Artist · EveryDisc catalogue

Robert Leroy Johnson

Robert Leroy Johnson (8 May 1911, Hazlehurst, Mississippi, USA — 16 August 1938, Greenwood, Mississippi, USA) was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter, one of the most famous bluesmen of the twentieth century. One of the founding fathers of the blues. After meeting the famous bluesmen Son House and Willie Brown in 1930, Robert Johnson tried to master playing the guitar in the blues style in order to perform together with his friends. However, this art came to him extremely hard. For a while, Robert parted ways with his friends and disappeared, but when he appeared in 1931, his level of mastery had increased many times over. Regarding this, Johnson told a tall tale about there being a certain magical crossroads where he made a deal with the devil in exchange for the ability to play the blues.