70 Fun Facts About Robert Johnson

According to the most famous legend about him, what did Robert Johnson trade for his musical talent?

The story mirrors the Faust legend and was borrowed from another Delta singer who actively promoted the tale himself.

How old was Robert Johnson when he died in 1938?

His early death at that age makes him the first name on the so-called 27 Club roster.

The hall of fame that first inducted Robert Johnson calls him perhaps the first ever what?

Its citation puts him alongside the earliest rock pioneers even though he never played an electric guitar.

How many recording sessions did Robert Johnson have in his entire career?

Both took place in makeshift Texas studios, and everything he ever recorded fits comfortably on two CDs.

What did Robert Johnson mostly do for a living as a performer?

He also played Saturday night dances, and would happily play pop standards or country tunes if that was what the crowd wanted.

Robert Johnson appeared on a US commemorative postage stamp in which year?

The stamp artwork famously removed the cigarette from the source photograph.

Which British group's 1968 album Wheels of Fire popularised 'Crossroads'?

The band's guitarist simplified Johnson's slide riff onto one or two strings and set it to a straight rock rhythm.

Which was Robert Johnson's most commercially successful record in his lifetime, selling up to 10,000 copies?

It uses a car that will not start as an extended metaphor for a girlfriend's suspected infidelity.

How many distinct songs did Robert Johnson record in total?

With alternate takes there are 42 surviving performances, out of 59 that the session logs say were cut.

In which Texas city did Robert Johnson make his first recordings in November 1936?

The makeshift studio was set up in a hotel, with the equipment in one room and the musician in another.

Robert Johnson's second and final recording session, in June 1937, took place in which city?

The 'studio' was an unused storage area on the third floor of a former Warner Bros. film-exchange building.

Who produced both of Robert Johnson's recording sessions?

His later recollection that Johnson played facing the wall fed the myth that the singer was painfully shy.

Which record label first issued Robert Johnson's 78s in 1937 and 1938?

Budget pressings also went out on ARC dime-store labels such as Perfect, Romeo and Conqueror.

Which 1961 Columbia album finally brought Robert Johnson's music to a wide audience?

Because no photograph of him had yet surfaced, the cover painting shows a faceless musician in field clothes.

Which young Columbia signing was mesmerised by an advance copy of Robert Johnson's 1961 LP?

The album later turned up in the cover photo of Bringing It All Back Home among other badges of hip taste.

Which Delta bluesman remembered the young Robert Johnson as an embarrassingly bad guitarist?

When Johnson reappeared with a mature technique, this older musician's equivocal answers about the devil pact were taken as confirmation of it.

Which Mississippi musician, who practised in graveyards at night, taught Robert Johnson much of his technique?

The pair sat on tombstones in a country cemetery to practise undisturbed, one probable root of the sold-his-soul legend.

The crossroads deal-with-the-devil story was originally told about which other, unrelated bluesman?

He grew up near Dockery Plantation and actively promoted the tale himself; his brother Ledell repeated it to researchers in the 1960s.

Robert Johnson's death certificate, found almost 30 years later, listed what cause of death?

No autopsy was done; a note added later on the back records a plantation owner's opinion that he died of syphilis.

According to the story told by David 'Honeyboy' Edwards, how was Robert Johnson killed?

Edwards said he knocked the first bottle out of Johnson's hand, only for a second one to be accepted.

Near which Mississippi town did Robert Johnson die?

He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance at the Three Forks Club in nearby Itta Bena.

Which Robert Johnson song was first proposed for the 1966 Powerhouse session before 'Crossroads'?

Led Zeppelin later recorded that same song and borrowed its lemon-squeezing lyric for 'The Lemon Song'.

Which Rolling Stones album includes their country-tinged version of 'Love in Vain'?

They played it live for the first time in Hyde Park in July 1969, with new member Mick Taylor on slide guitar.

Which 1990 Robert Johnson box set sold over a million copies and won a Grammy for Best Historical Album?

It reached number 80 on the Billboard pop album chart, an astonishing feat for Depression-era blues 78s.

Robert Johnson spent his earliest years in which city, attending the Carnes Avenue Colored School?

His city schooling set him apart from most Delta bluesmen; his signature on his marriage certificate suggests a decent education.

Which blues guitarist, son of Johnson's partner Estella Coleman, learned guitar directly from him?

He was nicknamed 'Robert Junior' because of the association, a name he later said he disliked.

Which bluesman travelled with Robert Johnson to Chicago, Texas, New York, Canada, Kentucky and Indiana?

He recalled that Johnson would simply pick up and walk off mid-gig, vanishing for weeks at a time.

Which Mississippi bluesman recast 'Dust My Broom' as an electric Chicago-style hit in 1951?

His amplified slide riff became one of the first recorded examples of the classic Chicago shuffle beat.

How many photographs of Robert Johnson were widely known before the 1980s?

Three images turned up with his half-sister in 1972–73; the 'dime-store photo' was first published in Rolling Stone in 1986.

Whom did the Mississippi Supreme Court rule in 1998 to be the bluesman's son and sole heir?

The ruling let a retired truck driver from Crystal Springs collect over $1 million in royalties.

Which Rolling Stone, on first hearing Robert Johnson, asked who the other guy playing with him was?

He later described Johnson as 'like an orchestra all by himself'.

Where did Rolling Stone's 2003 guitarist ranking place Robert Johnson?

The magazine's 2015 update dropped him to number 71, then its 2023 list put him at 16.

Robert Johnson recorded in which numbered room of the Gunter Hotel in November 1936?

Musicians performed in that room while the recording equipment sat in an adjoining one.

The 2019 biography Up Jumped the Devil argues Robert Johnson was poisoned with what?

The authors say it was a common Southern method that was rarely fatal, but Johnson had an ulcer and oesophageal varices that haemorrhaged.

A physician suggested Robert Johnson's long fingers and 'one bad eye' pointed to which condition?

The connective-tissue disorder could have both shaped his guitar reach and killed him via aortic dissection.

Which musicologist went to Mississippi in 1941 to record Robert Johnson, not knowing he was dead?

He learned from Muddy Waters that Johnson had played around Clarksdale, and ended up recording Waters instead.

Which Robert Johnson song, recorded first at his final session in June 1937, is often called his greatest performance?

He played it in an open E minor tuning; Peter Guralnick called the record 'the apogee of the blues'.

Which Robert Johnson song did Elijah Wald call 'his first unquestionable masterpiece'?

Its central verse is spoken, while the guitar imitates the sound of a howling winter wind.

Under which surname, from his mother's first husband, was Robert Johnson registered at Indian Creek School?

His stepfather had fled a lynch mob in Hazlehurst and changed his name after escaping north.

Whose 1958 'Sweet Home Chicago' on Duke Records reached number 13 on the R&B chart?

The label credited the song to Roosevelt Sykes, who had cut it as 'Sweet Old Chicago' three years earlier, and dropped the California line.

Which 1933 slide-guitar recording was the immediate model for 'Sweet Home Chicago'?

Johnson swapped 'back to Kokomo' for 'to Chicago' and turned a small Indiana town into a dream of migration.

Which talent scout ran a general store in Jackson, Mississippi, and set Robert Johnson toward his first session?

He passed Johnson on to an ARC salesman, who in turn arranged the trip to Texas.

A 2000 court ruling over 'Love in Vain' and 'Stop Breakin' Down Blues' gave the songs to whom?

For years the songs were assumed to be public domain, until the Stones' recordings triggered the lawsuit.

How many of Robert Johnson's recorded performances survive, out of the 59 the session logs show were cut?

That means 29 songs plus 13 alternate takes; the rest are presumed lost forever.

Which Robert Johnson guitar figure did Edward Komara call his most influential accomplishment?

Johnnie Temple recorded it first in 1935 but said he had learned it from 'R. L.' in 1932 or 1933; Chuck Berry later adapted it for rock and roll.

Where did Robert Johnson's 'Cross Road Blues' rank on Rolling Stone's 2021 500 Greatest Songs list?

The song had already received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998.

Which 2004 album by a British guitarist consists entirely of covers of the bluesman's songs?

Its maker said he was not trying to recreate the originals but to extract as much emotional content as he could.

Under what pen-name did John Hammond write the first article about the bluesman in 1937?

He declared that Johnson 'makes Leadbelly sound like an accomplished poseur'.

Who played Robert Johnson in reconstructed scenes in the 1997 film Can't You Hear the Wind Howl?

The film mixed dramatised scenes with interviews with musicians who had travelled and played with him.

In which Mississippi community's cemetery did Robert Johnson practise guitar on tombstones?

Researchers long thought it was the Hazlehurst cemetery; Bruce Conforth found the teacher actually lived in this nearby town.

What smiling image of Robert Johnson, published in 2020, is thought to be from the day of the famous cigarette photo?

It belongs to his step-sister Annye Anderson and became the cover of her memoir Brother Robert.

Which 2025 film features a character, Sammie 'Preacher Boy' Moore, loosely based on Robert Johnson?

The 1986 film Crossroads had earlier dramatised the devil legend directly, shooting in Beulah, Mississippi.

Which guitarist called Robert Johnson 'the most important blues musician who ever lived'?

He went on to record a full tribute album of Johnson songs in 2004.

In which decade were all of Robert Johnson's recordings made?

The Great Depression had gutted the race-record business, which is one reason his output was so small.

What was Robert Johnson's middle name?

He was born on or around May 8, 1911; the exact date is uncertain because no birth certificate has been found.

What was the very first song Robert Johnson recorded?

It sounded less like the Delta and more like the smoother urban style of the Indianapolis piano-blues hits Johnson admired.

In which category was Robert Johnson inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986?

He went in alongside Jimmy Yancey and Jimmie Rodgers, almost half a century after his death.

How were Robert Johnson's recordings performed, as far as accompaniment goes?

His thumb kept a bass line going while his fingers played melody, which is why some listeners hear two guitarists.

In which Mississippi town was Robert Johnson born, possibly on May 8, 1911?

Marker No. 29 on the Mississippi Blues Trail now stands at his birthplace there.

Why did Charles Dodds, the husband of Johnson's mother, flee their home town?

Dodds, a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker, changed his name to Charles Spencer in Memphis.

How old was Virginia Travis when Johnson married her in February 1929?

She died in childbirth shortly afterward; her relatives told researcher Mack McCormick it was divine punishment for Johnson singing secular songs.

Whom did Johnson marry in May 1931, settling for a while in Clarksdale?

He soon left Clarksdale for life as a 'walking' or itinerant musician.

For which 1938 Carnegie Hall concert did John Hammond seek out Johnson, only to learn he had died?

Hammond's Columbia Records later bought Johnson's original recordings from Brunswick, which owned them.

Which ARC salesman introduced Johnson to producer Don Law for his first session?

Talent scout H. C. Speir of Jackson had put Johnson in touch with him around 1936.

Where near Itta Bena had Johnson been playing a country dance for weeks before his death?

It lay about 15 miles from Greenwood; one theory holds a jealous husband murdered him.

How many different grave markers have been erected for Johnson at possible sites outside Greenwood?

They stand at Mount Zion, Payne Chapel and Little Zion churches; the true location of the grave is unknown.

Who wrote the central inscription on the one-ton obelisk placed at Mount Zion church in 1990?

Columbia Records and many small contributions through the Mount Zion Memorial Fund paid for the marker, which lists all of Johnson's song titles.

Residents of which Mississippi town claim Johnson sold his soul at the junction of Highways 1 and 8?

Clarksdale and Memphis both have tourist 'Crossroads' attractions, and the 1986 film Crossroads was shot in Beulah.

How many of Johnson's songs did Alan Lomax list in 1940 for a US government folk-song conference?

His notes ranged from 'elaborate sex symbolism' for 'Terraplane Blues' to 'traces of voodoo' for 'Stones in My Passway'.

Which Johnson release was added to the National Recording Registry in 2003?

He had entered the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.