The Troubling Rhetoric of Devil Deals

In episode 6 of season 2 of Timeless, the team travels back in the Lifeboat and encounter Robert Johnson, one of the most legendary blues singers ever.

Smithsonian Magazine

My Robert Johnson Vinyl

I remember after the show premiered seeing a Tweet (that I can't find, and yes, the irony of me not screenshotting it does not escape me, so PLEASE if you know the Tweet, pass it along) that argued that the continuation, the forwarding, of the tale that Johnson's musical gifts were the result of a deal with the devil, one of the original crossroads deals, did a huge disservice to the man and his talent.

As my scholarship focuses on how individual people and groups are demonized to achieve certain political and social ends, I started to think about how demonizing specific people doesn't just demonize them to others, usually an in-power majority, but how it also erases their actual story.

The legend of Johnson's "crossroads deal" was portrayed in the 1985 movie, Crossroads, and has the status of urban legend with music lovers. Per NPR's article, Robert Johnson was born in Mississippi in 1911. His playing was unusual enough to not be popular, moved to Arkansas, then Texas, where he first recorded in 1936. He dies in 1937 under "mysterious circumstances" which only contribute to his legendary status.

What is lost by crediting the devil for granting Johnson the gift of the blues?
Well, the first is that it continues a narrative of demonizing the blues, and other music inspired by it, like rock and roll, which most often than not supports racist narratives.
It also erases the narrative of what the reality of Johnson's life was. From his upbringing in Mississippi, to how he came to his unique brand of playing, his influences, how his traveling road life influenced him, who he played with. What was his day to day life like? Where's that slice of life? What made him record that day? 
How do we separate Johnson's narrative from the liner notes made up, contributing to Johnson's mystery?

To erase Johnson's narrative is to continue to erase the narrative of Southern Blacks at the turn of the century. In addition to erasing his narrative, the crossroads narrative also signals that that stories like Johnson's are not worthy of being told. That the only thing that makes him, his story, or his music interesting, is that it comes from the devil.

There are other musicians who have been accused of making deals with the devil for their gift, their inspiration. But except for early patterns of associating the devil with the violin (blame Giuseppe Tartini, not the Charlie Daniels Band's 1979 "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"), the majority of musicians associated with the devil are white men. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, a whole host of heavy metal bands, have all been accused of being the devil's music, which is not quite the same as saying these musicians made a deal with the devil.

It's a difference of rhetoric. Of how crossroad deals are used, and what their purpose is.

The devil's musical inclinations can be traced to his seductive nature, his use of man's vices against him, and her-self. The same logic is what connects the devil to dancing, as seen most notably in José E. Limón 's 1994 Dancing with the Devil Society and Cultural Poetics in Mexican-American South Texas. The devil is always the outside, the threat, the enemy, the fiend (from the Old English feond, the enemy). His visual appearance marks him as such. His visual differences serves as both the evidence of his extreme sin, and the danger he represents to humankind. Marginalized groups such as Jews, Moors, women, have historically been demonized through association. Men of color in particular are not just demonized, as we can see from any nightly, racist news story, but are presented as demons themselves. In part, this continues because scholars, and every day folks, don't stop to interrogate the idea that white = good and black - bad. And in large part, it comes from a 1000 year history of showing the devil as black.

Exorcism @GallicaBnF, Fr. 313, 14th c. 

Image from Pamphlet War between John Taylor and Henry Walker 1641

The Taymouth Hours - folio Yates Thomspon MS Manuscript made in England between 1325

Whether the devil was seducing woman, leading human politicians astray, rebelling against nation states, or possessing pour souls, the English devil is consistently shown in this black, animal-like, shape. It marks him as different, as threat, as not "us" whoever the dominant power of "us" stands for in any historical and cultural moment (hint: big surprise, it's usually white men).

This uninterrogated representation and history, is part of what allows for stories like Robert Johnson's to be subsumed by larger narratives. It's not enough that Robert Johnson was a gifted musician, often credited as a father of blues, who survived the turn of the century Jim Crow, which should be more than enough to make him worthy of study and respect. 
But you'd be hard pressed to find that narrative. Instead, what is available for public consumption is the same story, told over and over again. Google Robert Johnson, blues and every single result mentions his crossroads deal in varying degrees of importance. Many acknowledge the myth of it, but even by doing so they are giving space, and authority, to the idea. They are contributing to the idea that a talented black man could not have accomplished anything on his own, in 1936, or apparently, now. Johnson's escape from Mississippi cannot be credited to his own strength of character, but must be the work of the devil. If we follow that thought to its logical end, only the devil can free you from something so evil as Jim Crow, and "good" Christians would just suffer? These are disturbing narratives, that are just beneath the surface of these crossroads stories about Robert Johnson.

Can I appreciate that Timeless introduced a whole new generation to such a master? Sure.
Can I appreciate the fondness the character of Connor Mason has for Johnson? Sure.

But I can also wish that we, the public, would not only recognize what is problematic about continuing to forward these narratives, but also acknowledge what is erased or rewritten by doing so, and try to rediscover and uncover the real narratives, and celebrate those.
I wish we could celebrate the genius of Robert Johnson without crediting the devil.


For More Reading:

Herbert Halpert "The Devil and the Fiddle." Hoosier Folklore Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Dec., 1943), pp. 39-43