mean that that story didn't happen in that sense, it probably didn't even happen to Robert Johnson. There's seems to have been a case of mistaken identity because there's a story of an earlier blues man who's not related to Robert Johnson, but at the same last name. His

name was Tommy Johnson. And if you're a fan of the movie, oh brother, were art thou and you were only familiar with Robert Johnson like me, you may have been wondering all this time why they didn't just call that character Tommy Johnson Robert Johnson, since he was clearly based on Robert Johnson. Well, it turns out, I know now that the Coen Brothers did their homework. They tend to do that. So, yeah, Tommy Johnson was in that movie and had sold his soul to the devil in

that movie. It's been covered elsewhere. That was a great movie to me. Crossroads with Ralpha Maccio was a good well. I mean it was one of those HBO movies that, as a young kid who got a guitar at thirteen, watched like fifty times. I thought it was pretty great. I mean, Steve. I isn't it? Oh? Yeah, he plays Satan's right hand man and lead shredder in the in the main cutting heads competition at the end. Did Pat Morita play Satan? He totally should have. No. Who was it?

Oh man, he's been in stuff. If you saw him, he be like, oh he plays a good Satan wings Houser. No, Tree Williams No, I don't know. Then those are the only three actors you know? Uh, Tommy Chong nor anyway, I haven't seen it in a while. I'd like to check it out. But that there's always sort of been this blues legend all the way around is where the crossroads you go meet the Devil. You sign up for

a lifetime of hell fire in exchange for um. But what seems to be like a good deal on earth, even though the tail end of that tale always ends is like they die young or something. Right. Don't fall for it, kids, that's right, Like it's supposedly Jimmy Page sold is sold at the devil too? Sure? Who didn't you know? So? Um? The story, though, you know, seems

to have originated with Tommy Johnson. And there's a there's a an article, there's this site Chuck called um Paranormal Academic, which is just like a dream come true for me. I just found it. Um. It was linked to in this house Stuff Works article, and I mean, you're not going to tinfoil hat dot com anywhere, No, not anymore. I've kind I've resended my membership um so on Paranormal Academic.

There's a an excerpt from an interview with Tommy Johnson's brother who said, Tommy told me the story of what happened, and he supposedly went down to the crossroads. He said, anybody can do this. You get onto the crossroads, get there a little before midnight to make sure they're on time, which is hilarious that he included a little detail be be punctual and um, if you bring your own instrument, like great big black man will show up, take your instrument from you, tune it for you, hand it back

and the deal is done. That's how it happens. And that's what the legend became. And but then at some point it seems to have been transposed onto from Tommy Johnson onto the later on much greater known Robert Johnson. And Robert Johnson seems to have been like sure Yeah, that happened to me, and you can really see that in some of the song titles of the body of his work. Yeah, hell hound on my trail, Me and the Devil blues um. Obviously the song Crossroads, Crossroad blues

up jumped the devil. Here's the thing though, The singing about the devil and talking about the devil in that community at that time was very commonplace, and Robert Johnson was talking about his demons, not literal demons, just his demons in life because he had a rough go and then you know, fell into alcoholism and chasing women and uh, probably believed that the hell hounds were on his tail or I'm sorry, on his trail right, in his it's right,

the devil had given him. So um. That's the interpretation by his grandson, Stephen Johnson, who also has an answer for that question. Okay, alright, fine, but yeah, but besides the supernatural, how could somebody go from zero to hero blues legend wise in just a year like that? And Stephen Johnson's like, actually it is probably more like three years, Like yeah, he actually probably was kicked out of that juke joint for playing badly and he probably did come

back and blow those same people away. But it wasn't a year is about three years, and he didn't go sell a soul of the devil. He went and studied under a legendary guitarist named Ike Zimmerman, whose family confirms that Robert Johnson was there all the time around that time. Yeah. So, like the the boring but also inspiring answer was practice. Yeah, don't he got good because he played a ton of guitar.

Probably uh, because he wanted to get better, but probably also due to a little bit of shame and wanted to go back there and make a name for himself. So he practiced and practiced in practice like anybody who was good at anything does. And that is the true legacy of Robert Johnson, legendary blues man. Right right, well, thanks for listening. You can read about this article on how stuff Works. That's where we got this one, right Chuck, That's right, all right, Well then until next time, Short

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