25 Aug Soul Musician, HeavyDrunk, raises funds to maintain Little Zion Church and Gravesite of Legendary “Father of the Blues” Robert Johnson

Dynamic soul musician, Rob Robinson, aka HeavyDrunk, is spearheading a fundraising effort set up by him to restore the grave of the “Father of the Blues”musical legend Robert Johnson at the Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Greenwood, Mississippi. All funds will be used to fix the signs of disrepair at the burial site and the church.

“I heard the legend before I heard the sound” recalls Robinson. “As a child I was beguiled by the story. A man who ‘sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in the Mississippi Delta,’ not far from where I grew up. It ran through me with a chill, like a ghost story. Then I heard the sound, and I knew it to be true. Those songs, that sound resonated in a place deeper than it should. A spiritual vibration that tore me up by the roots and tossed me in the Muddy Mississippi, lost forever.

This past spring, I found myself in Cleveland, Mississippi at the Music Cities Conference. A friend had invited me while we were picking up trash together on an old Tennessee country road. After the conference I had a day off before HeavyDrunk was to play the Juke Joint Festival at Bluesberry in Clarksdale, Mississippi, so, I drove to Rosedale and stuffed myself with Delta tamales at the White Front Cafe and I pointed the Cadillac towards Greenwood. I turned on Money Road and soon found The Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church, an old white wooden church, circa 1872, with a green roof standing between the Tallahatchie River and miles of cotton fields. There is a Blues Trail marker out front that notes this location as the final resting place of Robert Johnson.

Some folks were working in and around the church, so, being a lover of Jesus Christ, I walked in to put some money in the plate. I met Mrs. Clora Greene there. We began talking about the church and Robert and we prayed together. I did not know that this was the church featured in the movie ‘The Help’ as well. She walked me out to the gravesite and told me how the church had been struggling to keep up the graveyard and the church building. She told me how buses full of tourists from all over were showing up, but the church, the church that was responsible for the gravesite, was not receiving any donations from that. Standing there with her beside Robert’s grave, I felt like God was walking me on a path of righteousness. I have been spreading the word to raise money and awareness for Little Zion and Robert Johnson’s gravesite ever since.”

To donate to the repair fund, send via Cash App to Little Zion Church at: $LittleZionMBChurch