Chapter Ⅲ: Biographies of Legendary Southern Country Bluesmen and Interpretations of their Lyrics

 

Biography of Robert Johnson

 

Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi on May 8, 1911, to Julia Dodds and Noah Johnson.

 

His mother Julia was a daughter of slaves.

 

Noah was the man with whom Julia had an affair.

 

In 1912, Julia left Hazlehurst with her baby Robert and sent him to live in Memphis with her husband, Charles Spencer.

 

In 1918, Charles was unable to control Robert and sent him to Julia. Robert Johnson, at that time Robert Spencer, rejoined his mother in Robinsonville, Mississippi, where consists mainly of cotton fields.

 

In the city, Johnson was brought up by Julia and her new husband Dusty Willis.

 

In the middle of the 1920’s, Johnson received an elementary school education at the Indian Creek School in Tunica, Mississippi.

 

He was not a diligent student. 

What was even worse, he had problems with his eyesight.

 

That eventually afforded him an excuse to leave school.

 

A school friend, Willie Coffee, recalls that Johnson at that time already played harmonica and Jews’ harp.

 

Until he was a young man, he traded verses of songs with his pal R.L. Windum and played harps with him.

 

In the late 1920’s, he made a harmonica rack and was noted for playing the guitar with his song and harmonica.

 

In 1928, Leroy Carr released How Long, How Long Blues, and it became one of Robert’s favorite songs.

 

Around that time, Johnson learned the blues in Robinsonville from Charlie Patton and his friend Willie Brown, who was a noted blues musician and musical partner of Son House.

 

Charlie Patton often visited and did live performances in juke joints in the town.

 

He sometimes performed with Brown and Johnson and received impulses from their performances.

In February 1929, he married sixteen years old Virginia Travis and started their life together on the Klein Plantation just east of Robinsonville.

 

A few months later, Virginia became pregnant.

 

However, she and the baby died shortly after childbirth in March 1930.

 

Less than two months later, Son House, who had toured Wisconsin with Charley Patton and Willie Brown, came to live in Robinsonville.

 

Johnson was mesmerized by House’s blues.

 

Later, he followed House and Brown wherever they went.

To Be Continued