The Death of a Ghost - King of the Delta Blues : Robert Johnson

Mysterious Circumstances

13 Stars Media

True Crime, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2017

⏱️ 98 minutes

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Summary

According to legend, as a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, Robert Johnson had a tremendous desire to become a great blues musician. He was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the devil) who took the guitar and tuned it. The devil played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. This was a deal with the devil mirroring the legend of Faust. In exchange for his soul, Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous. Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, near Greenwood, Mississippi, of unknown causes. Several differing accounts have described the events preceding his death. According to one theory, Johnson was poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. Johnson had been flirting with a married woman at a dance, who gave him a bottle of whiskey poisoned by her husband. But....when you start looking into this case, it doesn't add up. Did Robert Johnson really make a deal with the devil? How did he really die? Where is he buried? These are questions that surround the myth and the legend of Robert Johnson.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Mysterious Circumstances Podcast is hosted by Justin Rimmel.
0:04.8	This is an American Crimecast production.
0:07.5	Visit us at our new home at ACC Productions.org.
0:11.5	Remember, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
0:16.0	He said the reason he knowed so much, said he sold himself to the devil.
0:22.0	I asked him how and he said quote if you want to
0:26.8	learn how to play anything you want to play and learn how to make songs
0:30.5	yourself you take your guitar and you go to where the road crosses that way,
0:36.9	where a crossroad is. Get there. Be sure to get there just a little for 12 o'clock that night so you'll know you'll be there.
0:46.0	You have your guitar and be playing a piece sitting there by yourself.
0:51.0	You have to go by yourself and be sitting there playing a piece. A big black man
0:56.8	will walk up there and take your guitar and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you.
1:04.0	That's the way I learned how to play anything I want."
1:08.0	End quote.
1:09.0	And he could.
1:11.0	He used to play anything.
1:14.0	Don't care what it was.
1:16.0	Church song, you could sing any kind of tangled up song you want to.
1:21.0	And I'll bet you he could play it. That was a statement from
1:27.1	the Reverend Liddell Johnson. I think he's the greatest folk blues guitar player ever lived and the greatest
1:36.0	singer, the greatest right. You know you think you would get in a handle on playing
1:39.8	the blues and then to hear jogging at that war is one way to go get me.
	...

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