SOURCE: "Stones in My Passway, Hellhound on My Trail," in Greasy Lake & Other Stories, Penguin Books, 1985, pp. 146-52.

The following is a short story based on Johnson's life.

I got stones in my passway
 and my road seems black as night.
 I have pains in my heart,
 they have taken my appetite.
           —Robert Johnson (19147-1938)

Saturday night. He's playing the House Party Club in Dallas, singing his blues, picking notes with a penknife. His voice rides up to a reedy falsetto that gets the men hooting and then down to the cavernous growl that chills the women, the hard chords driving behind it, his left foot beating like a hammer. The club's patrons—field hands and laborers—pound over the floorboards like the start of the derby, stamping along with him. Skirts fly, straw hats slump over eyebrows, drinks spill, ironed hair goes wiry. Overhead two dim yellow...