[Heel n Toe]

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The very brief Robert Johnson saga is fraught with mythology, solid information (thanks to new research) and ample debate. He was born in southern Mississippi in 1911 and by the late 40's played mediocre harmonica and guitar, as top bluesmen like Son House remembered. The legend takes over at this point. It's said Johnson went to a Delta crossroads with his guitar and "sold his soul to the Devil," who in return, made him a great musician. After disappearing for a while, he returned to blow Son and his musical partner Willie Brown away with these supposedly Satanically-endowed talents.

Dramatic. Romantic. And since Son House himself told the tale, it titillates the uninformed, including many casual tourists visiting the Mississippi Blues Trail. It's also pure BS. Hard work during his disappearance (back to the area of his birth), listening to other blues players (and their records) plus relentless guitar practice allowed Johnson to excel and dazzle Son, Willie and plenty of others. It's worth noting that surviving contemporaries recall a musician so versatile he could sing pop songs, cowboy or country numbers and play polkas.

He first recorded in San Antonio in 1936 for ARC or American Recording, Vocalion's parent company (later absorbed by Columbia Records). He did another session in Dallas in 1937. The producer was Don Law, who in the 50's and 60's produced tons of country hits for Columbia Records in Nashville.

In his life, Johnson never had "hits," but his records got around and impressed people beyond the South, including the famous jazz producer-promoter John Hammond, who discovered Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Dylan, Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1938 Hammond wanted to bring Johnson to New York to perform in his "Spirituals to Swing" concerts featuring blues, jazz and gospel.

By then, Johnson singer was dead, taken ill while playing at a joint near Greenwood, Mississippi on August 16. The most popular story involves his being drinking booze poisoned by a jealous husband; other accounts hint at syphilis as the culprit. Since Johnson's actual physical grave site is unknown, it's sure to remain a mystery.

The best book on Johnson's music, one that de-mythologizes and gets to the truth is Elijah Wald's Escaping The Delta: Robert Johnson and The Invention of the Blues. As Wald declares, "Along with songs learned from recordings and other players, Johnson had a rare ability to create his own material." That's true.

Case in point: Johnson did not create "Dust My Broom" out of wholecloth, but by fusing his original ideas with bits from other blues recordings (commonplace then and now in all pop music genres). Moreover, it wasn't Johnson's record that made "Broom" a staple in blues and rock. That happened 15 years later, in 1951, when singer and amplified slide guitarist Elmore James recorded a version for the Lillian McMurry's Trumpet label in Jackson, Mississippi that hit the R&B charts in 1952. Johnson's old Mississippi friend Sonny Boy Williamson (# 2) is on harmonica.

James improved on the Johnson guitar riff and recorded many versions and variations over the years). A slew of other bluesmen, not to mention Eric Clapton, original Rolling Stone Brian Jones, Mike Bloomfield, George Thorogood and Johnny Winter were among the many who drew from James's style. Today, "Dust My Broom's" slide riffs and chugging rhythm are staples of basic blues and rock guitar.

As for Johnson, after Clapton, the Rolling Stones (who covered Johnson's "Love In Vain") and many others made him a blues icon in the late 60's, mythology ruled. The 1986 movie Crossroads was based on the Johnson legend.

CBS Records, not yet part of Sony, released the two-CD Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings box set in 1990. It won a Grammy for Best Historical Album and to everyone's amazement, the set was blowing out of record stores (you remember those, don't you?) at a phenomenal rate. Duly impressed with the sales figures, some guileless souls in Columbia's sales department, knowing absolutely nothing about the artist, naively asked if it were possible to get Robert to do in-store appearances to promote the set. Really. It was funny then, too.