Robert Johnson recorded just 29 songs before dying in 1938 at age 27 — the first member of the '27 Club' — yet he shaped nearly all of rock and roll. Only three photographs of him are known to exist. His death certificate lists no cause and wasn't found until 1967. And the myth that he sold his soul at a Mississippi crossroads has outlived almost everyone who could have corrected it.
The song at the dead center of the legend, recorded solo in a San Antonio hotel room in 1936. Play it first — everything else is trying to explain how a human made this sound.
The full record: two recording sessions, 29 songs, three photos, and an influence so vast the Rock Hall calls him 'the first ever rock star.' Most of his life is reconstructed from fragments.
Widely called his greatest performance — a haunted, restless song about being chased by something you can't outrun. The eeriness that fed the devil legend is all right here.
The grounded version: how Johnson actually studied for months under Ike Zimmerman, why 'he sold his soul' erases the real work — and why the myth refuses to die anyway.
The Netflix documentary tracing the myth and the man, with Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Bonnie Raitt trying to explain the guitarist who rewired all of them.
How a song about being stranded at a rural crossroads at dusk became misread as a satanic confession, and how Cream's 'Crossroads' cemented the legend for a rock audience.
Poisoned whiskey at a juke joint called Three Forks? Syphilis? The competing stories behind a death with no autopsy, three possible graves, and a certificate lost for decades.
For decades only two images of Johnson were known. The debate over a possible third — and the 13-year legal fight over his estate — shows how little of him survives at all.