He had a tough life
Born in Mississippi on May 8, 1911, Johnson grew up on a plantation in the Delta and was often abused by his stepfather. He developed an interest in music along the way and even chased some of the blues musicians at the time for an opportunity to play the guitar during their performances. However, the audiences were clearly not loving his sound.
Blues singer Son House in “ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads,” a Robert Johnson documentary on Netflix, recalls a 1930 incident at a juke joint:
“He started to play it and be just noising the people, you know.” “And the folks, they’d come out and say, ‘Why don’t some of y’all go down and make that boy put that thing down, he running us crazy!'”
Owners of the juke joint kicked him off stage and that was the last time anyone heard of him for almost a year. When Johnson returned, he had mastered the guitar to the shock of many in Delta. And that was where rumors about his deal with the devil at the crossroads started from, after all, earlier guitar hero Tommy Johnson from Mississippi reportedly admitted honing his skills with help of the devil. But what really happened at the crossroads?
