Rock Myths

Robert Johnson started off with just the harmonica, but soon turned to guitar as an outlet to get out of poverty. He randomly learned how to play guitar like one of the best in such a small time, thus created the rumor that he sold his soul to the devil. The story goes that he went to Mississippi, to a crossroads, and traded his soul for musical talent to the devil. Robert Johnson never actually agreed with the rumors, but a lot of his songs make references to hell, the devil, and the crossroads. This is said to be part of the Hoodoo religion, which uses rituals to summon a hellish creature called Legba at the crossroads. The other, more realistic theory is said that he just practiced a lot and had help from Ike Zinnerman. Tommy Johnson, Robert Johnson’s contemporary, said in a famous quote on how he got so musically talented, "If you want to learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar and your go to where the road crosses that way, where a crossroads is. Get there be sure to get there just a little ' fore 12 that night so you know you'll be there. You have your guitar and be playing a piece there by yourself…A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you. That's the way I learned to play anything I want."
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/german/course_webpages/devil/grmn256/rjdeal.html
As Ozzy Osbourne was in Des Moines in a tour called Night of the Living Dead, he often threw pig intestines and calves’ livers at the crowd, so it wasn’t a big deal when people started to throw meat and even a living bat onto stage. When this bat, stunned by the lights, showed up on stage Ozzy thought it was a toy and bit the head off. He said “For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid, with the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth and running down my chin. Then the head in my mouth twitched.” He doesn’t denounce the rumor, but embraces that it actually happened. CBS also confirmed that he once bit the head off of a dove’s head too. Another rumor that is completely untrue from Ozzy is that he would throw dogs bodies off the stage and not start until the dead carcasses are thrown back on stage.
http://www.rollingstone.com/Mythozzy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6209030/Ozzy-Osbourne-describes-biting-head-off-bat.html

The Beatles were the pioneers of Pop rock and in 1969 a huge controversy hit them. It is said that Paul McCartney has been dead since 1966 when he crashed his Aston-Martin on a rainy night after a recording session. After this incident, the band stopped a tour and found an impersonator, it is said. They began slowing hinting towards his death, John Lennon saying “Here another hint for you. The walrus is Paul.” This is a big sign because of the walrus being a symbol for death in Roman mythology. The Abby Roads album really hinted towards it specifically with what they are wearing. “John, dressed in pure white symbolizes the preacher or heavenly body. Ringo, dressed in full black symbolizes the mourner. George, in scruffy denim jeans and shirt symbolizes the gravedigger and Paul, dressed in a shabby, out-dated suit and barefoot symbolizes the corpse.” This describes a funeral possession going on with the death of Paul. There also used to be a “bloodstain” in the original album art.
http://homepages.tesco.net/harbfamily/opd/albumabbey.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/Mythpaul

In 1965, there was a music festival in Freebody Park in Newport, Rhode Island. Bob Dylan had been a huge folk artist and had never actually used an electric guitar publically, until July 25th at Newport. He came out dressed in black pants and green shirt, with a Fender Stratocaster in his hands. This idea was a complete failure because they did not practice or actually sound good in general. On the tape that recorded this, there was no booing but yelling. People said it was because of the PA mix and said that Dylan’s voice was also very distorted and disgusting. He kept coming on and offstage after this horrific incident, finally coming out alone asking for a harmonica from someone. A man that yelled ‘Judas’ had said, “I think most of all I was angry that Dylan... not that he'd played electric, but that he'd played electric with a really poor sound system. It was not like it is on the record [the official album]. It was a wall of mush. That, and it seemed like a cavalier performance, a throwaway performance compared with the intensity of the acoustic set earlier on. There were rumblings all around me and the people I was with were making noises and looking at each other. It was a build-up.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6085476/50_moments_that_changed_the_history_of_rock__roll_dylan_goes_electric_in_1965/2
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/bob-dylan-how-i-found-the-man-who-shouted-judas-507883.html

Before a European tour in 1973, Rolling Stone’s Keith Richards was said to undergo a treatment to replace his entire drug and alcohol saturated blood with whole new blood. This treatment would have made him pure and clean, and helped with his addiction to drugs and alcohol. He has come clean about it, though, stating that on his way to treat his heroin addiction some Switzerland boys asked him what he was doing, in which he replied “To exchange my blood.” They took this in a wrong way and ended up in a huge myth about Richards. This shows that even a simple comment by an artist can fuel a huge myth.
http://classicrock.about.com/od/history/a/rock_myths_2.htm

Sgt. Pepper Beatles Album:
Known
Karl Marx: Creator of early Communist ideas/invented Marxism.
Marilyn Monroe: Idea of beauty in 60s/70s, actor and model.
Edgar Allen Poe: Dark/depressing writer
Not Known
Oscar Wilde: A writer, and an Irish nationalist
Fred Astaire: Dancer, actor, and choreographer (40s-70s)
Stan Laurel/Oliver Hardy: Comedian Duo

http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/sgtpepper/