Robert Johnson meets the Devil, or not

It's perhaps the most famous story in the history of the blues: In the 1920s, a mediocre guitarist named Robert Johnson went to a Mississippi crossroads at midnight where the Devil "tuned" his guitar in exchange for Johnson's soul. Assuming that the story may be, well, apocryphal, who made it up? Radiolab investigated.

"Crossroads" (Radiolab)

• [Buddy Bradley]

  Fantastic, can’t wait to listen to this! It’s too bad we can’t hear Honeyboy Edwards’ version of this, if only he’d held on one more year…

• [Christopher Hall]

  Animation about Robert Johnson… http://christopherdarling.com/portfolio/robert-johnson-legacy-records/

• [BombBlastLightingWaltz]

  sounds like Hendrixi ‘Joe’ song, gonna beat my old lady/ gonna shoot my old lady

• [Paul Renault]

  I wonder how long Robert Johnson would last on American Idol…

  • [B E Pratt]

     Wait….people are STILL watching American Idol?? We are so in trouble….

    • [Paul Renault]

      I can’t watch more than three minutes of it but I might be in a minority.

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Idol#Television_ratings

• [niktemadur]

  For a moment there, I thought it read “Stereolab investigated”.  Which would make for a pretty interesting hybrid.

  Anyway, I love, Love, LOVE the old time blues, like a soothing balm with a spicy kick.  What a wonderful art form, and never you mind the blues players who plugged in their guitar and went electric, just gimme the old acoustic, scratchy recordings and I’m a happy camper.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h_K-lmrdMA

• [Childe Roland]

  I’ll be playing some Robert Johnson at a gig tomorrow night. We do a lot of pre-war blues.

  About 20 years ago, I lived in Memphis, drove down to the crossroads and collected a vial of dirt. I still have it.

• [Ben Ehlers]

  Every episode of RadioLab needs to be pushed by BoingBoing. It’s an amazing show with brilliant narratives from the brackish waters where science and humanity intersect. 

• [less_than_spam]

  Sorry, I had to hang up on this. It is so nerdy/chatty taking forever to get to some interesting/useful information. Sounds like a mid-morning TV talk show. The fact of the matter is that while Robert Johnson is great he has been over-hyped while those of equal ability have been shuttled to the background (see: Charlie Patton). The announcers make the whole devil-at-the -crossroads thing all spooky and pop culture when in fact it has a direct connection to beliefs carried over from the African diaspora. 

  • [noah django]

    yeah, it definitely had that NPR vibe to it, unfortunately.  However, I listened intently anyhow.  lots of good info for a Johnson fan from way back.

  • [BunnyShank]

    Here’s what musician and ethno-musicologist John Harrelson had to say when he listened:

    I did appreciate the effort. White people still can’t get it… And non-Southerners haven’t a prayer of getting it. Waiting at a crossroads at midnight is only part of the process… Did they have a black cat in a burlap sack? Did they realize they needed to summon Legba? White people just can’t get it… –JH
    http://youtu.be/rkbKLZmP2Oo

• [pKp]

  Current artists doing that sort of things include C.W. Stoneking : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgncwm9cMio. I saw him in Paris about three months ago, it was great.

• [Jean Werlen]

  did you know that dutch singer  Dick Annegarn bought this famous guitar and is currently playing on it ? http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x808ng_dick-annegarn-et-sa-guitare-legenda_music

  See him playing on it here : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gsyv_dick-annegarn-jacques_music

• [zombiebob]

  http://www.luckymojo.com/crossroads.html

  the above link has a great deal of detailed info about the crossroads ritual, plus info on how it was actually Tommy Johnson and not Robert Johnson who did the ritual.

• [progosk]

  Robert Crumb  panel gets history right: http://www.celticguitarmusic.com/patton9.htm

• [Rik Elswit]

  For me, the authority on Robert Johnson is bluesman, and UCLA professor of the blues, Elijah Wald, whose, “Escaping the Delta -Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues” is a well researched and fascinating read that destroys much of the mythology surrounding Johnson.  

  He finishes the biography with a cut-for-cut analysis of the 23 songs Johnson recorded, and comes to the conclusion that, rather than a cri de coeur of an obscure bluesman, they were an attempt at commercial success by an accomplished entertainer who had much broader tastes of in music than being simply limited to the blues.   (His favorite song was “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”)

  Wald’s research makes an excellent case that the Columbia recordings were made because country blues records were selling at the time, and a decision was made to aim for that market.    And he goes on to show how many of the tunes were heavily influenced by records by those already made by bluesmen like Skip James, Son House, and a number of other bluesmen.    And Wald pretty much destroys the story of a guy who left town as a mediocre player and came back six months later as a genius.

• [dscott]

  This is so funny! I wrote a paper on this exact subject for a class a week ago.