From ‘Crossroads Blues’ to ‘Sweet Home Chicago’, ‘Hellhound on My Trail’ to ‘Come On In My Kitchen’, Robert Johnson wrote some of the most enduring and formative songs of the original blues era: songs that would go on to help shape the birth of rock’n’roll in the 1960s. Beloved of Clapton, Dylan and the Stones, Robert Johnson remains one of the most iconic and mythologised figures in popular music (and the first of many to die at the age of 27). Born in the in the South in Mississippi, Johnson made his way to the urban North as a travelling musician, but it was only when he returned to the South that he recorded the twenty-nine songs, in two sessions, which would create his legacy.

With words by Jean-Michel Dupont and art by Mezzo, Love in Vain: Robert Johnson, 1911-1938 – published today by Faber & Faber – explores the stories and legends that surround Johnson’s life and death: his childhood, his womanising, and his pact with the devil at the crossroads.

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