ReMastered: Netflix's music series tells the story of Robert Johnson

In the Coen Brothers’ 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou, Chris Thomas King plays Tommy Johnson, a young blues guitarist modeled on the real-life musician Robert Johnson. Though he plays his acoustic guitar and sings a lot like the legendary Delta blues artist, there is not very much else that approximates Robert Johnson. Tommy is a happily-go-lucky character who comes to a rather pleasant ending at the fictional movie’s close.

The real Robert Johnson did not lead a particularly happy life and was dead by 27, the victim of some poisoned whiskey.

Now, I say Johnson was not especially happy, but if I’m being honest, I have to admit that I don’t really know. The fact is, very little is actually known about Robert Johnson.  He was born in 1911 and died in 1938, He spent most of his life in Mississippi. Beyond that, we have 29 recorded songs that helped invent modern rock & roll and stories. Lots of stories. And one particularly legendary myth.

ReMastered delivers a must-see episode of Robert Johnson on Netflix

The Netflix series ReMastered tackled Johnson’s story in the seventh episode of its first and only season. That investigative music series told eight remarkable tales. Its subjects ranged from Sam Cooke to Johnny Cash, from Jam Master Jay to Solomon Linda, the original writer of the Tokens’ hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

The Robert Johnson episode – subtitled “Devil at the Crossroads” – is typical of the entire series. It tells its tale quickly and clearly, with plenty of music and historical, cultural, and musical perspectives provided by scholars, musicians, and contemporaries.

Director Brian Oakes (who also helmed the Jam Master Jay episode) had a difficult challenge. There are two known photographs of Robert Johnson. There is no archival footage of him performing. We do have his songs, but there are only 29 of them. By 2019, the man had been dead for more than 80 years. There were not a lot of first-hand accounts of the life of Robert Johnson on which Oakes could draw.

Nevertheless, he does a remarkable job. In a brisk 48 minutes, he draws on the opinions of scholars and musicians to discuss his life and influence. After a teaser montage that proclaims Johnson as the template for what became rock & roll, Oakes lets the historians set the stage. Bruce Conforth, original curator of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, provides what little historical information we know for sure.

Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, at a time when the only real job opportunity for a black man was working as a sharecropper. On weekends, informal gatherings provided the only entertainment. Those who were musically inclined would play and sing. Johnson saw that as his alternative to the back-breaking work in the fields.

Blues legend Taj Mahal explains that Johnson could play and sing, but he was nothing special on the guitar. When Johnson met Son House at the age of 19, he found a potential mentor. But the older singer found Johnson kind of annoying and was not particularly welcoming. So Robert Johnson disappeared for a while. When he returned, one of the most enduring legends in modern music was born.

Suddenly, Robert Johnson could play guitar better than anyone else. He was faster. His music was more intricate. Paired with his eerie high tenor, he performed the blues like no one else. Surely he couldn’t have learned so much in the year or so he had been away. He must have struck a deal with the devil. For better or worse, that story stuck. Robert Johnson had met the devil at the crossroads and sold his soul so that he could play the guitar.

The middle section of the movie traces Johnson’s short career as a traveling musician. He built up enough of a regional following to record those 29 songs for the American Record Company. But his personal life was rough. His grandson Steven tells a lot of that personal story. How his first wife died in childbirth. How the parents of the next woman he wanted to marry forbade it because he was playing “devil’s music.” How he was prevented from having any contact with his son.

Johnson drank a lot and kept company with a lot of women. No one is entirely sure who put the poison in the whiskey that killed him but most agree it was tied to his womanizing.

The archivist John Hammond explains the awful timing of Johnson’s death. Hammond had heard one of those original 29 songs in a collection and wanted to bring Johnson to Carnegie Hall for a concert centered on spirituals in 1938. He sent someone to Mississippi to bring the singer up to New York. That is when he learned that Johnson had died six months earlier.

Hammond put a Victrola on the Carnegie Hall stage and played Johnson’s “Preaching Blues.” The crowd was astounded by what they heard.

Since Johnson was not alive to capitalize on the NY show, it would take another couple of decades for young music fans – many in the UK – to rediscover his original 78s. In Oakes’ film, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton are the two biggest names to profess their awe at the way Robert Johnson played and sang. There are plenty of others who were profoundly influenced.

At other points in the story, Oakes has scholars discuss the role of racism in the South, the role of the church in Southern culture, and the hoodoo traditions that informed much of Johnson’s music. And he leaves the final word to Johnson’s grandson.

Robert Johnson was the original member of the 27 club – the extraordinary set of musicians who died at the age of 27. His grandson admits he has no idea whether his grandfather sold his soul to the devil, but he does believe that, like all men, he did come to a crossroads and had to choose how much he was willing to sacrifice for his art.

His death left so many “what could have been” and so many unanswerable questions. And some really remarkable music

The ReMastered series, including the Robert Johnson episode, is available for streaming exclusively on Netflix.

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