Robert Johnson
10x10in
2025
Robert Leroy Johnson was born around May 8, 1911, near Hazlehurst, Mississippi, the son of Julia Major Dodds and Noah Johnson. Raised across plantations and levee camps in the northern Delta, his early life was steeped in the rhythms and hardships of rural Mississippi. He later spent formative years in Robinsonville, under the influence of blues figures like Willie Brown, Charley Patton, and Son House in the heart of the Delta.
Around 1931, Johnson returned near Hazlehurst and took guitar lessons from Isaiah “Ike” Zimmerman, practicing late into the night at cemeteries south of town—a time that honed the extraordinary style that would define his music. After this period, he reappeared in Robinsonville with a remarkable mastery of slide guitar and a set of haunting Delta-style songs—so polished that contemporaries joked he must have sold his soul at the crossroads near Clarksdale
Johnson died on August 16, 1938, in Greenwood, Mississippi—believed poisoned after a juke joint performance—and was buried in an unmarked grave near Mt. Zion or Payne Chapel. His birthplace in Hazlehurst is now a designated stop on the Mississippi Blues Trail, marked by state historical signs . Despite his brief life, the deeply Mississippi-rooted themes, landscapes, and legends in his music live on, forever linking him to the heart of Delta blues.