Happy Birthday, Mr. Johnson

Today is the 101st birthday of one of the most influential men in music history and one of the most mysterious men in music history: The Great Robert Johnson.

Robert wrote only 29 songs, but if you are a rock n' roll fan, you have heard most of them. They have been covered and made hits by everyone from The Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin to the Blues Brothers.

But the legend of Robert goes way past his music, from him selling his soul to the devil in exchange for his guitar and singing prowess.  People are not even sure how he died, where he's buried or what he died from.

The story goes Robert was a struggling musician met a woman married her moved in with the in-laws.  The in-laws were God-fearing people and told him he would have to give up singing the "Devil's Music," so he did. His wife got pregnant and in the course of delivery his wife and baby died, the in-laws ran Robert off blaming him for the deaths because of his association with the devil and the devil's music.  You see, people in the Delta in those days believed that the Blues were evil, and Robert was evil by association.

Robert left and disappeared for several years, and when he came back he could make a guitar do things most people had never seen. He could sing like a angel and when people asked him how he had learned all that, he told them he met the devil at the Crossroads and sold his soul.

I once saw a documentary done in the 70's about Robert and they interviewed a lot of people who knew him who believed the story, and they said Robert believed the story he was telling.

If that wasn't mysterious enough, there are 3 tombstones in Mississippi with his name on it..

The story only gets stranger surrounding his death.  You see one of Robert's biggest songs of the day and a song Eric Clapton says is one of the most influential songs of all time, Hell Hound On My Trail, tells the story of a man being chased by the Devil.  It is widely believed Johnson died on all fours barking like a dog, howling at the moon, supposedly poisoned by a jealous husband.  Some say he was shot, some say he just disappeared.

Some even say he never existed at all, and that he was Son House's alter ego.  Either way, I have just scratched the surface of Robert Johnson.  Read up on him. His legend, his music, his influence on today's music, the story is only surpassed by his brilliance.

Here's a song by a lady almost as mysterious about the trials and tribulations of being a blues singer in the Delta all those years ago.