Documentary Corner: Devil at the Crossroads

A review by Brooks

This is an easy documentary to track down and watch. It's currently available on Netflix and is only about forty-five minutes long. It is also one of the most compelling and eerie documentaries ever made. Not only a music documentary about the history of blues, especially deep fried southern blues, it is also a study of an American folklore tale that many people might not know about.

The documentary tells the story of Robert Johnson, who is considered by many to be not only the greatest blues musician of all time, but quite possibly the greatest guitar player of all time. Johnson was active in the early '30s and was known as kind of a hack guitar player. Local blues players would tell Johnson to get away from guitars before he broke a spring. So Johnson disappears for a year and a half. No one sees him. One day he shows back up at a blues joint with a guitar and asks to play. He blows the crowd away, doing things with the guitar no one had ever seen before. He had become a God with the instrument and the legend was born. Robert Johnson went to a crossroads and sold his soul to the Devil to become the greatest guitar player on Earth.

Johnson's story is a tragedy born in the American South and the film beautifully tells this story. The main focus is of course the rise and fall of Robert Johnson. His story is dark, tragic, and eerie all at the same time. There's this strangeness over the whole film. It's a study of the connection between blues music and folklore. It's also a brief history on the evolution of blues, jazz, and rock, all linked to the only known recordings of Robert Johnson.

I don't want to say anymore because of how short the documentary is. Check this film out as soon as possible. This is a fascinating story about a classic music genre that also perfectly works as a southern campfire tale. Good stuff.

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