Visiting the home of Robert Johnson

Meeting Blues royalty

Almost exactly 10 years ago, my wife and I went on a road trip in the USA.

Surprise! It was a journey with a music focus. One of those places we visited was Crystal Springs, Mississippi, to see the Robert Johnson museum.

Who is Robert Johnson? If you are not a blues music fan, you might not know who he was. I would be surprised if you haven’t heard his music though. Have you heard the song, Sweet Home Chicago? You might have seen it in the movie of The Blues Brothers.

Most blues players have covered it at some stage. If you didn’t see that movie, you might have seen the 1986 movie called The Crossroads which was inspired by the legend of how Johnson disappeared as an average guitar player and turned up, maybe a year later, and was amazing, then died after drinking whisky laced with strychnine that a woman gave him when he was playing at a country dance in Greenwood, MS. Some claimed that was the devil claiming his dues for the deal he made at The Crossroads to become an amazing guitarist.

Eric Clapton was a big fan of Johnson’s music. He started a series of blues festivals, called The Crossroads which is one of the blues music highlights of the year. Here he is in 2010 playing Crossroad, written by Johnson at one of those concerts. The last festival was in 2019. There may have been more if it hadn’t been for COVID. If you want a good dose of the blues, 69 of the songs played at that event are here on YouTube.

Robert Johnson only recorded 29 songs in his short career, but his rise from unknown to playing amazing guitar was something that people didn’t believe was possible.

In addition to his fame being spooky, he was also the first member of the 27 Club. This club is one you would not want to join. It is made up of famous artists who died at the age of 27. In addition to Johnson, members include, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.

So, around this time in 2012, we drove up to the Robert Johnson museum in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. It was hot, we were tired and the museum was closed.

We decided to go to City Hall and see if there was anyone who could help us. A woman came to the counter, listened to our story and said she would see if anyone might be able to help.

A few minutes later another woman came out and introduced herself as the Mayor. She was very friendly and thought it was great that we came all the way from New Zealand. She said to give her a moment and she would make a call.

A few minutes later, she came back out and said she had found someone called Claudette, who would be happy to show us around the museum. If we drove back there, she would come and meet us at the entrance.

What a relief, this was a special place in our pilgrimage and it would have been so sad to travel all the way and not be able to get in for a look.

We went back to the entrance and peeked through the window, looking forward to looking inside. About a quarter of an hour later a woman turned up at the door. This wasn’t just anyone. We were expecting a caretaker or just some local person who had a key and could let us in.

No, the person who met us introduced herself and told us she was in fact Robert Johnson’s granddaughter. We were in the presence of blues royalty.

The museum itself was fairly small, but we didn’t care. Claudette told us all sorts of things about his story and what life had been like in the intervening years.

Claudette told us that life was tough in the heart of Mississippi. Most people in the town were unemployed and crack cocaine was a major problem. Many of the youth got into drugs and crime with nothing else to do and no easy way to escape. Her family included. It was a sad state of affairs, and I felt it probably wasn’t that much different when Johnson himself was a struggling musician. We have all sorts of new toys and modes of transport, but for a lot of people in the south, life isn’t much better.

She shared stories with us of Johnson’s life, signed a shirt for me and I was excited to buy a numbered limited edition copy 76 of 100 of the book Finding Robert Johnson, signed by the author and none other than Robert Johnson’s son.

The book includes a lot of information about the ‘dirty chords’ he played, which gave him his distinctive sound. The book is a real treasure and I consider myself very lucky to have had that experience.

It started off looking a bit bleak as a chapter in our journey and ended up being an unforgettable experience. Crystal Springs may not be high on people’s lists of places to visit in Mississippi, but it ranked right up there for us, with some of the best.