Legend and Myth in Music

Myth/Legend #1

The legend of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil starts out as him being at the cross roads just south of Rosedale. He is upset because he has just recently played a gig and been booed out of it because his playing was not good. He meets a man (the devil) at the crossroads at midnight and the man’s dog howls a sound that Johnson had never heard before. He tells the man he has to have that sound and the devil says the cost is his soul and Robert Johnson gave him his soul so that he could have that sound and become a guitar player like no one had ever seen before. He wanted to become the King of Delta Blues.

Myth/Legend #2

When Ozzy Osbourne was in the band Black Sabbath he was known to throw animal insides out at the crowd. One day a fan finally had enough of it and threw a live bat at him up on stage. Ozzy believed the bat to be a fake one and put it in his mouth and bit the head off of it. He had to be rushed to a hospital because the bat had bit him back and he needed a rabies shot. The after this incident, Ozzy was trying to get signed a deal because Black Sabbath had broken up and he had done another crazy act. When he walked into CBS records he had two doves and threw one up in the air. The other he, yet again, bit the head off of. He had done this stunt to try and catch the attention of CBS records and he had been drinking prior to the meeting.

Myth/Legend #3

 There is/was a supposed rumor that Paul McCartney had died right after the recording of the Abbey Road album. Rumor has it that a man named “Tom” called into a radio station and that is what first sparked this whole controversy. It is said that in the album cover Lennon is dressed in white which is a sign of the church and of mourning, Ringo was dressed in black which represented the undertaker, Harrison was dressed in work clothes which resembled the gravedigger, and lastly McCartney himself was out of step with the other members and he had no shoes on which most corpses are not buried with their shoes. People also say that he license plate on the back of a Volkswagen says,“ LMW 28IF”, which is interpreted as saying that Paul would have been 28 if he had lived.

Myth/Legend #4

Bob Dylan had just became known as a folksinger back in 1965. He went to the Newport Folk Festivals and played something a little bit different then folk. He used an electric guitar and played new songs from his album Bringing it all Back Home and when he played the songs at the Festival they were not a hit. He was booed while on stage and only had the chance to play four songs before he left the stage. 

Myth/Legend #5

Back in the 70’s believe began to think that Gene Simmons had had a transplant of a cows tongue put into his mouth. During concerts he would alway stick out his long tongue and people did not believe there to be any other explanation for it. What is really true is the fact that Gene Simmons was just born with an abnormally large tongue of 7 inches. There was no way that we had the medical equipment back then in order to transplant a cows tongue into Gene Simmons mouth.

Myth/Legend #6

It is said that in the Sgt. Peppers album cover there is yet again clues to the death of Paul McCartney. McCartney is holding a clarinet which is a sign of mourn. Others also say that there is a left handed guitar made out of yellow flowers and McCartney played the guitar and was left handed. They say that all of the famous people that are there are mourning over McCartney’s death, kind of like a funeral. Three people that I recognize in this is: Marilyn Monroe, Edgar Allen Poe, and Bob Dylan. Marilyn is a famous actress, Poe is a famous poet, and Bob Dylan is an artist. Three people I do not recognize are Albert Stubbins, Max Miller, and Lenny Bruce.