Robert Johnson: Voodoo, Delta Blues, Cursing God, and a Crossroads

DISGRACELAND

Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture, Music, True Crime

4.6 • 13.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2023

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Robert Johnson didn’t just play the blues. He embodied them. He drank and womanized his way through the South, New York, and Chicago in the 1930s, until he finally met the devil at the crossroads for a little trade. So the legend goes, anyway. With the same soul he supposedly sold to the devil, Robert Johnson belted lightning blues that captured trouble in 12 bars. But the trouble he touted would eventually trickle into his own life, one bottle of poison at a time. This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners and includes descriptions of racial violence and traumatic childbirth. To view the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Double Elvis.
0:08.0	Welcome, welcome.
0:09.0	All right, another one of my all-time spooky faves
0:12.2	is this episode on Robert Johnson. This is one of the last
0:16.4	episodes we had in the archive or we have in the archive I should say. I'm excited to
0:22.1	bring this one out and have it released into the
0:24.0	wide wide world of Disgrace land so yeah don't sleep on the devil and you know
0:29.8	don't let that low-down blues man dark in your door.
0:33.4	Lock up your daughters, lock up your wives,
0:35.6	and steer clear the crossroads.
0:37.6	All right, we're getting ready for Robert Johnson.
0:39.4	Remember to check this feed
0:40.6	for our next episode in our Halloween series on Led Zeppelin.
0:45.0	Disgrace land is a production of Double Elvis.
0:49.0	Hey everybody, this is a special episode of Disgraceland because I was able to cast one of my favorite
0:55.2	singers in soul music today. Lee Fields is an incredible vocalist, great artist.
1:01.7	You should check him out wherever you stream your music,
1:04.2	Amazon music or wherever you listen.
1:06.5	Lee Fields plays the part of Sunhouse's head in this episode.
1:11.1	He did an amazing job. I just want to give a special thanks to Lee and again if you don't
1:16.0	know his music go check it out you won't be disappointed all right melotron No, Chorm. The stories about Robert Johnson are insane. He drank and womanized his way through his gigs from the South in the 1930s all the way up to New York and Chicago.
1:47.0	He cursed the name of God to any friend who would listen, often to the detriment of those friendships.
	...

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