Robert Johnson, a legendary bluesman, was born on the northern outskirts of Hazlehurst to Julia Major and Noah Johnson on May 8, 1911, or possibly 1912. He lived in Tunica County and in Memphis as a child, then returned to the Hazlehurst area in the early 1930s, where he honed his skills with local blues guitarist Ike Zinnerman. His twenty-nine recordings from 1936-37 are widely regarded as an artistic high point of the blues, and he maintained a close connection to the Hazlehurst area, where he was probably born in the Damascus community north of town, later returned regularly to perform, and fathered his only known child with a local woman. His mother, originally from Hazlehurst, had separated from her first husband, Charles Dodds, before having a child with Noah Johnson, a local sawmill worker. Although his birth year is often reported as 1911, ages on two marriage licenses, school records, and his death certificate suggest dates ranging from 1907 to 1912, with 1911 or 1912 considered more likely because he does not appear in the 1910 census among his mother’s children. Shortly after his birth, his mother moved to the Delta and sent him to live in Memphis with the family of Dodds, who had changed his last name to Spencer. In the late 1910s Johnson moved to the Abbay and Leatherman plantation near Robinsonville to live with his mother and her new husband, Dusty Willis. Confusion about his life details has been compounded by his use of the names Johnson, Dodds, Spencer, and Willis. He began actively performing music in his teens, and around 1930 came to the attention of Son House, who later recalled that at the time Johnson could only make a "racket" on the guitar. After studying with Ike Zinnerman of Beauregard, ten miles south of Hazlehurst, he returned to the Delta with skills that House remembered as markedly improved. In Martinsville, just south of Hazlehurst, he had a romantic relationship with Virgie Mae Cain that resulted in the birth of Claud Johnson on December 12, 1931. In 1998, the Chancery Court of Leflore County determined that Claud Johnson was his son and legal heir, and Claud later founded the Robert Johnson Blues Foundation for arts education. In May 1931 Robert Johnson married Callie Craft of Martinsville and gave a Memphis address when he filed for the license. He traveled widely but continued visiting the Hazlehurst area, where he stayed with his aunt Clara Majors Rice, whose son Howard recalled that Johnson played piano and pump organ in addition to guitar. Guitarist Houston Stackhouse, among the musicians who played with him during these years, recalled performing with him at the Frank Ford plantation outside Crystal Springs. Johnson died in Greenwood on August 16, 1938.