Reading "Looking Around Mississippi," a limited-edition 2005 photo and essay book by Mississippi television weatherman and features writer Walt Grayson, I was reminded there is more than one location for the grave of Delta blues musician and composer Robert Johnson who inspired Elvis and the Rolling Stones and many more.
His 1938 "death certificate simply said he was buried at Zion Church," Grayson writes. "For years no one knew which one."
They're still confused, judging from this web site and this one, the former choosing to locate Johnson's remains under a simple flat marker in a family plot behind Payne Chapel in Quito (short for mosquito) reading "Resting in the Blues," and the latter preferring a more ornate cenotaph at Mount Zion Church at Sheppardtown in Leflore County. It says quite a lot more, including "his blues addressed generations he would never know."
Grayson, a Baptist minister, contends the "most likely" grave for Johnson is the one with the modest upright stone at Little Zion Church on the Money Road north of Greenwood, which has this reproduced in Johnson's handwriting: "I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He will call me from the Grave." Above that it says "he influenced millions beyond his time."
Each marker is attended by flowers sometimes and offerings most of the time, of pennies and half-empty pony bottles of Jack Daniels. The devout obviously are taking no chances.
Grayson's book, which is full of good reporting and fine photographs, is available via the publisher, and also starts at $144.95 $79.41 used at Amazon.
