Blues musician Robert Johnson was a hell of an interesting guy. Known today as the King of the Delta Blues Singers, Robert didn’t find widespread fame in his own lifetime and died at 27 under circumstances that range from poisoning to heart failure to Satanic abduction, depending on whose version you hear. Thanks to a small body of recordings and the absence of much documentation about his life, Johnson’s legend and music grew to dominate 20th century pop culture. The Rolling Stones, Cream, The White Stripes and Tenacious D are among the many bands influenced by Johnson’s recordings, and the story about the young musician’s deal with the Devil has found its way into films from Crossroads to O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Here’s the version you may have heard: Promising-but-undiscovered guitarist Robert Johnson finds himself at a lonely crossroads, some pitch-black midnight in the 1930s. The Devil is there; whether this is a chance meeting or an appointment is difficult to say. In either case, the Devil offers Robert mastery of the guitar in exchange for Robert’s soul, and with a young artist’s willingness to cut a deal without looking at the fine print, Robert goes for it. The Devil takes Robert’s guitar, plays a few chords on it, and hands it back.
I’m not a musician and therefore not the best judge of whether Robert got his soul’s worth, but I have heard that when Keith Richards first listened to one of RJ’s songs he asked who the second guitarist was. There was no second guitarist.
About two years ago my good friend Jason Schlafstein was thinking about remounting his successful Fringe show The Hunchback Variations and asked me to write a variations-style play as a companion piece. The remount never happened, but all of the above Robert Johnson stuff was rattling around in my head and I started wondering what had happened to the guy after he died. Did he regret making a deal with the Devil? Did he find a way to keep playing? Why in hell did the Devil want him so badly, anyway? Jason and I started a two-year jam session that became one of the weirdest things I have ever written.
This one’s got live blues rock, original music by the talented Mark Halpern, the worst late night show in creation, an old-timey dirty song title contest, the Antichrist, and at least one demon bear. It’s dark, and fun, and sad, and scary. You don’t have to know anything about Robert Johnson to enjoy the show; I still have very few hard facts about the man, and I wrote the damned thing. We’ve got five shows left, starting today at noon, so buy your tickets here.
It’s been a good excuse to spend time with his recordings, though. Give them a listen when you have the chance. For a young guy, RJ has quite a few tricks up his sleeve. His songs are goofy, depressing and harrowing, often at the same time. He sings about hellhounds and tamales, and makes dirty jokes about gramophones and cars. Wherever he is now, I wish him well.
