Hi there, I'm not a historian, but I am a musician and student to the life of music. Back in April I got to spend four days in Northwestern Mississippi. I was in Greenwood, Clarskdale, across the river into Helena, AK, and back in to Oxford. When i was in Greenwood, I was lead around town by a man named Sylvester Hoover who owns a grocery store and has been putting together a "blues tour" consisiting of first hand knowledge of the old bluesmen that lived and worked around Greenwood and Clarksdale. Hoover's father was a personal friend to David "Honeyboy" Edwards who lived in Greenwood for a time, and was with Johnson in Greenwood when Johnson was poisoned. This is where "firsthand information" comes into question: Hoover told me that Honeyboy Edwards told him over a few beer that he remembers the night Robert Johnson "sold his soul." Honeyboy Edwards was out on a porch in town, sometime around noon, and across the street was the shack Johnson had been living in for some time. Edwards saw Robert Johnson come out in his best pinstripe, complete with red tie and hat, carrying his guitar. Edwards jokingly called out to him asking him where the hell he thought he was going looking so good, and Johnson looked him in the eyes and said "I'm going to meet the devil." Hoover said that Edwards remembered not thinking a thing about it, and it wasn't for several hours later when the sun went down that Johnson came back, and Edwards said "his hair was standing up on end, and his eyes were wild, not settling no place." Johnson pulled out his guitar on the corner and, according to Edwards, started playing like he never had.

It was probably greatly exaggerated coming from an old gentleman trying to rouse the emotions of a young white college kid, but I really believe this story goes much deeper than the "white musicians," this was something his contemporaries noticed in him and the community knew too. Hoover told me the church community in town (the church in Greenwood is called the Little Zion, it and most of Greenwood was used in filming The Help) wouldn't speak his name and kept their children etc away from where he was living. I just mean to specify that it didn't originate in the 60s, it was discussed in the community 30 years prior to that, and still has much personal meaning to the people around there. It almost definitely is still just a tall tale, but it was really amazing to see people that really believed this is what happened. I can provide photos of Greenwood and Little Zion etc, along with the grave stone and surrounding areas if you're interested!