Lore - Episode 177: Strings

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

One of the things that has united humans across cultures and languages is music. For as long as we can remember, we have filled our lives with new musical backdrops. And at the center of that world are the people who write and perform it all—as well as the stories about where their powerful gifts come from. ———————— This episode of Lore was sponsored by: Wondrium: Hundreds of topics taught by professors and experts, all in one enormous video library. Start your free month of unlimited access to the entire library! Go now to Wondrium.com/LORE.—and don't miss my newest recommendation: Crimes of the Century: A Selective History of Infamy. SimpliSafe: Secure your home with 24/7 professional monitoring for just $15 a month. No contracts, no salespeople, just simple and easy security. Visit SimpliSafe.com/Lore to save 20% on your SimpliSafe security system and get your first month free when you sign up for Interactive Monitoring service. Squarespace: Build your own powerful, professional website, with free hosting, zero patches or upgrades, and 24/7 award-winning customer support. Start your free trial website today at Squarespace.com/lore, and when you make your first purchase, use offer code LORE to save 10%. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It had been hiding in plain sight for centuries. Looking over the oldest documents we have today, it's easy to get lost in their beautiful simplicity and straightforward purpose. The works of Plato, the Greek philosopher from the 4th century BC, have been pivotal for over 2400 years. And it's no wonder, really, Plato's teacher was a guy named Socrates, and he himself became a teacher later on to a man named Aristotle, legends, all of them. But while we have scraps of writing from the other two men, Plato's complete works seem

to have done the unthinkable by surviving all the way to the present. Which is why it's strange that, after all this time, it was only about 10 years ago that something new was discovered within them. Looking over the oldest manuscripts we have, medieval documents carefully copied out by scribes working with ink and vellum, researchers have found a pattern, a code, hidden in the text. To understand it, you need to know that ancient Greek music used a scale of 12 notes, as opposed to our modern scale of 8.

And what researchers have discovered is that Plato's text is practically littered with patterns of 12. In fact, perhaps to drive the point home, every 12th line contains a reference to music. It seems that Plato had something to hide. Why? Well, it comes down to religion. You see, in his day, the Greek pantheon ruled life. Students like Zeus were worshipped by all and central to how they viewed the world around

them. But a mathematician named Pythagoras had threatened all of that because he believed the true building blocks of the universe were numbers and music. For a very long time, students of Pythagorean thought were persecuted, sometimes being forced into exile. And Plato wanted to declare his allegiance to this new philosophy without shouting it out loud in the forum, so he hid it from the religious authorities who felt threatened. It seems that music has always been a controversial topic.

From the halls of Athens to the rock and roll hall of fame, music has been seen by some as an art and by others as a threat. A few arguments have lasted as long as one in particular, a claim that has been used for centuries to strike fear in the hearts of good people and to hold back progress in a field that has given us so much beauty. Some music, it seems, belongs to the devil. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. People can't seem to do anything without adding music.

Think about just how many events in our lives have music woven into the occasion. Graduation ceremonies, weddings, even funerals, all of them have a place for music. Birthday parties, sporting events, and bedtime routines for new parents just wouldn't be the same without songs. So it should come as no surprise when I tell you that music was also front and center during the witchcraft panic that swept through Europe, England, and Scotland a few hundred years ago. I know a lot of the stories you've heard about accused witches and their trials and

executions tend to focus mostly on witch marks and interrogations, but playing along with it all in the background was music. In fact, music was rumored to be a significant part of witchcraft and devil worship during the 16th and 17th centuries, both through singing and the playing of instruments. And much of what we know about that comes from the confessions of accused witches during that time. Whether or not these victims were actually witches, the larger point is the one I want to focus on.

That music was a foundational element in the folklore that gave us these stories. Descriptions of music typically included visits from the devil himself. One woman in 1662 claimed that the devil would appear among them, singing and dancing while passing out his own twisted version of the Eucharist through bread and wine. Another common report was that the devil's voice sounded hollow and gusty and was always accompanied by instruments. What sort of instruments? Well in England the stories about the devil usually included mention of pipes and a sittern,

a stringed instrument that sort of worked like a lute or a guitar. One account from 1681 of a coven meeting in Somerset, England described the devil as a man in black who visited their meeting, played his pipe and led them all in a dance. France had its own stories too. The pipe was still present in those reports but other instruments joined in as well. One young woman named Marie who was interrogated in 1609 revealed that the witches Sabbath she attended included trumpets, tambourines and violins. Apparently, she said, everyone there experienced extraordinary pleasure and joy.

But it's probably Scotland that holds the most texture and information in its stories. In fact, it's thanks to a 17th century Scottish writer named George Sinclair that we know that it was commonly accepted that each witch coven employed a devil's piper, someone hand picked to provide music for their meetings. But the folklore about music and witches runs very deep there. One of the most famous witch trials in Scottish history took place in North Barrick leading to hundreds of accusations and a huge number of deaths. But one of the events that was said to have happened was a gathering in a local church

yard there. About a hundred people were accused of showing up to participate in a ritual and at the center of it all, music. One of my favorite Scottish stories about the devil and his music comes from the 1596 testimony of an older woman named Isabelle Coquille. She claimed that a few months before her trial, she had been part of a Sabbath gathering on All Hallows Eve. During the ceremony, she and the other witches all danced with the devil between the hours

of midnight and 1 a.m. According to her confession, though, the devil wasn't playing the pipe very well, so she approached him, pulled the instrument out of his mouth, and played it herself, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the people gathered with her. It was a colorful fantasy conjured up by a woman who was most likely undergoing intense torture and interrogation, but it was also convincing to everyone involved, so much so that she was executed a short while later. Six decades after that, the witchcraft panic was still spreading like wildfire throughout

Scotland, and time had allowed the folklore around the devil and his music to grow and expand a bit more. So when Helen Guthrie's life of drunkenness caused her to fall under the critical eye of local authorities, they assumed there was a darker reason. Under torture, she named about 30 others who were also witches, and ultimately, nine of them were executed. Helen was a young woman when her life took a dark turn. It seems that she struck her younger sister in a fit of anger, and the resulting injury

ended up killing the poor girl. Not long after, she found herself in a churchyard with a number of other local women who were known to be witches, when the devil appeared before them in the shape of a man carved from black iron. During this meeting, they did all the things one might expect from a coven of witches. They cursed ships in the nearby bay, causing them to wreck. They helped one man transform into a pig and then watched as he destroyed a neighbor's field, and they even engaged in human sacrifice.

But right there, on the same list of crimes, was the act of dancing with the devil to the music he played for them. It wasn't a throwaway detail in a darker story. It was a crime in and of itself, and she would pay the ultimate price for it. Helen Guthrie spent the next two years of her life in jail, along with her daughter Janet. And then sometime during 1663, her sentence was carried out. She was ordered to be strangled to death, and then her body was placed in a barrel of tar, lit on fire, and burned until there was nothing left but ash.

But here's the thing, almost all of the stories that come to us from this period of history are about groups, how the devil arrived at a meeting, played his music, and danced with everyone there. For a very long time, the stories were almost always communal, a group effort. But all that started to change. In the years that followed, a new story began to appear. One that painted a very different picture, rather than momentary gatherings with demonic music at their core.

Every now and then, certain musicians were said to be singled out. Musicians who were handpicked by the devil himself. She claimed she did it because she had been cheated. Janet Watson was much like a lot of women in Scotland in the late 1600s. She was poor and powerless, and most days were challenging. But every now and then, there was a glimpse of hope. When she stepped into the church that day in 1661, it was to attend the funeral of a local woman who had passed away.

This woman was said to have been very wealthy, the polar opposite of Janet, but death had created a unique opportunity. During the services, tradition dictated that an offering plate would be passed around. And the money collected would be divided up and given to the poorest among them, including Janet. So when one of the relatives of the deceased woman stood up and began to collect donations, she felt the warm glow of hope in her chest. But when the funeral ended, the woman who had gathered the donations did something bad.

She stood up, stuffed the money into her purse, and then quickly walked out the door. And in doing so, took all of Janet's hope with her. It's easy to understand how upset Janet was when she returned home that afternoon. Angry, bitter, frustrated with her lot in life. And it was in that moment that she would later claim that the devil appeared to her. He asked her what the problem was, and she told him. He asked her what she needed, and she told him that as well. And then he laid his hand upon her head and made an offer she couldn't refuse.

Give me everything beneath my hand, he said, and I will give you gifts as well. And Janet complied, becoming known after that as well-dancing Janet. Janet's gift from the devil was dancing, but it's a powerful example of the deal that dark bargain that a person could make, the easy exchange of their soul for his powers. Powers that often strayed into the world of arts and music and entertainment. And it's an early example of a story that became all too common as the years passed by. Giuseppe was another of those that had been rumored to have made such a deal. Born in 1692 in the part of southeastern Europe that is now called Slovenia, his father was

a middle-class merchant and his mother had deep connections to some noble families. But while his father dreamed of Giuseppe following in his footsteps, a boy had other ideas. As a child, he had fallen in love with the violin, but because of the pressures put on him by his father, he kept it in the background of his life, dreaming of his chance to do something more with it later, because he was good at it, very, very good at it. In 1710, he left home at the age of 18, eloping with a young woman and skipping town in search of a better life. Obviously, his family wasn't pleased, but he was finally free, and that's what mattered.

And soon enough, the young couple had settled down in the Italian town of Assisi, taking a job at the local monastery as a violinist in their orchestra. It was during this time there that something changed in Giuseppe. According to the story, it's all because of a dream he had. One night in 1713, he claimed to dream of a meeting with the devil. And in this dream, Giuseppe handed his violin to him in order to learn whether or not the devil was good at playing it. And the answer was yes.

The song Giuseppe heard was so beautiful and so skillfully played that he lost the power to breathe in his dream. And once he woke up, he rushed over to his violin and attempted to replay what he had just heard. He failed to capture it completely, but it became the start of a new composition, one he titled, The Devil's Sonata. After that, Giuseppe tucked the new music away. He was soon discovered by some visitors from the city of Padua in northeastern Italy, who

declared him to be the most brilliant violinist they had ever heard. Not long after that, he and his wife moved to Padua to see what the rest of Italy might think. And they loved him. Over time, the Italians began to consider him the most talented musician alive. In 1726, he founded his own violin school, taught many students who went on to become stars in their own right, and even became the first known buyer of a violin crafted by Antonio Stradivari.

But he never released that dream-inspired song to the public. Why? Well, to hear him tell it, he felt nothing but disappointment with its quality. He had heard the music the devil had made, and his own version failed to live up to it. The difference between them nearly pushed him to quit playing entirely. I would have broken my instrument and abandoned music altogether, he later said, had I possessed any other means of subsistence. Giuseppe Tartini passed away in February of 1770.

But it wouldn't be until 1798, almost three decades later, that his devil's sonata would be published. And after a life of hiding it out of disappointment, it became his biggest hit ever, eclipsing the rest of his over 200 compositions in popularity. Critics hailed the music as the beginning of a new era for the violin, some claim that it couldn't have been written in 1713 because it was just too mature and ahead of its time. But sadly, Giuseppe Tartini was no longer around to ask about it. All we are left with now is the story of his dream, the legacy of his talent, and that

one brilliant gem of a song that seemed to come out of nowhere. A song that some say was a gift from the devil. Nicolo had died far too young, at least that's what everyone around him believed. The boy had been born in Italy in 1782, but at the age of four, he contracted measles and the effects were devastating. Soon enough, Nicolo's body stopped moving and began to go rigid. I can't imagine the pain and loss his parents must have felt, so they gently and carefully wrapped his little body in a shroud and began to prepare for something no parents could

ever be ready for. And then, when all hope was lost, he moved. It was another worldly, miraculous resurrection that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Because looking back for clues, this was one of the moments that people who spoke about him could point to and say, yes, right there, the deal had been struck. Nicolo grew up in an average-sized home. He had a brother and two sisters, and his father ran a local shop in Genoa, on the western

side of Italy, where the peninsula connects to Europe. And from a very early age, music was a part of their lives. His father played the mandolin and never shied away from letting young Nicolo try his hand at it. Soon after, he had moved to the violin. By the age of six, he was better at both instruments than his father. By eight, he had composed his first sonata. And that's when his childhood pretty much vanished.

His father recognized the potential and essentially cut off all leisure time from that point on. And his mother was rumored to have had a dream, where she begged a mysterious visitor to make Nicolo the best in the world. From there, his career just kept on growing. At the age of 11, he put on his first public performance in his hometown of Genoa. A couple of years after that, his father took him to Padua, with hopes of meeting with Alessandro Rola, one of the most famous composers and violinists of the day. When they arrived, Rola was sick in bed, so his wife didn't let the boy have an audience.

But before leaving, Nicolo noticed one of Rola's compositions sitting on a table beside a violin. So he precociously picked it up and played the new music. Legend has it that Rola heard it from the next room over and asked his wife the name of the virtuoso who had come to visit. Nicolo went on his first real tour at the age of 15. But like a lot of child stars, his father was proving to be more of a hindrance than a help.

Most of the money he earned went into his father's pocket, driving a wedge between them. So in 1798, at the age of 16, Nicolo packed up and left home, striking out on his own for the first time. The next 30 years were wonderful and difficult. Nicolo's reputation continued to grow, leading to fame across the country. In 1805, when Napoleon's sister, Princess Maria Anna, visited the Tuscan court in Luca, Italy, he was brought in to give a concert. It's said that the applause from the audience was so loud and drawn out that monks had to

stop it from getting out of hand. After that, he stayed on at the court, giving performances three times each week, which meant that he had to find new ways to keep things fresh and entertaining. In one performance, he removed all the strings from his violin except the G and E strings and then performed a conversation between two lovers. It sounds like it could have gone terribly for him, but he pulled it off, much to the delights of the audience. He was known for putting other limitations on himself, too, like a juggler putting one

hand behind his back to show off just how skilled they are. He would use scissors to cut a string in the middle of a show and then masterfully adapt without missing a beat. He once even put on a performance with only one string and then composed a whole sonata around it, called Sonata on the Fourth String. But he had problems, too. With fame and wealth came an addiction to gambling and a never-ending revolving door of lovers.

Many times, he was forced to sell off his violin to pay back debts he owed to others, putting his career in jeopardy. But thankfully, he managed to hold on to one of them, a violin that has become a legend in its own right. According to the story, Niccolò found himself without a violin on the eve of a concert. A French merchant happened to hear about this and offered to lend him his own instrument, a violin handcrafted by Giuseppe Guarnieri, a contemporary of Strativari, maker of the famous Strativarius violins.

It said that the performance was so powerful and the instrument so alive in his hands that after the show, the French merchant simply gifted the violin to him. Over the years, Niccolò's health became more and more of an issue. There was surgery to remove an abscess from his jaw and another foreign infection in his leg. He had to suffer from gastrointestinal issues and his teeth were falling out, but through it all, he played, and audiences all over Italy fell in love. In March of 1828, he debuted on stage in Vienna, which had been a major goal for him

since his youth. Over the course of 12 performances, he would go on to cement his place in history as one of the greatest to ever pick up a violin, and the stories about it are simply incredible. One member of the audience claimed to see the figure of the devil seated behind Niccolò, guiding his fingers and elbow and directing his bow. The song he played at the time, a composition known as The Witches, another person reported a similar vision on a separate night, with the same description of the devil he saw. Local musicians were selling their own clothing to buy tickets to his Vienna performances.

English pianist Johann Baptiste Kramer was there. He would later report that he watched as Niccolò did the unthinkable, tuning the G string down to F, a note not possible on a violin. And as he did, the devil could be seen behind him, guiding it all with his red demonic hands. Those Vienna performances settled the matter for most people. Niccolò Paganini had clearly made a deal with the devil, either through his mother or on his own, and that was the source of his talent. He denied it, of course, because why would he not?

It was better to be known as a truly skilled violinist than just an average Italian with a supernatural gift, but it never helped, and fans continued to believe the rumor. Looking back, it's clear that Niccolò had become an early 19th century version of a modern rock star, crazy stage antics, wealth and fame, and an abundance of women and drugs and drama. And like rock stars of the 1970s, it was all too common for the old guard to look at him and only see the devil at work. Niccolò continued to tour for another decade, visiting far-off places like Prague and Berlin

and Paris. He cast a spell on audiences everywhere, and dashed the hopes of aspiring musicians who doubted they could ever match his skill. During one performance in London in 1831, his talent was so mesmerizing to the other musicians on stage that even though a book caught fire on one of their tables, no one noticed it, because they couldn't take their eyes off him. In 1832 alone, he visited 30 different cities and gave at least 65 performances in the span of just three months.

He was described as a human skeleton, gaunt and sickly, but that he would instantly come to life the moment his bow touched the strings. It was as if he was dying, and the violin was keeping him alive. Toward the end of his life, Niccolò was a different man. His eyesight had diminished, and his voice was rough and plagued by coughing. He retreated away from the public that loved him and found peace in darkness and solitude, rather than on stage in the limelight. But none of that would erase the mark he'd made on the history of music.

Niccolò Paganini died in 1840 at the age of 56 while away in France. The Genoese genius was gone, and the world would never hear him draw his bow across the strings again. Like a blazing fire, his life and career had been bright and fast, drawing countless others to its warm glow. But it was a flame that seemed to consume him from within, turning a man with so much promise into a shell of his former self. And up, some say, by the flames of hell.

Some people defy our expectations. We have assumptions about what we are capable of, and when someone rises above that bar we're left with a dilemma. Either we believe they are far more gifted than we could ever be, or we soothe our minds with something less rational. That their exceptionalism comes from an outside source. For musicians like Giuseppe Tartini and Niccolò Paganini, there was a lot to come to grips with.

Early brilliance, extraordinary talent, and performances that made difficult things seem effortless. It's no wonder that in an era when nearly everything was somehow tied back to the Christian Church, the people around them assumed some dark power was at work. The natural explanation turned out to be the most supernatural option as well, that the devil, this figure of fascination and fear in almost everyone's mind at the time, had somehow given them the cheat codes necessary to rise above us all. And in the process, these talented individuals became legends in their own right.

They sit on that blurry line between real life and mythological status that very few people ever achieve. So it's only natural that stories about them persist, even after so many centuries. Today, Paganini's violin serves as a reminder of that otherworldly talent. Upon his death, the instrument was not passed on to another human being because he feared letting someone else put their fingers on it. Instead, it was gifted to his home city of Genoa, and it's been considered a national treasure ever since.

It's estimated to be insured for over $35 million. Paganini's body, though, didn't get the same immediate respect, thanks to all the stories that swirled around about his talent and the fact that he failed to make a final confession to a priest from his deathbed. The Church of Rome denied him a sacred burial. It seems that even though he had denied it in life, the stories of the devil still controlled him in death. For a while, the body was kept in the city of Parma.

It would take years before the pope would relent and allow the musician to be moved back to Genoa, but no burial was allowed. I don't fully understand how his body was stored and displayed, but it seems that his rumored deal with the devil had kept him from finally resting in peace for a good 50 years. Finally, the city of Parma allowed for a proper burial. Today you can visit his elaborate tomb and pay respects to a man who transformed music, mesmerized audiences around Europe, and arguably became the first rock star in music history. In 2009, a new chapter was added to his story, though.

A locked box was put up for auction, which contained a lock of the musician's hair, a gift from Paganini himself to a friend at Admire back in 1831, and it allowed scientists to run a few tests. Now it was believed at the time that Paganini had died due to tuberculosis, but the chemical tests revealed a different story. One that shed new light on the final years of the musician's life. It seems that the hair contained massive amounts of something that should not have been there. Mercury Historians now think they know the truth.

All those many years of lovers had left Paganini battling syphilis, a disease that was commonly treated with doses of mercury. In many of the symptoms of mercury poisoning line up with his final days, gastrointestinal issues, loss of sight, a preference for darkness and silence, and big personality changes. Every bargain is made up of two sides, each trading something in return for what the other has to offer. History might be filled with stories of humans trading their souls for powers from the devil, but that doesn't mean our normal, everyday trade-offs are any less destructive.

And for Niccolò Paganini, it was fame that turned out to be its own kind of devil. So many good stories involve a deal with the devil, but while those tales have roots in historical events from hundreds of years ago, that doesn't mean the folklore has faded away. In fact, if you know where to look, you can still find echoes of it in more modern stories. And I have just the one to prove it. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. For Robert, life wasn't always about music.

When in Mississippi in 1911, he was the grandson of enslaved people and the son of their post-Civil War counterparts working in the cotton fields. Life was supposed to be easier since the Emancipation Proclamation. Three new constitutional amendments had given newly freed enslaved people more civil rights, and reconstruction was dismantling many of the systems that had led to the Civil War. But during the four decades leading up to Robert's birth, a new breed of Southern politician had risen up, known as the Redeemers, who wanted to return to the way life had been before slavery had been abolished.

So Robert's parents moved around a lot, looking for work that paid fair enough wages to support their family. Around 1916, though, something changed. Historians today refer to it as the Great Migration. Over the following six decades, over 6 million African Americans would move out of the South in search of a new home that honored their new rights. But Robert's family wasn't one of them. Maybe they couldn't afford the journey, or perhaps family ties kept them in Mississippi.

But regardless, it left teenage Robert with fewer friends and more time on his hands. And that's when he turned to music. First, it was the mouth harp, and then the harmonica. After that, he moved on to what so many other Southern men had played, the Diddley Bow. Think of it as an incredibly homemade guitar. A Diddley Bow is basically a piece of wood and board with the nails sticking up from each end. Bailing wire is strung between them, running down the middle, and then the neck of a glass

bottle was pushed beneath the string like a sort of bridge. If you watch the first two minutes of the music documentary, it might get loud. You'll watch guitarist Jack White build one and play it, and it's utterly fascinating to watch. The Diddley Bow was cheap and easy, but a far cry from a real guitar. In fact, the name itself is a pair of slang words that essentially mean absolutely nothing. But for Robert, it was something. And by the late 1920s, it had driven him to seek out local musicians like Willie Brown,

Charlie Patton, and Son House for lessons and experience. And they tolerated him, it seems. He was good with the harmonica, but all accounts make it clear that Robert was simply not that good with the guitar. And then, around 1930, Robert left town. He connected with two other musicians, Tommy Johnson and Pete Wheatstra, who lived in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, and started to learn from them. And Pete Wheatstra becomes important to our story for a very specific reason, his nickname.

It seems that most folks just referred to him as the Devil's Son-in-law. One of the things they often did together was walk down to the local cemetery, sit on the tombstones, and play music long into the night. Another legend says that it was during this time away from home that Robert performed a ritual at a crossroads, a common symbolic location for the meeting of two worlds. Some say that was where he traded his soul for eight years of unparalleled talent. When Robert returned home, his arrival was legendary. As the story goes, his old friends Willie Brown and Son House were playing a show in

the little town of Bank up in the top left corner of Mississippi. When Robert walked in, a guitar on his back, the younger man asked them to take a break and give him a shot on stage, and despite their doubts, they both agreed. When he was done, Son, Willie, and everyone else in the room were left with their mouths hanging open. Robert Johnson had left home with almost no talent, but had returned a master, and from that moment on, his fame would only grow. But friends noticed something odd about him as well.

Robert seemed to always be aware that people were watching him play guitar. If he felt like they were trying to glean lessons from him, he was known to stop in the middle of a show and just walk off stage. He never agreed to teach other musicians, and he tended to practice by himself. But whatever he was doing was working for him. In 1936, he finally headed into a recording studio to lay down a number of songs. A year later, he headed to Dallas to record more, but it was the last time he would commit his music to vinyl.

In August of 1938, Robert started a series of performances at a small joint called The Three Forks, just outside of Greenwood, Mississippi. During his time there, friends said they watched him become far too close to the owner's wife. It was an uncomfortable time bomb, just waiting to go off. And on August 14th, that's exactly what happened. That night, someone gifted Robert with an already opened bottle of whiskey, something that should have been a red flag. Former musician knocked the bottle out of Robert's hand but got a lecture for his efforts.

So another bottle was produced. This one also unsealed, and Robert set about downing its contents. Later that night when he stepped on stage, Robert found it difficult to sing. Not long after that, he stopped in the middle of a song and wandered off stage, stepping outside for fresh air. Two days later, he was dead. The trouble was, not many people knew it. Remember, this was the South in 1938, a world where the black community didn't matter,

and men like Robert Johnson, however famous in his small circle, were simply too easy to forget. And the best way to understand that is through one last story. Months after Robert passed away, a producer named John Hammond requested the young guitarist for a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City, fully expecting Robert to respond. Arguably the greatest blues guitarist of his era had passed away, and the music community he transformed didn't even know about it. Of course, his legacy still lives on today.

In the 1960s, we saw the rise of new musicians like Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, all artists who drew deeply from the well that Robert Johnson sunk decades earlier. But this wouldn't be an exploration of deals with a devil if I didn't point out the timing of his passing. Yes, Robert Johnson was 27 when he died, making him a certified member of the legendary 27 Club. But that crossroads bargain he struck with the devil, the one where he swapped his soul

for eight years of unbeatable skill, took place in 1930, eight years before his untimely death. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Taylor Haggardorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want a bit more lore in your life.

I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical, and you can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.