The 27 Club
If you haven’t heard of the notorious “27 Club,” it’s an unofficial list of talented musicians who have died way before their time; at the age of – you guessed it – 27. It only seems reasonable to think the number represents something mystical or beyond our means, right? Decades before Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse all left us at the same age, Robert Johnson could be seen as the club’s founding member.
Photo by Alan Davidson, Shutterstock.com / Ray Stevenson, Shutterstock.com / Araldo Di Crollalanza, Shutterstock.com
Before selling your soul to rock and roll ever became a “thing,” Robert Johnson died in 1938, at age 27, under mysterious and violent circumstances. By that point, he was already a legend. His story of meeting the devil at the “Crossroads” to make a deal for his extraordinary talent had already become an urban legend at the time. After his death, the music legend became what may be argued as the first-ever rock star.