The legend: As a young man, Robert Johnson wanted to be a great blues musician, so he sold his soul to the devil at the intersection of Highway 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. It worked. He became a master of the blues.

One story of his death: In 1938, at age 27, he drank from a bottle of whiskey that had been offered to him that was possibly laced with strychnine. He died a several days later in severe pain.

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