Did Robert Johnson Really Sell His Soul To The Devil At The Crossroad?

Legend has it that Robert Johnson sold his soul at the crossroads. Is this fact, could it be fiction or maybe its something entirely different altogether, could it be mistaken identity? What, we the public actually diggin' for the truth and not believing everything we are told? 

Radiolab has come up with quite the interesting podcast about ol' Robert Johnson and anyone that listens to the blues and the origins of rock n' roll will find this quite compelling.

Link to original podcast over at Radiolab

Did Robert Johnson really sell his soul to the devil at the cross roads?

"For years and years, Jad's been fascinated by the myth of what happened to Robert Johnson at the crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The story goes like this: back in the 1920s, Robert Johnson wanted to play the blues. But he really sucked. He sucked so much, that everyone who heard him told him to get lost. So he did. He disappeared for a little while, and when he came back, he was different. His music was startling--and musicians who'd laughed at him before now wanted to know how he did it. And according to the now-famous legend, Johnson had a simple answer: he went out to the crossroads just before midnight, and when the devil offered to tune his guitar in exchange for his soul, he took the deal.


Producer Pat Walters bravely escorts Jad to the scene of the supposed crime, in the middle of the night in the Mississippi Delta, to try to track down some shred of truth to all this. Not because they really thought something spooky would actually happen, but because deep down, there's a part of this story that--as much as the facts fall apart--still feels kind of true.


To help us get close to the real human behind the tall tales, we talk to Robert Johnson experts Tom Graves, Elijah Wald, David Evans, and Robert “Mack” McCormick. And we hear, posthumously, from Ledell Johnson...a man of no relation to Robert, who unintentionally helped the world fall for a blues-imbued ghost story."

Robert Johnson illustration by ComicNerd635 from Deviant Art