Abbay & Leatherman, one of the oldest and largest cotton plantations in the Delta, is known as the boyhood home of blues icon Robert Johnson, who lived there with his family in a tenant shack by the levee during the 1920s. His powerful and impassioned 1936-37 recordings are often cited as a foundation of rock ‘n’ roll, while the facts, fantasies, and mysteries of his life and death have remained a source of intrigue. Later hailed as the King of the Delta Blues, an innovative and influential guitarist, dramatic and emotional vocalist, and blues poet, Johnson had been remembered in his adolescent years there only as a good harmonica player with limited guitar skills. After leaving the Delta around 1930 and reappearing about two years later with formidable guitar technique, he inspired Son House's remark that he must have sold his soul to the devil, a legend later reflected in the 1986 film Crossroads and in documentaries and books. Born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, the illegitimate son of Julia Dodds and Noah Johnson, he is often said to have been born on May 8, 1911, though some sources including a census listing and his death certificate point to 1912. His mother sent him to Memphis to live with his father, Charles Dodds, also known as Charles Spencer, but brought him back after marrying Willie “Dusty” Willis at Abbay & Leatherman in 1916, and Johnson, then known as Robert Spencer, reportedly lived there for a decade or more beginning about 1918. Records from nearby Indian Creek School verify his enrollment, although the 1920 census places Will and Julia Willis and Robert Spencer in Lucas, Arkansas, in the same county where plantation owner Samuel Richard Leatherman had acquired additional cotton-farming property. Johnson married Virginia Travis in Tunica County in 1929, but she died in childbirth on April 10, 1930, at age 16. Back in Hazlehurst, he found a new wife, Callie Craft, and a musical mentor, guitarist Ike Zinnerman, then left married life to pursue work as an itinerant musician, able to play alongside leading Delta bluesmen including Son House and Willie Brown and reputedly able to play any song after hearing it once. He began recording in 1936, and although those recordings became highly influential in blues and rock ‘n’ roll history, few sold well during his lifetime. His death near Greenwood on August 16, 1938, has often been attributed to poisoning, though it remains a mystery, and he was later inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
