Robert Johnson and Lonnie Donnegan

Young Robert started learning from Brown and sneaking out to watch him perform. His mother's husband profoundly disapproved of him trying to make a living as a musician. By the time he was 17 he was playing in Duke Joints, playing whatever music people wanted to hear. He particularly enjoyed the music of Jimmy Vodges, the first big country music star. It also seems at least in part to have been as a way of making himself more like two of his other musical idols - Tommy Johnson and Lonnie Johnson.