Ranked number five on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s inaugural ballot in 1986. Named one of the Top 50 Guitarists of All Time by Guitar.com. A major influence to some of the music industry’s biggest names such as Eric Clapton, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac, just to name a few.

For most great musicians, the above accomplishments might say enough about the legacy they left behind. But for the legendary Robert Johnson, his posthumous awards and honors only tell half the story of his mysterious and enigmatic life.

From the famous Crossroads where Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil, to the purported poisoning that ended his life, to his multiple tombstone locations, maybe no other Mississippi Delta musician offers as much intrigue as Robert Leroy Johnson.

The story of Robert Johnson doesn’t start or stop with his instrumental talents. The lore behind this Delta musician runs much deeper than that -- down a road of mystery, lore, mythology, and some say, reality.

As the story goes, in the 1930’s Robert Johnson ventured to a Mississippi cross roads at midnight to make a deal with the devil. The pact? Offer his eternal soul for Lucifer’s hellacious guitar tuning skills. With guitar in-hand, Johnson and the devil stuck an accord.

According to the legend, Johnson’s new talents were immediate. In fact, Son House -- a boyhood idol of Robert Johnson and one of the most highly regarded blues guitarists of all time -- said Johnson’s seemingly overnight metamorphosis from a poor guitar player to an elite guitarist must have meant he sold his soul to the devil at the Crossroads. “He sold his soul to play like that,” House once said.

Tall tale? Maybe. Maybe not.

It is popular belief that the story is an adaptation of the African Hoodoo folktale brought over by West African slaves. It states that if you wait on a moonless night at a country cross roads, the guardian spirit of the cross roads will offer fame, money and success in exchange for the soul. The insertion of the devil in place of the crossroad’s deity in Johnson’s account almost certainly developed from the Christian influences that existed in North America at the time slaves arrived.

The fable was a hopeful and inspiring story among the poor, struggling, and very spiritual blacks of the Delta during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Because of this belief, most of Johnson’s contemporaries saw nothing implausible about his mystical account.

However, the exact location of the crossroads where Robert Johnson made his pact with Lucifer is an age-old and hotly contested debate.

As his career continued to blossom, the crossroads legend continued to grow and morph largely in part to Johnson’s haunting, spiritual lyrics, songs such as “Cross Road Blues” and “Me and the Devil Blues”, and eventually, his unforeseen death at age 27.

On the night of Saturday, August 13, 1938, Robert Johnson was playing in a juke joint on the outskirts of Greenwood, Mississippi.

According to friends of Johnson, this was the time and place where he was poisoned with either strychnine or lye. Some say it was by the juke joint owner who was jealous of the flirtation between his wife and Johnson. Another version says Johnson was offered an open bottle of whiskey by a woman unrelated to the joint owner, of which his friend Sonny Boy Williamson advised him not to drink, but Johnson replied "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand."

In the early morning hours, he was taken to a house in Greenwood where his sickness grew. Three days later he died. Some say of the poisoned whiskey bottle, other stories range from pneumonia to syphilis.  As legend has it, Johnson’s death was a violent array of howling and convulsions.

The mystery of Johnson’s death doesn’t end with how he died, however. The biggest question might be his final resting place.

Three graveyards claim the musical legend’s tombstone. Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City; Payne Chapel near Quito Mississippi; and the Little Zion M.B. Church north of Greenwood.

Which one is the real Robert Johnson resting place? That all depends on who you ask. Each site has been researched and each offers an intriguing argument.

Visit the sites today, and you’ll see all kinds of memorabilia, liquor bottles and music-related trinkets left atop the headstones by adoring fans from across the globe.

Robert Johnson only recorded twice in his short lifetime, first in San Antonio in November 1936 and again in Dallas in June 1937.

Though Robert Johnson has been gone for decades, the intrigue of his life and death lives on through several Delta landmarks. Thousands of infatuated travelers from around the world visit each year to explore the sites that have helped spawn this unique legend.

Gravesites - After talking to locals at all three gravesite locations, you’ll leave thinking each one is the real resting place of Robert Johnson. Every gravesite -- Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City; Payne Chapel near Quito, Mississippi; Little Zion M.B. Church north of Greenwood -- offers its own believable story.

Crossroads - The intersection of US 61 and US 49 in Clarksdale (today the intersection closer into to Clarksdale right next to the railroad tracks). The junction of Dockery Road and Old Hwy 8 near the famous blues Mecca of Dockery Farms outside of Cleveland. The crossroads of Hwy 1 and Hwy 8 in Rosedale. Crosstown Road in Tunica. Old unnamed cotton fields in Greenwood.

From Memphis to Tunica to Clarksdale to Rosedale, claims of the “real” Crossroads persist in convincing fashion throughout the Delta. Exploring all of them offers one fascinating road trip through the Delta.

House where Robert Johnson Died - According to Honeyboy Edwards in the documentary “Looking for Robert Johnson”, 109 YOUNG STREET in Greenwood is the supposed location of the house Johnson took his last breath; a quaint, yellow home in the city’s Baptist Town District.