1973. Nineveh, Mosul. Lancaster Merrin is a man on the run from his past and from God. The horrors of World War II have stifled his faith and dragged him to the feet of an ancient and dusty archaeological dig in the Iraqi desert. The wounds of his soul have over time become scars, and only the hope that the nightmares of the past cannot ferret him out in such a remote place now seems capable of animating his old, sick heart.
Under a blazing sun, among the workers who dig frantically in search of ancient artifacts, a boy runs breathlessly in search of a supervisor: "they found something, fragments, at the base of the hill; lamps, arrowheads, coins".
Father Merrin had reviewed hundreds of archaeological finds, but the discovery of that small silver medallion depicting the Holy Family had struck him deeply. Finding such an artifact at a pre-Christian site is both inexplicable and disturbing. Now, at the site of the discovery, Father Merrin notices something inside a narrow crevice. With the help of a tool, he unearths a small greenish amulet, a sculpture of crude workmanship, and immediately a sensation of déjà vu seizes him. His trembling hand extracts a brush from the pocket of an archaeologist, and now, after removing the dust and detaching the stone it was attached to, Lancaster Merrin has no more doubts: the zoo-anthropomorphic statuette unearthed is indeed that of the Assyrian demon Pazuzu.
1961. Greenwich Village, New York. John Hammond is a leading music producer and talent scout for Columbia Records. For years he has put music before his dearest affections, sacrificing his own marriage in its name and forever damaging relations with his firstborn John Jr. For years he hid his loneliness behind a business card and his failures inside a bottle of whiskey.
Under a blazing sun, in front of hundreds of students, a boy armed only with a guitar, harmonica, and a handful of poetic and disenchanted lyrics, sings at the top of his lungs in search of fortune: "I'm out here a thousand miles from my home / walkin' a road other men have gone down".
John had reviewed hundreds of promising artists, discovering and signing exceptional talents of the caliber of Aretha Franklin, Charlie Christian, and Pete Seeger, but this time something had struck him deeply. In the eyes of that lanky, nasal-voiced boy from Minnesota, John had seen a strange light flicker, a sinister and familiar light at the same time.
Now, sitting in his office, glass in hand, John is plagued by an annoying sensation of déjà vu. He has seen that light shine before but cannot focus on whose gaze. Slowly and inexorably, a shadow emerges from the recesses of his memories; that gaze has brought to light an image long dormant. Standing in front of his archive, he frantically scrolls through old vinyls in search of a 78 rpm capable of giving name and surname to that shadow. His trembling hand extracts a dusty vinyl, and now, after blowing away the dust and lowering the turntable needle, John Hammond has no doubts: that light is the same that shone in the gaze of a Mississippi Delta bluesman encountered many years before, Robert Johnson.
On that occasion Hammond was bewitched, and shortly afterward decided to contact him for his show "From Spirituals To Swing" at Carnegie Hall in New York. But it was too late by then, as Robert Johnson had died on August 16, 1938, at only 27 years old.
Since then and for many years, he and his guitar would be swallowed whole into darkness until, in 1961, Hammond would finally manage to convince Columbia Records to release this LP.
Surely the early sixties are favorable times: folk is a fashionable genre, the minstrel is about to wrench the crown of thorns from the king, black America is in turmoil, and there's a rush to roots.
Johnson is now being exposed to a new generation of blues enthusiasts who have already had a chance to appreciate Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and the other great interpreters of electric blues influenced by Johnson himself. A generation of listeners for whom "Johnny B. Goode" is the real American anthem and who, thanks to the ever-growing British colony, begins shifting their center of gravity towards the center of the Atlantic Ocean.
And it is right beyond the Atlantic Ocean, just as happens - albeit in the opposite direction - in Friedkin's film, that the fulcrum of the narrative is directed.
In the role of Regan, a young Clapton who years later will candidly admit he doesn't know whether it was him who chose this record on that day, or the record that chose him. A young Clapton who, unknowingly, inherited Robert Johnson's curse: trapped in the limbo of an eternal present, stripped like Johnson of his past and his future. The curse of never knowing his own father and not knowing if his firstborn son, in heaven, could ever recognize him. A futile torment, after all, for one who at the crossroads made a pact with the devil and is destined for eternal damnation. A futile torment for one who traded his soul for a guitar. A futile torment for one who traded his guitars for heroin.
Clapton has always observed an almost religious respect for this record. He has always treated each of its tracks with deference. When he plays them, he won't let anyone else sing them: the first time he approaches a microphone will be on the legendary record with Mayall, in the respectful and dignified "Ramblin' On My Mind". When he violently reinterprets "Cross Road Blues" with devastating and demonic power, it will be only live, never in the studio. He'll be so obsessed with this record that he won't speak to anyone who hasn't heard it.
Through Eric Clapton and his incendiary "Crossroads", Robert Johnson took another step - perhaps the most important - in his slow and silent ascent to the rock Olympus. Over the years he will often appear, like Pazuzu, in the form of a subliminal message: Dylan will insert this LP, with apparent nonchalance, on the cover of "Bringing It All Back Home" in 1965; Keith Richards will disguise the rhythm of "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)" in the solo of "Sympathy For The Devil"; his characteristic riff will be reused to exhaustion, and the same riff that Chuck Berry will adopt in numerous tracks, including "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven", will be the natural evolution of his idea, filtered through Elmore James, in "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom".
Among all the great bluesmen, Johnson's figure is certainly the most obscure, shrouded as it is in mystery. For years not even a face was known, not a shred of an image captured on film capable of testifying to his existence (the only two photos in our possession - as inferred from the cover - were found after the publication of this LP). Little to nothing is known of his life: all that is known with certainty is that he recorded little and sold even less; in some ways, it's as if he existed only in these recordings. Much has been written about his death: not how he died (like everyone else, barely), but because from that day on his story has never stopped repeating. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and the list could continue, all inextricably linked to the devil's music (the blues), all fatally imprisoned in the incarnation of the perverse and cursed trinity of drugs, sex and rock'n'roll, all dead at only 27 years old.
Coincidences, you might say. Nefarious, someone will add. Superstition perhaps. Like the famous pact that Johnson himself allegedly made with the devil at midnight at a crossroad on the famous Highway 61, the blues highway. But that night God wasn't there. That night God was absent. His gaze was turned elsewhere, not far away. Someone was praying for him to help Tupelo in its most difficult night. Under a black rain, rivers became roads, and roads became rivers. Sunday was about to take what Saturday had given, a child was born and his twin brother died. The messiah who would teach us to sin was born. People would call him king, and his birth would be marked by the death of those who came before. The prophecy was now fulfilled.
Through Robert Johnson, the devil himself had spread the bad seed of rock'n'roll in the belly of the blues. Through Robert Johnson, he had reinvented the personification of the cursed artist. Through Robert Johnson, he had begun to demand the infamy clauses of his contracts, and to follow relentlessly the footsteps of all those who would play this music as their last hope of redemption. He was among the audience when Jimi Hendrix abused and burned his Stratocaster. He piloted a Beechcraft Bonanza on the day the music died. He drove amusedly in the wrong direction when Dylan had his motorcycle accident. He watched contentedly his angels, the day when the summer of love finally set at Altamont. He was with an incredulous Robert Plant when the words of "Stairway To Heaven" seemed to write themselves. He was at a Frank Zappa & The Mothers concert when launching a flare caused smoke on the water and fire in the sky.
This is not a record for everyone. If music is pure entertainment for you, forget about this man and his guitar. If music for you is manic precision, depth, and sound clarity, do not approach his awkward, carnal blues, his paranoid and desperate ditties. If for you talent is measured by the beat of a metronome or weighed by notes played per second, do not even approach the blues. For goodness' sake, don't do it. This is probably the most important record in rock history, recorded when rock wasn't even born yet.
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