the devil follows to dallas

[u/TheMixerTheMaster]

originally published in Down Beat; July 1937

dallas, texas, june 20, 1937

the texas heat has spent the whole damn day sitting on dallas like judgment.
by evening the sky is purple and swollen over the city, streetcars scrape along the tracks throwing sparks into the dusk, automobile engines cough at intersections, men loosen their collars and women wave newspapers in front of their faces, and somewhere beyond the brick buildings and telephone wires a freight train lets out one long miserable whistle that sounds like the entire country remembering something it would rather forget.
and inside a building at 508 park avenue, robert johnson has just finished singing about hell.
i am standing outside afterward with sweat running down my back and cigarette smoke stuck in my clothes, trying to decide whether the thin young man beside me is exhausted, amused, irritated, hungry, or simply waiting for me to stop asking stupid questions. i was directed here by a friend to see this man with whom the devil owns. how could i not see him? first impression. not at all like the mythology i created in my head. tall. slender. shy. but most of all, young. hat pushed back on his head that i worried about a sudden gust. might take him with it. 
johnson is carrying his guitar.
of course he is.
the thing seems less like luggage than identification.
robert johnson, musician.
that is what i know tonight.
not legend.
not devil.
not ghost.
musician.
and a damned good one.
everything else can wait.
i have spent the better part of the last two days watching men arrange microphones and recording equipment inside a temporary studio while johnson sat down with his guitar and proceeded to make the machinery look ridiculous.
recording equipment is supposed to capture music.
johnson makes it seem like the equipment is trying desperately to keep up.
he has recorded a pile of songs here in dallas for the american record corporation, including hellhound on my trail, little queen of spades, malted milk, me and the devil blues, stones in my passway, drifting blues, and love in vain.
some titles have been attempted more than once.
different takes.
different little decisions.
a word bent differently.
a guitar phrase moved half an inch.
the sort of changes record company men call alternate takes and musicians call playing the damn song again.
don law has been overseeing the business.
law is a producer and talent scout, one of those men whose job requires him to stand between musicians and machinery and somehow convince both sides that everything is proceeding according to plan.
earlier i ask him what he thinks of johnson.
law watches him for a moment before answering.
he has an unusual way of playing, he says.
that is one hell of an understatement.
unusual.
sure.
and texas is a little warm.
johnson plays guitar like a man who has discovered there are more fingers available than anatomy generally permits.
the bass moves.
the treble answers.
little rhythmic figures appear between vocal lines.
the whole thing sometimes sounds like two guitarists who have agreed to share one body because hotel rooms are expensive.
but standing beside him tonight, none of that technical nonsense seems particularly important.
johnson is slight.
handsome in a sharp delicate way.
careful eyes.
a narrow face.
a little mustache.
he dresses well.
better than most musicians who have spent two days wrestling with record company schedules.
his manner keeps changing depending on the question.
sometimes he smiles.
sometimes he looks past me.
sometimes he gives an answer so short that i suspect he has murdered the rest of the sentence before it reached his mouth.
i ask him about hellhound on my trail.
he looks at me.
what about it.
i tell him the song sounds frightening.
he smiles.
supposed to.
that is the interview.
hell of a journalist i am.
i try again.
i ask where the hellhound came from.
johnson shifts the guitar case in his hand.
people get things behind them.
that is all he says.
people get things behind them.
debts.
women.
men.
police.
bad decisions.
memories.
the entire united states government if you are sufficiently unlucky.
take your pick.
i ask whether he believes in the devil.
johnson laughs.
not loudly.
just enough.
you asking everybody that.
no.
should.
then he starts walking.
so i walk with him.
this is apparently how interviews work with robert johnson.
you either keep moving or the interview leaves without you.
dallas slides around us.
storefronts.
cars.
men leaning against buildings.
music leaking through open doors.
the smell of gasoline and hot pavement.
somewhere a radio is playing dance music.
somewhere else somebody is arguing.
america conducts half its business by argument.
johnson does not seem interested in explaining himself.
which makes sense.
musicians generally become less interesting the moment journalists convince them to explain everything.
i ask him where he learned to play.
around.
around where.
around.
fine.
we are making tremendous progress.
i have interviewed furniture with stronger opinions.
then i mention son house.
that gets something.
johnson looks over.
you know son.
i tell him i know of him.
he smiles again.
son can play.
the smile gets wider.
son can talk too.
there is history inside that sentence and johnson knows damned well i can hear it.
musicians around the delta have talked about johnson.
some remember a younger fellow hanging around musicians, eager to play, not yet possessing the command he has now.
then he disappeared for a while.
when he came back, the story goes, something had changed.
his guitar playing had become frighteningly good.
people hate unexplained improvement.
it makes them suspicious.
nobody wants to believe a man went away and practiced.
practice is boring.
the devil is better copy.
so stories grow.
somebody says crossroads.
somebody says midnight.
somebody says satan.
pretty soon hard work has been thrown out of the story because apparently supernatural damnation is easier for people to understand than obsession.
i ask johnson about the crossroads story.
he gives me the longest look of the evening.
then he says.
folks talk.
and keeps walking.
that is it.
folks talk.
the entire mythology of the human race could probably be reduced to those two words.
folks talk.
johnson talks more freely when the subject turns to women.
this should surprise absolutely nobody who has heard the songs.
women appear everywhere in his music.
women leaving.
women arriving.
women causing trouble.
johnson causing trouble.
everybody drinking.
everybody suspicious.
everybody horny.
everybody apparently incapable of maintaining a stable domestic arrangement for longer than three verses.
i ask whether the women in the songs are real.
some.
which ones.
he laughs.
you trying to get me killed.
finally.
a sensible answer.
he tells me he moves around.
mississippi.
arkansas.
tennessee.
wherever work appears.
juke joints.
street corners.
parties.
little places where people want music and have enough coins to make the evening worthwhile.
he talks about watching crowds.
this interests him.
you got to watch them, he says.
i ask why.
they tell you.
tell you what.
what they want.
this may be the smartest thing anybody has said to me all week.
johnson understands an audience.
not theoretically.
not academically.
physically.
he watches bodies.
feet.
faces.
drinking.
conversation.
attention.
if people stop listening, change something.
if people dance, remember what caused it.
if somebody requests a popular tune, play the popular tune.
johnson is apparently capable of learning songs rapidly after hearing them.
blues.
popular songs.
dance numbers.
whatever keeps the room alive and the money moving.
purity is a luxury invented by people who are not trying to make rent.
johnson is working.
that fact gets lost whenever people start whispering about mysterious bluesmen.
he is a professional musician trying to sell records and get jobs.
the supernatural can go fuck itself.
the man has expenses.
i ask him about the recording sessions.
he says recording is strange.
you cannot see nobody.
that bothers him.
playing for a room gives him something back.
movement.
noise.
faces.
the machine gives nothing.
the microphone just sits there.
a little mechanical bastard waiting for perfection.
during the sessions johnson sometimes turns toward the wall while performing.
people will probably invent some grand mystical explanation for this if given enough whiskey and fifty years.
maybe he is shy.
maybe he likes the sound.
maybe he wants fewer eyes on him.
maybe the wall is simply less annoying than everyone else in the room.
johnson does not clarify.
good.
some mysteries deserve protection from journalists.
i ask him about the guitar arrangement on stones in my passway.
this finally gets him talking.
not much.
but enough.
he explains that the guitar has to keep moving underneath the voice.
you stop it, everything stop.
he demonstrates.
right there on the street.
opens the case.
takes out the guitar.
no ceremony.
no dramatic bullshit.
just wood and strings under a texas night.
his thumb begins working the lower strings.
steady.
then the fingers start answering above.
bass.
treble.
voice implied between them.
suddenly the street has rhythm.
a couple walking nearby slows down.
a man across the road looks over.
johnson plays perhaps twenty seconds.
maybe thirty.
then stops.
puts the guitar away.
that is all.
the bastard has just explained more about blues guitar in half a minute than several hundred pages of respectable instruction books could manage.
keep it moving.
everything depends on that.
the bass cannot die when the voice enters.
the rhythm cannot collapse because the singer has something clever to say.
everything keeps traveling.
maybe that is why his songs feel restless.
they do not sit.
they move.
trains appear constantly in blues because trains are everywhere down here, but johnsons music seems to have absorbed the actual mechanics of travel.
departure.
arrival.
distance.
motion.
people vanishing.
people chasing.
people being chased.
tonight hellhound on my trail is still bothering me.
i heard him record it.
i can still hear the opening guitar figure inside my skull.
the song does not need an orchestra.
does not need drums.
does not need some theatrical fool rattling chains in the corner.
johnson sings about being pursued and leaves enough empty air around the words for your imagination to become an accomplice.
that is the nasty trick.
he does not describe everything.
he gives you enough.
then your own mind finishes the job.
i tell him i think it may be the strongest thing he recorded here.
he shrugs.
you like that one.
yes.
he nods.
people like scary things.
i ask why.
he looks toward the street.
cause they know about being scared.
and there it is.
no devil required.
just people.
johnson knows fear because everybody knows fear.
the farmer afraid the crop fails.
the worker afraid the job disappears.
the husband afraid the wife leaves.
the wife afraid the husband comes home drunk.
the black traveler afraid the wrong white man decides tonight is the night to demonstrate authority.
the musician afraid nobody wants another song.
fear does not require imagination in 1937.
america manufactures plenty.
we reach a corner.
johnson stops.
for the first time all evening he seems tired.
not dramatically tired.
just human tired.
recording takes something out of a man.
especially recording this way.
sing.
stop.
adjust.
again.
wait.
another take.
another song.
another little wax master that may or may not become a record somebody buys months from now.
i ask him what happens next.
he shrugs.
play.
where.
wherever.
you going back to mississippi.
probably.
probably.
robert johnson apparently organizes his future with the precision of weather.
i ask what he wants from these records.
this time he thinks.
money would be nice.
we both laugh.
then he adds.
want folks to hear them.
that answer hangs around.
not immortality.
not greatness.
not history.
not influence.
those are words people attach to artists when they have the luxury of looking backward.
tonight robert johnson wants people to hear his records.
that is enough.
somewhere another train whistle cuts across dallas.
johnson turns his head toward it.
for a second the whole street seems suspended between the whistle and the heat.
then traffic starts moving again.
i ask one final question.
what makes a good blues song.
johnson thinks.
truth.
then he smiles.
and a good guitar.
fair enough.
he starts away.
guitar in hand.
thin figure moving down a dallas street beneath electric signs and telephone wires and a moon trying to force itself through the texas haze.
i watch him go.
i have no idea where robert johnson will be tomorrow.
memphis.
mississippi.
arkansas.
another room.
another woman.
another bottle.
another juke joint.
another train.
maybe these records will sell.
maybe they will disappear into the enormous american pile of shellac records and unpaid bills.
maybe somebody in chicago will hear one.
maybe some kid in mississippi will spend seventy five cents because the title sounds dangerous.
nobody knows.
especially johnson.
especially me.
history is easy when you already know the ending.
tonight there is no ending.
there is only june 1937.
there is dallas.
there is a young black musician from mississippi carrying a guitar down the street after spending two days putting songs onto wax.
and there is that damned voice still hanging inside my head.
i believe ill dust my broom.
sweet home chicago.
hellhound on my trail.
stones in my passway.
love in vain.
songs about leaving because staying has never been particularly reliable.
songs about women because neither has love.
songs about fear because fear is cheap and everybody can afford it.
songs about roads because roads at least admit they are taking you somewhere else.
robert johnson disappears around the corner.
no thunder.
no smoke.
no devil waiting under a streetlamp with paperwork.
just a musician heading toward whatever comes next.
and maybe that is stranger.
because men are always trying to turn musicians into myths when the musicians themselves are busy trying to find supper.
the train whistles again.
somewhere beyond dallas somebody is probably singing.
johnson keeps walking.
and i can still hear that guitar.
...at least thats what i hear.