Editing Robert Johnson (section)

==Death==
Johnson died on August 16, 1938, [[27 Club|at the age of 27]], near [[Greenwood, Mississippi]], of unknown causes. Johnson's death was not reported publicly. Almost 30 years later, [[Gayle Dean Wardlow]], a Mississippi-based [[musicologist]] researching Johnson's life, found Johnson's death certificate, which listed only the date and location, with no official cause of death. No formal autopsy had been done. Instead, a ''pro forma'' examination was done to file the death certificate, and no immediate cause of death was determined. It is likely he had [[congenital syphilis]] and it was suspected later by medical professionals that this may have been a contributing factor in his death. However, 30 years of local oral tradition had, like the rest of his life story, built a legend which has filled in gaps in the scant historical record.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/devils-music-myth-robert-johnson/|last=Havers|first=Richard|author-link=Richard Havers|date=November 23, 2018|title=The Devil's Music: The Life and Legacy of Robert Johnson|website=[[UDiscoverMusic]].com|access-date=April 2, 2019}}</ref>

Several differing accounts have described the events preceding his death. Johnson had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance at the Three Forks Club in [[Itta Bena]], about {{convert|15|mi|km|0}} from Greenwood. According to one theory, Johnson was murdered by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. In an account by the blues musician [[David "Honeyboy" Edwards|David 'Honeyboy' Edwards]], Johnson had been flirting with a married woman at a dance, and she gave him a bottle of whiskey poisoned by her husband. When Johnson took the bottle, Edwards knocked it out of his hand, admonishing him to never drink from a bottle that he had not personally seen opened. Johnson replied, "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand". Soon after, he was offered another (poisoned) bottle and accepted it.<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrvlpPpnzaI&list=PLj0pdB6yTht-ONdKCq_N5ftpAdodL5r1M |title=Honeyboy Speaks With Pete Welding About Robert Johnson & Tommy Johnson |date=2020-01-09 |last=David "Honeyboy" Edwards - Topic |access-date=2024-12-05 |via=YouTube}}</ref> Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days his condition steadily worsened. Witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain. The musicologist [[Robert "Mack" McCormick]] claimed to have tracked down the man who murdered Johnson and to have obtained a confession from him in a personal interview, but he declined to reveal the man's name.<ref name="Search"/>

While [[strychnine]] has been suggested as the poison that killed Johnson, at least one scholar has disputed the notion. Tom Graves, in his book ''Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson'', relies on expert testimony from toxicologists to argue that strychnine has such a distinctive odor and taste that it cannot be disguised, even in strong liquor. Graves also claims that a significant amount of strychnine would have to be consumed in one sitting to be fatal, and that death from the poison would occur within hours, not days.{{sfn|Graves|2008|loc=pp. 39–43: Johnson being poisoned by a jealous husband who put strychnine in his whiskey is a frequently given scenario}}<!-- ref for whole para so far-->

In their 2019 book ''Up Jumped the Devil'', Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow suggest that the poison was [[naphthalene]], from dissolved [[mothball]]s. This was "a common way of poisoning people in the rural South", but was rarely fatal. However, Johnson had been diagnosed with an [[ulcer]] and with [[esophageal varices]], and the poison was sufficient to cause them to hemorrhage. He died after two days of severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and bleeding from the mouth.{{sfn|Conforth|Wardlow|2019|pp=253-255}}

The [[Leflore County, Mississippi|Leflore County]] registrar, Cornelia Jordan, years later and after conducting an investigation into Johnson's death for the state director of vital statistics, R. N. Whitfield, wrote a clarifying note on the back of Johnson's death certificate:
{{blockquote|I talked with the white man on whose place this negro died and I also talked with a negro woman on the place. The plantation owner said the negro man, seemingly about 26 years old, came from Tunica two or three weeks before he died to play banjo at a negro dance given there on the plantation. He stayed in the house with some of the negroes saying he wanted to pick cotton. The white man did not have a doctor for this negro as he had not worked for him. He was buried in a homemade coffin furnished by the county. The plantation owner said it was his opinion that the man died of syphilis.<ref>{{harvnb|Conforth|Wardlow|2019|pp=260–261}}</ref>}}

In 2006, a medical practitioner, David Connell, suggested, on the basis of photographs showing Johnson's "unnaturally long fingers" and "one bad eye", that Johnson may have had [[Marfan syndrome]], which could have both affected his guitar playing and contributed to his death due to [[aortic dissection]].{{sfn|Connell|2006|p=489}}

===Gravesite===
[[File:TombstoneRobert Johnson.jpg|thumb|Alleged gravesite at Payne Chapel near Quito, with one of Johnson's three tombstones]]
The true location of Johnson's grave is unknown; three different markers have been erected at possible sites in church cemeteries outside Greenwood.
*Research in the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggests Johnson was buried in the graveyard of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near [[Morgan City, Mississippi]], not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave. A one-ton [[cenotaph]] in the shape of an obelisk, listing all of Johnson's song titles, with a central inscription by [[Peter Guralnick]], was placed at this location in 1990, paid for by Columbia Records and numerous smaller contributions made through the [[Mount Zion Memorial Fund]].
[[File:ObeliskRobJohn.jpg|thumb|Alleged gravesite at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City]]
* In 1990, a small marker with the epitaph "Resting in the Blues" was placed in the cemetery of Payne Chapel, near [[Quito, Mississippi]], by an Atlanta rock group named the Tombstones, after they saw a photograph in ''Living Blues'' magazine of an unmarked spot alleged by one of Johnson's ex-girlfriends to be Johnson's burial site.{{sfn|Cheseborough|2009|pp=145–146}}
* More recent research by Stephen LaVere (including statements from Rosie Eskridge, the wife of the supposed gravedigger, in 2000){{sfn|Pearson|McCulloch|2003|p=117}} indicates that the actual grave site is under a big pecan tree in the cemetery of the Little Zion Church, north of Greenwood along Money Road. Through LaVere, Sony Music placed a marker at this site, which bears LaVere's name as well as Johnson's. Researchers [[Bruce Conforth]] and [[Gayle Dean Wardlow]] also concluded this was Johnson's resting place in their 2019 biography.

[[File:RobJohnLittleZion.jpg|thumb|Alleged gravesite at Little Zion Church north of Greenwood]]
John Hammond Jr., in the documentary ''[[The Search for Robert Johnson]]'' (1991), suggests that owing to poverty and lack of transportation Johnson is most likely to have been buried in a pauper's grave (or "[[potter's field]]") very near where he died.