20 Things You Didn't Know About O Brother, Where Art Thou?
7. Tommy Was A Real Bluesman
During their Deep South Odyssey, Everett, Pete and Delmar encounter many strange and somewhat magical characters. At the same time, though, many of the people that they meet are versions of real people from the Depression-era South; most obviously soul-selling bluesman Tommy.
Played by real-life blues musician Chris Thomas King, Tommy Johnson plays guitar on The Soggy Bottom Boys' runaway hit and is later rescued by the other three from the KKK. Earlier in the film he tells them of how he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in exchange for his guitar-playing ability.
This backstory has caused many fans of the movie to associate Tommy with Robert Johnson, the legendary guitarist who was an itinerant blues musician in the Mississippi Delta in the late 1930s before dying mysteriously aged just 27 (the first of the so-called "27 Club" of music icons who died at that age).
Robert Johnson is the most famous person to whom the "sold his soul at a crossroads for his guitar skills" myth has been attached, but it was previously associated with another guitarist: the real-life Tommy Johnson (no relation of Robert).
Although less well known today, the real Tommy Johnson was one of the major Delta blues musicians of the 1920s, known for his vocal range and trick guitar playing (playing behind his head or between his legs). He embellished his mysterious past with stories that added to his dark persona, including the famous devil-at-the-crossroads legend.