A desolate Mississippi crossroads at midnight, a shadowy figure who tunes a young man's guitar, and a soul traded for otherworldly mastery: it is the most famous myth in modern music, and it has overshadowed the actual human being at its center. This episode separates Robert Johnson from the legend. Born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi around 1911, Johnson spent nearly a decade growing up in Memphis, attending school and absorbing jazz, vaudeville and popular music before returning to the Delta as a teenager. In 1929 his young wife Virginia died in childbirth along with their baby, and her grieving relatives blamed his secular music as divine punishment. Rather than repent, he embraced the life of an itinerant musician and vanished for roughly a year and a half.

We examine what actually happened in that gap, including his mentorship under Ike Zi ...