Today seen as a founding legend of the blues, Robert Johnson died young and unnoticed in his time. We probably wouldn’t even know his name if it hadn’t been for a small number of recordings, the first of which were cut on this date in a San Antonio hotel room 78 years ago on November 23, 1936.

The details of Johnson’s life are mysterious, but what we know isn’t very happy. He was a widower twice over (both wives died in childbirth) who took on the life of a rambling musician, playing for tips outside of barber shops and in juke joints as he wandered the Mississippi Delta and beyond. To people who knew him, he seemed to have developed his skill with the guitar overnight, giving rise to the legend that he had met the devil at the crossroads one night and sold his soul for his talent. (We can have fun with this legend today, but it was taken very seriously by some people in Johnson’s time. Surviving relatives of his first wife saw her death as divine punishment for Robert’s decision to play secular music.)

Robert Johnson’s entire recording library consists of 29 songs he cut in 1936 and 1937. His biggest lifetime hit sold 5,000 copies. He died at age 27 in 1938, and we don’t even know for sure how that happened. One story says he drank a poisoned bottle of liquor from the husband of a woman he had flirted with, and another report says it was syphilis that did him in. Even his burial site is a mystery, with markers at three different church cemeteries near Greenwood, Mississippi, claiming to mark his resting place.

His recordings sat forgotten for over 20 years before a 1961 re-issue called “King of the Delta Blues Singers” introduced him to a new generation. His technique has made him a legend among legends. The first time Keith Richards heard him play, he asked “Who is the other guy playing with him?” mistakenly believing he was listening to two guitars. Eric Clapton has recorded many of Johnson’s songs, and might have done more to reintroduce him to modern audiences than anyone else. (Clapton’s “Crossroads” is a cover of Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues,” which has become tied up in the legend of Johnson’s supposed crossroads meeting with the devil.) Clapton has called Johnson’s distinctive bluesy whine “the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice” and called him “the most important blues singer that ever lived.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd60nI4sa9A