There are many tales of people achieving all sorts of fortune and fame by selling their souls to the devil. Blues guitarist Robert Johnson is probably the most famous subject of that tall tale.
The legend goes that he offered his soul at a Mississippi Delta crossroads, and in return he would receive musical success and talents beyond his wildest dreams. And, yes, to this day he is considered a pioneer of American blues guitar and songwriting.
But the devil is in the details. And with a life so shrouded in mystery, it's hard to separate fact from his very appealing fiction.
Humble Beginnings Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi on May 8, 1911, spending much of his beginnings on a plantation in the Delta.
His mother, Julia Major Dodds, was a daughter of slaves. Dodds had ten children with her husband, but Robert was born out of an affair with a field hand named Noah Johnson.
Later in Robert's childhood, Julia remarried and moved the family to Robinsonville, Mississippi. Robert seemed to take to music quickly as a child, demonstrating keen musical ability both on the jaw harp and harmonica.
That interest didn't fade as he grew into his teens, as he was absent from school more and more, which his friends attributed to him studying music in Memphis. He would also play around with a makeshift instrument called a diddley bow, which was a wire attached to a house that a person could pull taut and hit with a stick, altering the pitch with a bottle that slides along the wire.
The early and teenage years of Robert Johnson are very much shrouded in mystery. Historians have had to lean on anecdotal tales from other musicians and friends of his from those days, which is a lot like playing a game of telephone.
There just isn't much to go on, and his Johnson's nomadic nature made it even harder to get a sense of his beginnings. He'd pester every local musician he could for a chance to share a stage of a jam session with them.
Many times, between other musicians' sets, Robert would take over the stage and play some songs of his own. A bold move for sure.
