Early Life in Mississippi
Tommy Johnson was born in 1896 on the George Miller plantation near Terry, Mississippi, about fifteen miles south of Jackson. He was one of thirteen children in a farming family. Like most Delta children of his era, he worked the cotton fields from a young age.
Music offered an escape. Johnson learned guitar from an older brother and began playing local parties and gatherings as a teenager. Around 1912, the family moved to Crystal Springs, Mississippi, where Johnson encountered a wider community of musicians.
In his late teens, Johnson left home and wandered through the Delta, learning from older players and developing his style. He spent time in the Drew, Mississippi, area around 1914-1915, where he reportedly studied with Charley Patton, one of the founding figures of Delta blues. The influence shows in Johnson's rhythmic guitar approach, though his vocal style remained distinctly his own.
The Crossroads Legend
Sometime in the 1920s, Tommy Johnson began telling people he had sold his soul to the devil. The story, as his brother LeDell later recounted it, went like this: if you wanted to learn to play guitar, you took your instrument to a crossroads at midnight. A large black man would appear, take the guitar, tune it, play a piece, and hand it back. After that, you could play anything.
Johnson told this story himself at parties and performances. It added to his mystique and became part of his persona as a traveling musician. Whether he believed it or simply recognized its marketing value is impossible to know.
Decades later, the crossroads legend became attached to Robert Johnson, the more famous Delta bluesman who recorded in 1936 and 1937. Robert Johnson never told the story himself, but his early death at 27 and the intensity of his recordings made the myth stick. Music historians have traced the legend's origins back to Tommy Johnson, who was telling it a decade before Robert Johnson made his first recording.
Recording Career
Tommy Johnson's recording career was brief but productive. In February 1928, he traveled to Memphis to record for Victor Records. Over two days, he cut eight sides, including his most famous songs: "Canned Heat Blues," "Cool Drink of Water Blues," "Big Road Blues," and "Maggie Campbell Blues."
The sessions revealed Johnson's distinctive style. His falsetto yodel, which he used to punctuate phrases and create an eerie, lonesome effect, was unlike anything else in the blues. His guitar work combined steady bass runs with melodic fills. The effect was hypnotic.
Johnson returned to recording in December 1929 and August 1930, cutting additional sides for Paramount Records in Grafton, Wisconsin. These sessions produced "Alcohol and Jake Blues" and several other tracks. After 1930, Johnson never recorded again, though he continued performing around Jackson, Mississippi, for the rest of his life.
Canned Heat and Its Legacy
"Canned Heat Blues" describes drinking Sterno, the jellied alcohol sold as cooking fuel. Depression-era drinkers would strain the methanol through bread or cloth and drink the result, often with devastating health consequences. Johnson sang about the practice with dark humor: "Canned heat, canned heat is killing me."
The song's title and subject matter found new life in 1965 when a Los Angeles blues band chose the name Canned Heat. The group, which included blues scholars Bob Hite and Alan Wilson, explicitly took their name from Johnson's song. They went on to perform at Woodstock and score hits with "Going Up the Country" and "On the Road Again."
Canned Heat's success introduced Tommy Johnson's name to a new generation. The band frequently discussed Johnson's influence in interviews and helped spark renewed interest in his recordings.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
In the 2000 Coen Brothers film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," a character named Tommy Johnson appears as a young Black guitarist who joins the film's trio of escaped convicts. Asked how he learned to play so well, he explains that he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads.
The scene directly references the historical Tommy Johnson's legend. Actor Chris Thomas King played the role and performed on the film's Grammy-winning soundtrack. The movie introduced the crossroads myth to millions of viewers who had never heard of either Tommy Johnson or Robert Johnson.
The film's use of the original Tommy Johnson's story helped correct the historical record. For years, the crossroads legend had been attributed solely to Robert Johnson. The movie reminded audiences that the myth predated Robert and belonged first to Tommy.
Later Years and Death
After his final recording session in 1930, Tommy Johnson spent the remaining 26 years of his life around Jackson, Mississippi. He continued playing at house parties, juke joints, and street corners, earning a modest living from tips and occasional paid performances.
Johnson developed a serious drinking problem that worsened over the years. He was known to drink shoe polish, Sterno, and rubbing alcohol when nothing else was available. The habits he had sung about in "Canned Heat Blues" and "Alcohol and Jake Blues" were autobiographical.
Tommy Johnson died on November 1, 1956, in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. He was 60 years old. His death received little notice outside the local community. It would be years before blues researchers rediscovered his recordings and recognized his influence on the music.
Today, Johnson is remembered as one of the essential figures of the Delta blues. His recordings remain in print, his legend endures in popular culture, and his influence continues to surface in unexpected places. The band Canned Heat disbanded and reformed multiple times, but their name still references a song recorded in Memphis nearly a century ago.