Tommy Johnson

Tommy Johnson sold his soul to the devil, or so he claimed, and he played the part with his guitar behind his head and between his legs. The family moved to Crystal Springs around 1910, where brother LeDell taught him the basics. In 1916 he moved to Webb Jennings's plantation near Drew and fell under Charley Patton's influence. His drinking, including Sterno mixed with water, became the subject of "Canned Heat Blues," one of nine tracks he cut for Victor in Memphis in February 1928.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Capitol Museum — 24 mi
  Mississippi's Greek Revival statehouse of 1839, where the legislature voted to secede, Hiram Revels was elected to the U.S. Senate and the 1890 constitution was written, now a free state museum.
• Farish Street Historic District — 24 mi
  Jackson's Black business and cultural center, where Medgar Evers kept the NAACP office and furniture-store owners recorded the blues, now a quiet National Register district.
• Mississippi Civil Rights Museum — 24 mi
  A state museum in downtown Jackson, opened in 2017 beside the Museum of Mississippi History, that tells the movement from 1945 to 1970 through the people who made it.
• Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument — 26 mi
  A modest ranch house in Jackson's Elraine neighborhood where Medgar Evers was shot in the driveway in 1963, now a unit of the National Park Service.

More markers nearby

• Crystal Springs — steps away
• Bus-Train Collision of 1942 — steps away
• P.T.A. Birthplace — 0.9 mi
• Robert Johnson Birthplace — 9.0 mi