By Pastor Don Elmore 

Back in the 1930’s, a lot of highways were still made of dry, dirty mud roads.    This was especially true in the state of Mississippi.  At the intersection of US Route 49 and US Route 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Robert Johnson made his pact with the devil.  It happened shortly after midnight.

Robert Johnson, who was born to an father that he barely knew, was a lazy black boy.  Hedidn’t want to do much work—he just wanted to make a living playing and singing the music of his race.It is kind of difficult to understand what it was like then while living in today’s world—for today’s world is so drastically different.  It is not just the improved technology—but just about everything else too.Mississippi is very close to New Orleans, Louisiana.New Orleans had their own company of Voodoo worshippers who emigrated here from Africa and the islands of the Gulf of Mexico.   

The ancient Greeks taught that music was the means to change the laws and behavior of a people.  If you could change the music, then the laws of the land had to change along with the music.  Did America change its morals?Did America change its laws?Did America change its music?                 

Robert Johnson is considered by most historians as the “Father of Rock and Roll”—the music that America changed to.I was born four years after Robert Johnson died—he died at the age of 27.He died in the year 1938. It was soon that this music began to sweep across our country—it was the music of the teenagers and teenyboppers.Have you ever wonder where this music originated from?What did the people who played this music believe?Who were the musicians and singers of this new kind of music?

This lesson goes back to the “Father” of the music that now can be heard almost every place that one goes:at ballgames, in stores, in homes, in cars, its beat is constantly beating.Robert Johnson was a man who married young and widowed young.His wife died giving birth to his son.She had not reached the age of twenty.

Robert Johnson was a nobody.He often listened to his guitar playing heroes play their instruments at the local bar, and then asked them to let him play at their intermissions.His playing was so AWFUL that the people would beg the original players to stop their intermission or would they please tell Robert to stop playing and singing!It was driving them crazy!

Robert left for about eight months.He traveled up north in Mississippi.When he returned he carried on like he always did—at intermission he began playing and singing—but this time it was different.Nobody could believe the difference.Not the original players and not the audience.A complete change had happened in the playing skills of Robert Johnson.

Robert was now one, if not the best, guitar playing individuals in the world.People loved to hear him play.He went to San Antonio, Texas and made some records.They were bought up by thousands of his fans.

What happened?How did Robert change almost overnight to the greatest player of the guitar of all time?He didn’t have to even practice.He was like a computer who just played the music.

Robert sang about what happened to him that changed him from one of the worse to the best guitar players of all time.He had made a pact with the devil.It was at the intersection of US 49 and US 61 at Clarksdale, Mississippi, a little after midnight.He sold his soul for the ability to play the guitar better than anyone else and to be able to achieve fame for his performances.  

It was after Robert Johnson’s pact with the devil that hebecame known as the King of the Delta Blues singers.  B. B. King said, “As a musician, Robert Johnson had it all.”   Eric Clapton said, “I believe that Robert Johnson was the greatest guitar player who ever lived.”Keith Richards said:“You think that you got the blues all figured out, then you hear Robert Johnson play—oh, my, you then know that you’ve got a lot to learn.”

Son House, Johnson’s mentor, said of him before his transformation:“He’d sit at our feet and play at the breakand such another racket you never heard.”San House said that he made the audience mad at his racket.But after Robert’s trip in which he was gone for eight months, he returned and played and they (the audience and his mentors) couldn’t believe it:“He sold his soul to the devil to play like that.”

So, one person allegedly sold his soul to the devil to become the greatest guitar player in the world—so what!   Well, the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said that “Robert Johnson’s songs are the bedrock upon which modern blues and rock and roll were built.Robert Johnson is the Father of Rock and Roll.”

Many who knew him testified that Robert never had to practice.He never had to learn a new song.All he had to do was play—for the songs were channeled to him from another power.

Led Zeppelin, who bought Aleister Crowley old home, was a follower of the occult.He also played many of Robert Johnson’s songs.Eric Clapton and many, many other rockers did too. But Robert Johnson’s religion was a form of Voodoo. It had a certain beat.The beat that the blacks had played for centuries to get them ready to attack, to heal their blues or to have sex.   

What a minute….Rock and Roll goes back to Robert Johnson.Most of the rock singers of today and yesterday were occultists, voodoo believers, and Satanists?The first person who is created with starting rock and roll was a person who sold his soul to the devil….?

The songs of this particular kind of music is powerful.As some of the performers of rock and roll have stated:“This music has a lot better tunes that any other music.”And I believe that it does—but is candy the best thing to eat?Is soda pop the best thing to drink?

We are living in a world of deceit. Rock and Rollers said that they were going to steal our children...and they now have a generation of them. Rock concerts are their church.

Shouldn’t we not listen to this music of the devil?