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This episode is brought to you by Disgraceland All Access and the listeners who support this show through Patreon and Apple Podcasts. You can become a supporting member of Disgraceland and receive ad, free and exclusive content by signing up today for just $5 a month before prices go up at the end of October. To become an all Access member, go to Disgracelandpod.com I was recently researching a subject for one of our podcast episodes whose home was broken into and the algorithm started to then send me all these horrifying clips of home break ins and I got pulled into the wormhole and naturally started questioning my own home security system at the time. And what I found out was that my system wasn't very preventative. And that's because most home security systems aren't very preventative. They're actually designed to only react and take action once someone has already broken in. And that ain't good. SimpliSafe on the other hand, my new security system stops crime before it even starts by confronting potential threats the moment they appear. These break in videos online are horrifying and they're happening in neighborhoods all over. You need your home security to be dependable, and my question is, can a home security system really call itself security if it only responds once the intruder is already in your home? SimpliSafe is the way to stop someone from actually entering your home. Their AI powered cameras detect threats while they're outside before they intrude and they alert real security agents who take action while the intruder again is outside, not in your house. I'm now using Simplisafe and I'm telling you that you guys should too. It's super easy to set up. They sent me all the components in one box. I was able to hook it up by myself. Made my wife happy, and now my home is protected and I've got rapid response. I've got a security system I can depend on in a great, easy, intuitive app that helps me monitor my home no matter where I'm at right now. My listeners can save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system at simplisafe.com Disgracepod that's simplisafe.com DisgracePod there's no safe like SimpliSafe. All right, guys, if you haven't heard me talk about groons before, you're about to right now. There's a reason I'm talking about groons. You know I love groons. They're a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a snack pack of gummies to get you through your Day. Guys, this is not a multivitamin, a greens gummy or a prebiotic. It's all of these things. And it's all these things at a fraction of the price. And it tastes great. And also, I'm not standing over my counter with green powder flying all over the place in my kitchen trying to make a drinker. You know what I'm saying? Gruns is a totally different thing. Daily snack pack of gummies. Because you can't fit the amount of nutrients Gruns fits into just one gummy. Plus, I'm telling you, I'm watching what I'm eating these days and I look forward to eating Gruns. They taste great. It's a treat with 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, which is three times the amount of dietary fiber compared to the leading greens powders. For context, that's more than two cups of broccoli. And it tastes better than broccoli. There's the Groonie Smith apple flavor. Okay, that's my new go to. That's the Gruins fall flavor. I'm here for it. It's only available through October. It's got the same full body benefits that you know and love from Groons, but this time tastes like you're walking through an apple orchard in a cable knit sweater. Getting those New England vibes, all that warm apple cider, you know, those apple cider donuts. Maybe you're buying a little corn on the cob for later that day. You know what I'm talking about. Grunds ingredients are backed by over 35,000 research publications. I love Groons. They taste great, they are super convenient, and they are chalk filled with healthy benefits. Grab your limited edition Groony Smith apple Groons, available only through October. Stock up because they will sell out. Get up to 52% off. Use the code. Disgraceland. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Hey, everybody. This is a special episode of Disgraceland because I was able to cast one of my favorite singers in soul music today, Lee Fields. Lee Fields is an incredible vocalist, great artist. You should check him out wherever you stream your music, Amazon music, or wherever you listen. Lee Fields plays the part of Sun House's head in this episode. He did an amazing job. I just want to give a special thanks to Lee. And again, if you don't know his music, go check it out. You won't be disappointed. All right. Mello Charm. The stories about Robert Johnson are insane. He drank and womanized his way through his gigs from the south in the 1930s all the way up to New York and Chicago. He cursed the name of God to any friend who would listen, often to the detriment of those friendships. At the age of 17, he married a 14 year old, both lying about their ages on their marriage license. A relationship that would end in tragedy and forever cast a dark shadow on his spirituality. He worked out his original blues sound by practicing guitar in the cemetery at night. And when that didn't yield the results he was looking for, he went further out of town to the crossroads where legend has it that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the lightning blues guitar talent that came to define the Delta blues genre for all time. And despite only living for 27 years on this earth, with only the last two of those years after his supposed deal with the devil, Robert Johnson made great music. Some of the most unique and most influential music on this planet. Music that no one has ever been able to imitate. Music that Robert Johnson laid down in just two recording sessions. Again, great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for my melotron called Thighbone Xylophone MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Music Maestro, Please by Tommy Dorsey. And why would I play you that specific slice of Toilet plunger Trumpet cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on August 1, 1938. And that was the day that Robert Johnson stepped off the train for the last time in a Mississippi town to perform a string of gigs that would end in his murder. On this episode, Cemetery Blues deals with the devil, cursing God, plunger Trumpet cheese and Robert Johnson. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. The train left the station. The bluesman stood on the platform, pinstripe suit, guitar case in his hand. He pushed the brim of his hat up and away from his brow. He surveyed the town before him. Greenwood, Mississippi. A town he knew well. A town he would make famous, or infamous, rather. The town looked back at him and word began to spread immediately. Here comes that guitar man. I'll look out. He's back. Lock up your daughters, the man is back in town. Best get your wives in line. It's Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson strolled down the middle of the street in Greenwood's Baptist town neighborhood. Doors quietly locked, curtains closed. Men stared silently backing away off of their porches, back into whatever saloon or good time house they were fronting. Women gawked. Fathers cringed. Husbands seethed. Little girls saw their Future. And it was dark. It was Saturday night. Church was tomorrow's business. Tonight was the devil's business. And the devil just walked into town. And in 1938 in the American south, blues music was indeed the work of the devil. God fearing black folk, those who went to church each Sunday, who kept a hymn in their heart on every other day, despised blues music as being the lowdown work of the devil. With its innuendo and rabble rousing jump boogie. Blues music meant one thing, sex. And sex meant some sort of headache or another. Unwanted pregnancies, jealous lovers, burned lovers, violence. Blues music was nothing more than trouble in 12 bars. Blues music was not to be listened to. Blues musicians were not to be messed with, doors locked, windows shut, shotguns cocked, except on Saturday nights. On Saturdays, for some anyway, exceptions were made out on the outskirts of town, not quite as far as the crossroads, but just past the cemetery. Robert Johnson, the blues musician, along with some of those greenwood residents from the black section of town, from Baptist town, would get after it in the devil's workshop, that is, inside whatever juke joint was set to jump that evening. Jukes were rough. At the juke joints in town, the doormen would collect the patron's knives and guns at the door and return them at the end of the night. But such a practice didn't exist out of town. In the country jukes, which were generally lawless, weapons were not only allowed, weapons were necessary for survival. Musicians, the entertainment would usually perform as duos, positioning themselves on stage, on chairs with the their backs to each other so that each could keep an eye out for the other one and prevent any sort of drunken, violent ambush from disgruntled patrons. But Robert Johnson performed solo. He was the only accompaniment he needed. It suited him. It was worth the risk. More spoils, more money and more women. The juke opened at 5pm it was 25 cents to get in. Guests were encouraged to stay all night and the host kept the corn liquor flowing. Robert played most of the evening, straight through the brawling and the balling, and left with whichever woman he wanted before sun was up, using the homes of these women to briefly settle into before rambling on via rail to his next stop. It was a loose, wayward and dangerous way of life. But that's what life had been for Robert Johnson as far back as he could remember. And before that, the stories he heard from his family about life in the south before he was born. Life was rougher, rowdier and even deadlier. The hounds were hot on his trail, barking mad salivating he could hear them gaining. If he were caught, it would be the rope. He knew this. But that entitled motherfucker had it coming. It wasn't much, just a couple of words at first, but it was enough. Enough to make a white man pull his knife. He then pulled his straight razor and the white man got the better of him, a gash across his jaw, but it wasn't enough to cut him down. He took off out of town, out toward the plantation. And now this. Hellhounds on his trail through the BlackBerry patch, its brambles and briars cutting at his skin, the blood breadcrumbs for the vicious hounds. But he knew these parts, knew them better than the dogs, and he knew the more than their racist owners, the white men on the horses that followed them. He burrowed down in the brier and waited them out. In the morning he escaped by train. He had to leave his wife behind, and after a few years she took up with another man. On May 8, 1911, she gave birth to a boy, Robert Johnson, born only because his mother's first husband was run out of town and she was forced to remarry, a man who would eventually become a father to him. A circumstance that never would have come to be had it not been for the threat of violence, the threat of evil. Robert Johnson from the Jump Born Under a Bad side At Designer Shoe Warehouse we believe that shoes are an important part of, well, everything. From first steps to first dates. From all nighters to all time personal best. From building pillow forts to building a life for all the big and small moments that make up your whole world. DSW is there and we've got just the shoes. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love at brag worthy prices at your DSW store or dsw.com hey everyone, I'm Josh Radner and I am so excited to tell you about how we made your Mother a rewatch podcast. Looking back at How I Met yout Mother and I'm here with Craig Thomas who co created the show along with Carter Bayes. Hi Craig. Hey Josh. Somehow it has been 20 years since the show premiered. I'm gonna check the math on that. Ten years since it went off the air and we thought that made this a perfect time to look back, see what the hell we did and why the show still seems to resonate with fans around the world today. Follow and listen to How We Made youe Mother wherever you get your podcasts. The holidays have arrived at the Home Depot and we're here to help bring the excitement or with decor for every part of your home. Check out our wide assortment of easy to assemble pre lit trees so you can spend less time setting up and more time celebrating. And bring your holiday spirit outdoors with unique decor like one of our Santa inflatables. Whatever your style, find the right pieces at the right prices this holiday season at the Home Depot. Young Robert Johnson didn't know what he was looking for, but he'd know it when he saw it. Some sort of hoodoo supplies. And there were plenty on the shelves of a Schwab's dry goods, Mojo bags, hot foot powder, goofer dust. He didn't want anything that would kill his stepfather. He only wanted to knock him down a bit, give him some sort of sickness causing some pain as retaliation for the plantation beatings he doled out to Robert for no good reason. Plantation life was hard, but made harder when you were teenaged and had no mind for field work. You knew what you were good at. Manual labor was not it. It was music. It had been music from the beginning, ever since you strung that bailing wire to the side of the shack with a glass bottle for a bridge and started playing the diddly bow. Then when you got your hands on that acoustic guitar and started trying to string together Jimmie Rogers tunes and then mimicking the sounds of those older local blues men, Charley Patton and Sun House, you got yourself some recognition. Girls noticed you and there was money in it too. Not much, but more than plantation work where you sweated it out for your mother and your stepfather and for barely a penny street work, playing your guitar and singing out on Beale Street. It brought in some coin and unlocked a whole new world. Finally you were somebody. You didn't even know who that somebody was, but you were determined to find out, build out and bound to go. Unlike most in his community, Robert Johnson never went to church for the self identifying so called low down blues man. Church was the rails hopping, moving freight trains to travel from one place to another. It was Robert Church Johnson's only mode of transportation. It was necessary for him to travel as a working musician, honing his craft and developing a reputation. Toward the end of booking a recording engagement where a record would be made with his voice and his guitar playing for commercial distribution, an effort that in Robert's mind was the key to fame and unheard of success. Robert would ride the rails nearly all the way into town, hop off at the outskirts and walk the rest of the he trekked down the railroad track and keep an eye out for black children playing whichever side of the track the kids were hanging out on was the side of town Robert wanted to be on. Once he had determined that, he'd head deeper into the segregated community, find the first popular street corner he could plop down his guitar case, take his guitar out and begin playing and singing right there. If he was good, he could make up to a quarter in one Saturday afternoon. And if he was really good, he'd get invited to come play at one of the jukes that night. And if he was great, get to stay in town a spell and keep on playing. At Robert's young age, that didn't happen often. By all accounts, as a teenage blues man, Robert Johnson wasn't that good. But he must have been doing something right in Desoto County, Mississippi back in 1928, because his afternoon spell on the corner turned into a juke show that night out by the cotton plantations near the Mississippi river, up on Highway 61 in the communities of Clack and Penton, the sharecroppers needed entertainment. That Saturday in the Clack grocery store which doubled as a juke joint on weekend nights, 17 year old Robert Johnson would do his country style. Blues wasn't yet earth shattering, but it would work. It was plenty good enough to keep the joint hopping and plenty good enough people capture the eye of a young impressionable sharecropper's daughter who'd somehow managed to find her way into the juke. 14 year old Virginia Travis. Her beauty was beyond compare. Robert was smitten. He laid it on thick, pouring his heart into his playing, exposing his vulnerabilities in public in the way that only musicians can. Through his songs, that internal pain he was grappling with, the torment of his abusive stepfather, the ever present wickedness of the Jim Crow south, the teenage angst of not knowing exactly who you are or why you're here or what you're meant to do, all of that tangled itself up with the longing he now felt for this Heaven Sent Mississippi Queen. And Robert Johnson was able to express it with the dark brand of lowdown blues he had been experimenting with. All of it came out in a a captivating mix of self expression that perfectly featured Robert Johnson's devilish charm. In the end, Virginia Travis didn't stand a chance. She, like her musical suitor, was smitten. Despite the protests of her parents who worried about a blues man darkening their doorway. The 14 year old Virginia Travis and the 17 year old Robert Johnson married two months later, each lying about their ages on their marriage certificate. In no time Virginia was pregnant. Robert was committed. He put down the guitar and picked up the plow. The two set up home in the all black Mississippi Delta community of New Africa. Robert sharecropped. Virginia prepared for the baby. But New Africa was no place for her to give birth. She wanted to be closer to her immediate kin. So she headed back, back to Clack Mississippi. Robert stayed behind to keep working and to keep saving. He joined her shortly before the baby was born. The screams were their own kind of hellfire. The pain was all encompassing. Every inch of Virginia's pregnant body hurt. There was little progress. The baby was stuck and none of what was happening seemed natural. Virginia screamed with the devil's tongue and the midwife covered her ears. Robert Johnson's baby seemed to be holding on for dear life. Not wanting to leave the comfort of the womb to enter this world gone wrong. Hesitant for reasons that'll never be known, to give in to this thing called life. Virginia screamed some more. Her 14 year old body was ill equipped for the pain. She pushed. She screamed again, pushed once more. Screamed an earth shattering death rattle. The baby gave in and finally exited. The midwife held it in her arms. She looked to Virginia, who was now silent and still. The midwife knew it in an instant. She'd seen it before. Virginia Travis was dead. So too was her baby. Robert Johnson was unaware he was using his new wife's absence to let off some steam before taking on the immense responsibility of fatherhood. He put down the plow, picked up his guitar and hit the jukes. But what was to be a one night stand stretched into a two week run. And by the time he turned up on the doorstep of his wife's parents home to embrace Virginia and his new baby, both were in the ground. Her parents were not surprised. The lowdown blues man had delivered upon his reputation. Robert Johnson was devastated. There was no one or no thing that was going to heal this immense heartbreak. Church wasn't an option. His family was dead. The only thing that helped was music. Robert hit the rails again. He turned up in a town called Its that's right, Its Mississippi, just south of Hazlehurst. There he met an older player named Ike Zimmerman. Ike played unlike anyone Robert had ever heard before. And unlike the older players working their way around the Delta, Ike was settled. A family man, a father. And also unlike any other seasoned musician Robert had met. By that point, Ike seemed intent on helping Robert. Ike wasn't competitive. Ike was generous. What his angle was, Robert didn't know. Robert was happy to have a mentor. Ike listened. And Robert had a lot to get off of his chest. He was angry, disillusioned. While Ike riffed on guitar, Robert riffed on life. How church was a scam, how everyone he knew was a hypocrite, whooping it up with him on Saturday night and then cursing the blues man every Sunday morning. Religion was a joke. Why worship a God that didn't respect you? You a God that forced you to live like this? Under the threat of the rope from the white man, under Jim Crow, a God who was spiteful. Robert ran this rap regularly to the point where his friends he'd made started to distance themselves from him. But not Ike. Ike kept Robert close. Robert told Ike flat out he hated God. For as much as he knew he was the devil. Ike paid Robert's anger no service. Nervous, he simply kept playing guitar. Robert knew Ike's tutelage was the key. The key for him to get better. And getting better was key to making a recording engagement. Ike was straight as an arrow in most ways, with the exception of one peculiar habit he practiced out at the graveyard. So that's where Robert Johnson practiced, too. Robert set up on one of the newer gravestones and began to play. The wind picked up on top of the time Robert kept with his foot, his hand stretched effortlessly over the neck of his guitar. His voice spread out in a melodic wail. And the moonlight painted shadows in small pools around Robert's feet. He felt at peace, his inner turmoil momentarily quelled by song, his song. And then a hound in the distance broke Robert concentration. A hellhound giving chase to some unlucky soul. Robert knew where this would end. He'd heard this racist riff played before. It was a distraction at the exact wrong time. Just when he was getting somewhere. He could feel it, feel himself getting better. He needed to pull on that thread, see where it led, see where it would take him, and see what he would become. Robert needed privacy, A place where he could play uninterrupted. Pike told him about a spot. It was way out of town, but quiet. The moon flooded out this peculiar spot with just enough light. And there were no trees. Most important, no passengers, no parents, no God fearing judgment. And no hounds. But what there was plenty of was opportunity. On the right night. On a night like this, under a full moon, there was a bargain to be had. All Robert had to do was head down to that spot and play down to the crossroads. We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart Move Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Limu Emu and Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Fairy Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates Excludes Massachusetts When Robert Johnson returned to rambling after his stint with Ike Zimmerman, his tuteling at the cemetery in his fabled visit to one of the Delta's many outlying crossroads, he was, by all accounts from every musician who knew him and from anyone who'd ever heard him perform in one of the Mississippi or Memphis Jukes before a changed man. Just ask Son House, that is, if he could find him in one piece. His lifeless body was prone on the juke's wide wooden floorboards, his severed head a few feet removed from the body, having rolled over to the side of the room, but still with a clear view of young Robert Johnson on the juke's makeshift stage, making quick, devastating work of the audience. Son House's head blasted a vicious trail of curses, ending with Robert Johnson and his ass. Fair deal. Robert took that guitar with his massive hands and bent it to his will. He rocked. He rolled simultaneously. He played the rhythm and the melody, both parts at the same time, along with the bass part, too. He needed no accompaniment. Sunhouse's head was livid. Ass. Robert used the guitar to fashion the sound of a Delta orchestra in his own two hands. His sound was fuller and more realized than anything Sunhouse or anyone in the room had heard before. To pay dilly for this, Robert connected. He worked his own tunes with immediate effect, creating what seemed to be Instant hits. Come On In My Kitchen, Traveling Riverside Blues and Crossroad Blues. Son House's head thought that last one, rich crossroad Blues, Ain't Nothing Blue about that. Went out as a hay seed and come back as a head. Robert sprinkled in audience favorites and the place went wild. Songs by Blind Willie Mattel, Lonnie Johnson, Even by country singer Jimmy Rogers. Then standards in different styles. Ragtime waltzes, even a polka just to make them all fall out. Sun House's head couldn't believe what it was. Seeing Robert's style, his technique, his execution, all his in one bag. His hands were moved like lightning up and down the neck. Augmented sevenths, 9ths diminish and all with that steady rhythm under everything and stinging melody up on top. Robert Johnson's playing was, in a word, everything. Sunhouse's head had seen enough but was powerless to do anything. It's not like it had legs and could just walk away. Nor could it just roll itself on out of the joint. All it could do was squint its eyes shut and break. Protest and curse the devil as he saw him. Crossroads. Robert Johnson heard nothing, Kept playing himself. Possessed the audience, hypnotized. He had the entire juke in his grasp. The dance floor was full. Men were in awe. Women were enthralled. Everyone drank. Everyone got on their grind. Saturday night felt a little looser. The sweat tasted a little sweeter. Sunday morning seemed a long ways off. And Sun House was Robert Johnson had cut his head off. Having one's head cut off, or more to the point, cutting one's head off was a Delta blues tradition. Quote unquote. Cutting heads was the practice of one perpetrating blues men. Showing up at another blues men's gig, coming on all friendly, talking himself onto the stage to give the other player whose gig it was a much needed rest. And then playing so well that the audience then wanted to hear the perpetrating blues men and only the perpetrating blues men rendering the original bluesman whose gig it was in the first place. Out of a job wherein the head cutter would make the money the original performer was supposed to make. As an experienced bluesman. Son House had done this many times. Cut someone's head as an inexperienced bluesman. Robert Johnson had this done to him many times, had his head cut. But those days were over. Tonight was a proclamation. There was a new player in town. Son House learned the hard way. Sunhouse knew what was up. No one goes out of town one day to fuck off in the country and comes Back the next. As the greatest blues man the Delta has ever seen. Without getting a leg out from Mr. Jake Leg himself, the devil. Son House knew all about the myth of the crossroads, that fabled Delta outpost where blues men would exchange their eternal souls with Satan for earthly fame and pleasures beyond one's imagination. But Son House never believed it. Not until tonight. Not until seeing what Robert Johnson had turned into. A beast. From on stage, Robert Johnson could see Son House looking on in disbelief. Fuck him. Serves him right to suffer. He never believed in Robert. No one did. Not Son. Not any of the other players, his stepdad, Virginia's parents, none of them. And least of all God. God never offered him nothing. God cursed him. Took his family, took his wife, his baby. God. Now it was Robert Johnson's time to take. Robert was going to take what he was owed. On stage, he basked in what was finally his greatness. No longer the meek struggling musician at his young age and with little to no training, certainly no formal training, he had become a killer, vanquishing the blues master himself, Son House. From the stage. It felt good. Robert enjoyed the feeling. Being bad felt good. And now Robert needed to take his bad self nationwide. A recording contract, a record, and then real fame and real success. Robert Johnson woke up in a strange woman's bed and the next day did the same in a different town. He woke up with a different woman a day after that, the same thing. And there were many towns over many days. And many women. And the women had one thing in common, and it was that they had nothing in common. Robert Johnson didn't discriminate. Beautiful, ugly, fat, skinny, young, old, married, single. None of it mattered. Robert worked women the way he worked the rails as a means to an end. In this case, it was shelter from the storm. A place to lay his head while he traveled from Mississippi to Texas for his first recording engagement. Robert Johnson arrived in San Antonio, Texas on November 22, 1936, and promptly got down to business, setting up shop by the Southern Pacific Railroad depot to make a little extra coin playing on the street before hitting the studio. Robert quickly drew a crowd. He lit them up with his brand of country blues. And then Robert's lights went out. A sudden swap to the back of his head in immediate darkness. When Robert opened his eyes, he was in a San Antonio cell, arrested on charges of vagrancy. And judging from the bump on his head and his sore ribs, he must have caught a beating to boot. The vagrancy charge was some square jawed Texas good old boy cop. Didn't like the cut of Robert's devilish jib, and decided to knock him down a peg or two. Robert was released into the custody of a white man named Don Law, who was tasked by Vocalion Records with getting Robert's songs down on record. The two quickly headed to the Gunter hotel, where Law had a makeshift recording studio set up in two rooms on the fourth floor. One room for the musician and the microphone, and the other for the engineers and the recording equipment. And there was a window on the door that separated both rooms where the engineers could look in on and communicate with the musician. Robert sat on a chair alone in the room, waiting for the signal from the engineers to start playing. He got it. And then he did something neither engineer had ever seen before in all of their combined experience. Robert Johnson stood, repositioned his microphone, and turned his chair around so that it faced the wall, so that it faced the exact opposite direction of the engineers. He then sat and began to perform. Robert Johnson was no dummy. He knew that his style was unique. He knew that the world was full of head cutters and thieves. And he wasn't about to let two white engineers he barely knew have a front row lesson on how to play guitar. Like Robert Johnson, his highly effective and unique guitar playing technique would remain a secret. Even if the white men were capturing his music on record. The move had the added but unintended benefit of altering Robert's sound. Facing away from the engineers and directly toward the corner of the hotel room, the sound he generated bounced off of the hotel's two adjoining hotel room walls to create a bigger, more dynamic sound. The results speak for themselves. Robert Johnson's first recordings are some of the most compelling recordings of all time. Kind Hearted Woman Blues, Terraplane Blues, Last Fair Deal, Gone Down. These songs, along with all of Robert Johnson's songs, defy logic. They drive, they groove, they hurt, they inspire. And their construction is nearly impossible to visualize. How is one man making all of that glorious sound at the same time in one sitting, with one instrument? You can't understand it, but at the same time know it's the coolest thing you've ever heard. Robert Johnson's songs deliver you from wherever it is you're stuck. They unlock another place in time to which you believe only you have entry. As a teenager, when I first heard Robert Johnson, I felt like I was being let in on a secret, Something dangerous, Something no one else I knew could possibly understand. His music makes you feel singular. It's that same feeling you get when you're being whisked Backstage at a show. Under the envious eyes of all the other concertgoers, Robert Johnson's songs are a ticket in first class, an invitation to an unknown back room where only the most interesting people hang out and only the most exciting things happen. This feeling of being let in on something special is perhaps what contributed to the success of these songs. Maybe, I don't know. All I do know is that immediately upon their release, Robert Johnson's music made an impact. And in the pre pop star days of the music business, they made Robert Johnson a success. The relative fame suited him. The notoriety hardened him finally into the professional musician he always knew he was destined to become. Any remaining ideas about family or some other sort of more traditional life involving someone else's crops and a plow were D E A D dead by the time Robert Johnson turned 25 years old and released his first recordings in January of 1937. Robert traveled more beyond the south, all the way to Chicago. In New York, his reputation preceded him everywhere he went. He weaponized his music on stage, he killed off stage. He took whatever spoils, usually in the form of women that he could. Robert embraced the image of the bad man, the lowdown blues man. Columbia Records John Hammond II took an interest in Robert and wrote under a pseudonym that he was more authentic. Authentic than famed blues musician and ex convict Lead Billy, who in Hammond's estimation was now nothing more than a poser. Just an Alan Lomax fabrication. Compared to the authenticity of Robert Johnson. Robert could only grin the interest in Robert from Hammond and Columbia, the opportunity that represented was almost a blur. Everything just seemed to be moving so fast. And like the many trains he hopped, 1937 was full steam ahead for Robert Johnson, doubling down on what got him to this point himself. Low down, crude, increasingly drunk and violent, Robert kept up his crusade against God, cursing him out in the company of his friends, with or without the drink. So much so that acquaintances increasingly stopped hanging around with Robert for fear they'd be struck down. And Robert also kept up his pursuit of women on a nightly basis. And more often than not these days with married women. Robert had no respect for the ring, no respect for God's vows. God had given him nothing. Robert Johnson owed God not a single thing. No, Robert Johnson had another debt entirely. For the upstanding citizens of Baptist town in Greenwood, Mississippi, to even hear the blues whistled was enough to make them shut their windows and lock their doors. The sight of the notorious bluesman Robert Johnson strolling down their main street was enough to cause legitimate shock in some Robert Knew what he was looking for. The little girl, Tush Hogg's daughter. Robert tracked her down at the Three Forks Juke, out by the crossing of highways 82 and 49. And when he did, Robert learned that Tush Hogg's baby girl had nothing on the older, more experienced Beatrice, the wife of a Three Forks bartender. The fact that Beatrice was married mattered none to Robert. He quickly turned on the charm, used all his powers to seduce Beatrice. And it worked. Robert set up shop in Greenwood, performing at the Three Forks in the evening and stealing away to shack up with Beatrice during the day. Rumors spread. The bluesman is up to no good. Beatrice is shaming her husband. Robert Johnson got the devil in him. She ain't ever gonna show her face in church again. Ol Robert Johnson is a bad, bad man. It wasn't long before the rumors reached Beatrice's husband, a man who went by the name RD RD Played it cool, like a snake lying in the cut, biding his time, ready to attack at the most opportune moment, when his victim least expected it, when his victim was at his most comfortable. And that's precisely where Robert Johnson was at the moment. On August 13, 1938, on stage, as comfortable a place for the musician as anywhere else on God's green earth, made even more comfortable by the steady flow of drinks Beatrice was bringing him during his set. While Robert performed at the juke and the crowd jumped, RD Slung drinks from behind the bar, including to his wife Beatrice, who steadily served them to her not so secret lover, the blues man on stage, Robert Johnson. Brother Robert nor Beatrice were wise to the vengeful intentions of the man behind the bar. At around 11pm with Robert Johnson lit up in the head and lighted, lighting up the audience and the juke, RD Gave Beatrice another jar of corn liquor to give to Robert, and prior to doing so, RD Dissolved in the liquor numerous mothballs containing the tasteless, colorless and odorless poison naphthalene. Robert drank the poison concoction between sets and immediately felt something go terribly wrong. He slouched in his chair, the room bent. The audience's pleas for him to continue to perform felt deaf on his ears, his stomach contorted with sharp pain. The last thing he remembered was sliding out of his chair and onto the floor of the juke. Robert Johnson woke up in his hotel room and vomited violently, howling like one of those furious hellhounds in pain, coughing up blood, spitting up bits of his torn esophagus, hemorrhaging over and over again until finally giving into the pain and giving into this world completely. Robert Johnson died alone with himself, with the devil. Robert Johnson did not die because of the devil. There was no Faustian bargain that felled the bluesman, as the famous myth goes, that Robert Johnson died at the age of 27 because he made a deal with the devil and that demonic debt had come do. No, Robert Johnson did not make a deal with the devil. Robert Johnson was the devil. Both options are equally ridiculous and both options are equally unprovable. Sure, you could say that there was no way a blues player was evil incarnate Satan himself here on earth, but you can't actually prove that he wasn't either. From a young age, Robert Johnson spurned church, hated religion, cursed God. He lived unscrupulously. Coveted women, regardless of their age or marital status, wrote and sang songs filled with voodoo imagery, with particular homage paid to Satan over and over again. And most famously, Robert Johnson had an unexplainable, otherworldly talent that his mortal contemporaries couldn't come close to replicating. A talent that to this day, nearly 100 years later, is as spellbinding as it was when it first came to be. On the other hand, maybe Robert Johnson wasn't the actual devil, but instead, maybe the devil was just always there with Robert Johnson. There in the stories about his kin. In the briar with his mother's first husband. On the end of a blade, on the end of the hanging rope, on the hot breath of the hellhounds, there in the plantation fields riding hide most on the sharecropper's plow. There in that little girl's smile, on the lips of her judgmental parents. There out in the cemetery wind, under the crossroads moon, out on the rails and in the jukes, on the face of son House's head at the end of a Texas Cops billy club, in the dark corner of a San Antonio hotel room, on the minds of opportunistic record men in his lyrics, between the thighs of a married juke joint bartender's woman. And finally, at the bottom of a poison jar of corn liquor. As far as Robert Johnson's life was concerned, the devil was everywhere. In myth or no myth, the devil's outsized influence most definitely brought upon the immensely talented bluesman's early demise. And that is a disguise. Grace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the Show Notes page@the disgracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member. Thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man. What are your holiday traditions? Putting up a minimum of six trees? Decorating every room with a different theme. Whatever it is, here's one way to make those traditions extra special. Start the season with Etsy. On Etsy, you'll discover original pieces from small shops to help you celebrate your way. Shop Etsy for holiday decor that makes you feel seen. Special starts on Etsy. Tap the banner to shop now. This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios. New Film Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere Starring Golden Globe winner Jeremy Allen White and Academy Award nominee Jeremy Strong. Scott Cooper, the director of the Academy Award winning movie Crazy Heart, brings you the story of the most pivotal chapter in the life of an icon. Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere now playing only in theaters.