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70 free Robert Johnson trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Robert Johnson recorded 29 songs in five days across two hotel-room sessions in Texas, died at 27 of causes still argued over, and became the most mythologised musician in American history. This quiz covers the man and the legend: his childhood between Hazlehurst and the city, the older bluesman who remembered him as a hopeless guitarist, the mysterious teacher who practised with him at night, the makeshift studios, the poisoned whiskey and the death certificate that raised more questions than it answered. It also follows the afterlife: the Carnegie Hall concert he never lived to play, the 1961 LP that reached a young Bob Dylan, the British guitarists who turned his songs into rock standards and the lawsuits, box sets, stamps, photographs and heir rulings that followed. Difficulty runs from easy warm-ups to details only blues obsessives will know. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Johnson, his discography and his key songs, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
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Q 01According to the most famous legend about him, what did Robert Johnson trade for his musical talent?
His soul
The story mirrors the Faust legend and was borrowed from another Delta singer who actively promoted the tale himself.
Q 02How old was Robert Johnson when he died in 1938?
27
His early death at that age makes him the first name on the so-called 27 Club roster.
Q 03The hall of fame that first inducted Robert Johnson calls him perhaps the first ever what?
Rock star
Its citation puts him alongside the earliest rock pioneers even though he never played an electric guitar.
Q 04How many recording sessions did Robert Johnson have in his entire career?
Two
Both took place in makeshift Texas studios, and everything he ever recorded fits comfortably on two CDs.
Q 05What did Robert Johnson mostly do for a living as a performer?
Street corners and juke joints
He also played Saturday night dances, and would happily play pop standards or country tunes if that was what the crowd wanted.
Q 06Robert Johnson appeared on a US commemorative postage stamp in which year?
1994
The stamp artwork famously removed the cigarette from the source photograph.
Q 07Which British group's 1968 album Wheels of Fire popularised 'Crossroads'?
Cream
The band's guitarist simplified Johnson's slide riff onto one or two strings and set it to a straight rock rhythm.
Q 08Which was Robert Johnson's most commercially successful record in his lifetime, selling up to 10,000 copies?
Terraplane Blues
It uses a car that will not start as an extended metaphor for a girlfriend's suspected infidelity.
Q 09How many distinct songs did Robert Johnson record in total?
29
With alternate takes there are 42 surviving performances, out of 59 that the session logs say were cut.
Q 10In which Texas city did Robert Johnson make his first recordings in November 1936?
San Antonio
The makeshift studio was set up in a hotel, with the equipment in one room and the musician in another.
Q 11Robert Johnson's second and final recording session, in June 1937, took place in which city?
Dallas
The 'studio' was an unused storage area on the third floor of a former Warner Bros. film-exchange building.
Q 12Who produced both of Robert Johnson's recording sessions?
Don Law
His later recollection that Johnson played facing the wall fed the myth that the singer was painfully shy.
Q 13Which record label first issued Robert Johnson's 78s in 1937 and 1938?
Vocalion
Budget pressings also went out on ARC dime-store labels such as Perfect, Romeo and Conqueror.
Q 21Near which Mississippi town did Robert Johnson die?
Greenwood
He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance at the Three Forks Club in nearby Itta Bena.
Q 22Which Robert Johnson song was first proposed for the 1966 Powerhouse session before 'Crossroads'?
Traveling Riverside Blues
Led Zeppelin later recorded that same song and borrowed its lemon-squeezing lyric for 'The Lemon Song'.
Q 23Which Rolling Stones album includes their country-tinged version of 'Love in Vain'?
Let It Bleed
They played it live for the first time in Hyde Park in July 1969, with new member Mick Taylor on slide guitar.
Q 14Which 1961 Columbia album finally brought Robert Johnson's music to a wide audience?
King of the Delta Blues Singers
Because no photograph of him had yet surfaced, the cover painting shows a faceless musician in field clothes.
Q 15Which young Columbia signing was mesmerised by an advance copy of Robert Johnson's 1961 LP?
Bob Dylan
The album later turned up in the cover photo of Bringing It All Back Home among other badges of hip taste.
Q 16Which Delta bluesman remembered the young Robert Johnson as an embarrassingly bad guitarist?
Son House
When Johnson reappeared with a mature technique, this older musician's equivocal answers about the devil pact were taken as confirmation of it.
Q 17Which Mississippi musician, who practised in graveyards at night, taught Robert Johnson much of his technique?
Ike Zimmerman
The pair sat on tombstones in a country cemetery to practise undisturbed, one probable root of the sold-his-soul legend.
Q 18The crossroads deal-with-the-devil story was originally told about which other, unrelated bluesman?
Tommy Johnson
He grew up near Dockery Plantation and actively promoted the tale himself; his brother Ledell repeated it to researchers in the 1960s.
Q 19Robert Johnson's death certificate, found almost 30 years later, listed what cause of death?
Nothing at all
No autopsy was done; a note added later on the back records a plantation owner's opinion that he died of syphilis.
Q 20According to the story told by David 'Honeyboy' Edwards, how was Robert Johnson killed?
He drank poisoned whiskey
Edwards said he knocked the first bottle out of Johnson's hand, only for a second one to be accepted.
Q 24Which 1990 Robert Johnson box set sold over a million copies and won a Grammy for Best Historical Album?
The Complete Recordings
It reached number 80 on the Billboard pop album chart, an astonishing feat for Depression-era blues 78s.
Q 25Robert Johnson spent his earliest years in which city, attending the Carnes Avenue Colored School?
Memphis
His city schooling set him apart from most Delta bluesmen; his signature on his marriage certificate suggests a decent education.
Q 26Which blues guitarist, son of Johnson's partner Estella Coleman, learned guitar directly from him?
Robert Lockwood Jr.
He was nicknamed 'Robert Junior' because of the association, a name he later said he disliked.
Q 27Which bluesman travelled with Robert Johnson to Chicago, Texas, New York, Canada, Kentucky and Indiana?
Johnny Shines
He recalled that Johnson would simply pick up and walk off mid-gig, vanishing for weeks at a time.
Q 28Which Mississippi bluesman recast 'Dust My Broom' as an electric Chicago-style hit in 1951?
Elmore James
His amplified slide riff became one of the first recorded examples of the classic Chicago shuffle beat.
Q 29How many photographs of Robert Johnson were widely known before the 1980s?
None
Three images turned up with his half-sister in 1972–73; the 'dime-store photo' was first published in Rolling Stone in 1986.
Q 30Whom did the Mississippi Supreme Court rule in 1998 to be the bluesman's son and sole heir?
Claud Johnson
The ruling let a retired truck driver from Crystal Springs collect over $1 million in royalties.