Ozzy and Jack's World Detour 1x10

1. So, Memphis, birth of rock and roll.

2. We re also gonna go down to Clarksdale, Mississippi.

3. Where blues legend, Robert Johnson supposedly

4. sold his sold to the devil at The Crossroads.

5. Uh, is there any interest in seeing if he

6. offered Robert Johnson the same contract you got?

7. There s always some mystic behind everything.

8. Great way to divert from the question.

9. It s a great way to get your career going-

10. Did you sell your soul to the devil?

11. See you re still not answering my question.

12. Did you sell your soul to the devil?

13. Me?

14. Me, what huh? Hey look at that!

15. I'm your father so what does that make you?

16. I guess technically uh-

17. we re not doing that, let s move on.

18. My name's Jack Osbourne.

19. And this is my dad, Ozzy.

20. Heavy metal god.

21. Are you ready?

22. Prince of darkness.

23. And surprisingly enough...

24. History nerd.

25. As the old saying goes...

26. Like father, like son.

27. So my dad and I are doing something we've

28. always wanted to do.

29. We're hitting the road,

30. just the two of us,

31. and a bucket list of places and things

32. we've only ever read about in books.

33. Oh my God, this is amazing.

34. Or seen on TV and the Web.

35. Do you have your knife? Yes.

36. Because of all days, we might need it.

37. There are no roadies.

38. No tour buses.

39. What the is this?

40. No boundaries. Oh!

41. Welcome to Ozzy and Jack's World Detour.

42. Let's rock 'n' roll.

43. Hello? Hello!

44. So what s going on today?

45. Well, we re going to go check out SUN Studio

46. because I know you want- Yeah, you know that s

47. where it all began really.

48. Yeah, they re going to give us an-

49. Didn t Elvis used to record there?

50. Elvis recorded there.

51. Jerry Lee Lewis recorded there.

52. That s really cool. Yeah.

53. No Gracelands? No Graceland.

54. They are not interested in having

55. us come over.

56. Oh them. Exactly.

57. Okay let s go! Let s do it.

58. Get my coat.

59. Have you got your black leather shoes?

60. So you can sing the blues.

61. Really?

62. So I thought, even though we re not allowed

63. to go to Graceland, I thought we might as well

64. just drive past it.

65. I don t think so.

66. Maybe we can just run out and take

67. a picture, and just move on.

68. I think the reason why they don t want

69. us to go there is because...

70. but both times I had

71. a bit too much to drink and they threw me out.

72. Well that makes sense why they didn t

73. call me back.

74. Did they let you in the bathroom

75. where he died? No.

76. That s funny.

77. I m sure they didn t.

78. Ye old, marry old SUN Studio should

79. be just down here.

80. Oh this is cool.

81. Hello! Jayne White: Hi! Hey!

82. I m Jack. Nice to meet you Jack.

83. Well are you all excited to learn about

84. some rock n roll history?

85. Absolutely.

86. Sam Phillips, the genius who started

87. Memphis Recording Service, started it as a studio.

88. But eventually he started the SUN Record

89. Company within the confines of

90. Memphis Recording Service.

91. In 1952 Sam launched some records, and then

92. one year later an eighteen year old

93. Elvis Presley came walking through these doors

94. and changed music history forever.

95. Marion Keisker, Sam Phillips' secretary,

96. sat here and she would greet all of these

97. amazing musicians.

98. You know, Elvis Presley was kind of

99. a kid who hung around here a lot,

100. kind of trying to get in and trying

101. to record here and Marion Keisker

102. was the one that actually recorded

103. him for the first time and she convinced

104. Sam to give him his first shot in

105. the studio so.

106. Wow. Good convincing job.

107. Yeah if it wasn t for her,

108. who knows what would have happened right?

109. Johnny Cash actually when he came here

110. for the first time was just a door to door salesman.

111. And one of the things that he only sold

112. as a really bad door to door salesman,

113. was a television set to Marion Keisker.

114. Very cool. Kind of fun, yeah.

115. I always find it interesting to hear

116. stories about what musicians did before

117. they were musicians.

118. Well I was unemployed,

119. then I got a job in a factory.

120. Is that where you tested car horns?

121. That was my first musical job.

122. Elvis Presley did That's All Right here

123. that was his kind of- his big thing and-

124. Yeah. It was all live.

125. It was just all raw. Wow!

126. So they told us that the bands

127. would record live in one take.

128. Yeah.

129. How hard is that?

130. It s like a live album.

131. You can t go and remix it.

132. You would get out a tape machine

133. and a sing a song, and that was it.

134. And this microphone actually is an

135. original Sure 55 Unit I mic.

136. Elvis has used this microphone.

137. Wow.

138. I got electrocuted by one of these.

139. What, really?

140. Bang! Stay away from him.

141. Groovy, Elvis microphone.

142. So why don t we go into the engineering office.

143. This is not something that everybody

144. gets to see.

145. Our engineer Curry is here.

146. Hello Curry. Pleased to meet you.

147. So is this all original?

148. Kind of like from here over

149. is the originals.

150. What do you record on that?

151. We re using tape, but a lot of bands

152. like to do just the computer because

153. it s more flexible. It makes it easier.

154. Too easy now because someone s cheating

155. and screwing around with it.

156. I know right?

157. Wow.

158. Well do you guys know the story

159. about Rocket 88?

160. No.

161. Well it s considered to be one

162. of the very first rock n roll songs

163. and it was done out there.

164. And we actually have one of the first

165. pressings that was ever done of it.

166. And so this was one of the first pressings

167. they ever did once they decided

168. that they were going to put it out.

169. The story is BB King told Ike Turner,

170. who was a DJ in Clarksdale Mississippi,

171. You know I heard there was

172. this guy in Memphis cutting stuff,

173. you should get your band up here.

174. So Ike Turner got a band together,

175. they showed up,

176. pulled a guitar amplifier out,

177. and the speaker was busted.

178. And so they re freaking out.

179. Sam has the idea to stuff the back of it

180. full of newspaper to keep the

181. speaker cone in place.

182. And so when they plug that guitar in

183. and start playing, it s like

184. rattling like crazy but they love the sound.

185. So that's kind of considered to be

186. one of the first times that distortion

187. was used on a recording.

188. And then so there s that part of it.

189. Also, they re essentially singing about

190. cruising around town, drinking,

191. and picking up girls, and so that s-

192. the subject matter and the fact that they re

193. using the distortion makes it one of

194. the first rock n roll records.

195. I say it was a gift from God,

196. or someone else.

197. So I heard two things

198. that you have big connections with

199. to the city.

200. One, is that I heard you were arrested here.

201. Oh yeah.

202. That s pretty dangerous of you.

203. But the other one,

204. is that you covered "Blue Suede Shoes."

205. Yeah.

206. Which was originally recorded in this studio.

207. Really?

208. And written by Carl Perkins,

209. of course Elvis Presley did it as well.

210. And I decided maybe this would be

211. a good time to listen to Ozzy s version

212. of "Blue Suede Shoes."

213. How about that?

214. It's pretty rockin'.

215. What! No.

216. Was that a thing that you guys

217. did a lot of? Back then.

218. When you re a new band,

219. if you got a hit with a cover,

220. That guitar player s got no fingertips.

221. I see that,

222. they re all taped up.

223. Oh wow. That s crazy.

224. Really? Yeah.

225. Pretty good.

226. That s awesome.

227. That s a decent cover. So do you remember that?

228. But to be here, it s magic.

229. I think Beale Street is around here somewhere.

230. What s the Beale Street?

231. Beale Street is where you fought the law

232. and the law won.

233. What?

234. Where you got arrested back in 1984.

235. Oh I'm bound to remember that.

236. I thought it was at- I don t seem to

237. remember a freeway. Passed out on a freeway.

238. It must ve been another time.

239. What like walking on a freeway or like-

240. Probably passed out in the middle

241. of the freeway.

242. Actually the story goes like this:

243. In 1984, my dad had just got done

244. playing a massive show in Memphis,

245. and he decided to go partying

246. on Beale Street with none other than

247. Motley Crue, always a solid idea.

248. Well, he proceeded to get really drunk and

249. got arrested for public intoxication,

250. and was forced to spend the night in jail.

251. But you don t even like hockey.

252. Why are you wearing a hockey jersey?

253. Well that one day I was a hockey fan.

254. Better than a dress.

255. I m getting closer.

256. Yeah you got knicked at the end of it.

257. Well usually when you get arrested

258. for being drunk in public,

259. you don t really remember it.

260. Hello Rock! Rocky. Rocky!

261. You all right Rocky?

262. He s getting a white face, mommy.

263. Hair dye. Dye his face!

264. What? He s getting gray!

265. Can t have him getting old.

266. Hello baby.

267. He s beautiful. Isn t he a gorgeous

268. young boy?

269. Hello?

270. Who are you talking to?

271. Rocky.

272. Oh, all right.

273. Coffee, ice, water. So!

274. So what s the deal now?

275. So I thought me and you would take

276. a bit of a road trip,

277. and head south down to Clarksdale

278. in Mississippi and-

279. What s Clarksdale all about?

280. So Clarksdale is where Robert Johnson

281. wrote the song, The Crossroads.

282. Oh yeah I've heard it.

283. But the myth behind the crossroads,

284. is where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.

285. Is that just a figure of speech or?

286. There s a lot of people that actually

287. believe he did.

288. Look, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil,

289. you re the Prince of Darkness.

290. I mean there s some correlation there.

291. Maybe we ll meet on the other side.

292. Maybe you guys have already met.

293. Maybe he s inside me.

294. Maybe you have his soul.

295. Maybe I think I got the dark one s soul.

296. Should we hit the road? I ll get my coat.

297. I ll see you down stairs. Okay.

298. Hello Rockems!

299. You all right Rocky? Rocky!

300. With bags packed, we headed down to

301. Clarksdale, Mississippi.

302. So the Prince of Darkness could see first hand

303. where the devil supposedly bought a soul.

304. Clarksdale, fifty-nine miles.

305. Going down to the crossroads.

306. Now, I was reading online,

307. there s a musician by the name of

308. Super Chicken.

309. Super Chicken? Super Chicken.

310. That s not a really good blues name,

311. Super Chicken.

312. Well what would your blues name be?

313. You know there s like Muddy Waters...

314. Uh, Gas Boat Ozzy.

315. Gas Boat Ozzy?

316. Well maybe I guess Ozzy was your blues name.

317. Oh no, my real name is John.

318. But you know my immediate family

319. you know call me John.

320. But I'm not really crazy about the name John.

321. John!

322. So Super Chicken,

323. we re gonna try to find him.

324. He s a bit of a local legend down

325. in Clarksdale.

326. Yup.

327. And his grandfather knew Robert Johnson,

328. and maybe he ll be able to tell us about

329. him selling his soul to the devil.

330. That s a low crock of.

331. But there s a lot of interpretations of

332. what selling your soul to the devil is.

333. When you really want something,

334. they use tell me, you sold your soul to the devil.

335. Totally.

336. There s a lot of mystery around Robert Johnson.

337. I mean there s only two photos of him

338. in existence and he recorded around

339. twenty-nine songs in two years,

340. and then he died in 1938.

341. Well we should give Mr. Chicken a call

342. because he s being somewhat elusive.

343. Hey Super Chicken, it s Jack Osbourne and-

344. Ozzy Osbourne.

345. So call me back!

346. My number came up on your caller I. D.

347. so hit me up! Bye!

348. Wonder if he calls back.

349. I hope this Chicken Foot,

350. whatever his name is,

351. I hope he s worth going.

352. Chicken foot!

353. Bursting for a piss. Me too.

354. Oh for sake.

355. How much further!

356. Twenty minutes. hell.

357. Couldn't we gotten a helicopter?

358. Sixteen minutes.

359. Oh now you want to get in a helicopter?

360. Okay, I ll pull over and we ll find

361. a place to piss.

362. This is nuts!

363. All right where do I piss?

364. Do you guys have a restroom?

365. Yeah straight ahead there!

366. Thank you.

367. When we pulled up to that place

368. I thought, What have we been driving for,

369. for three hours and come to this dump!

370. And it was little Pandora s Box!

371. You opened it and it was like this

372. amazing club.

373. Check this out. What?

374. So apparently they hand this out

375. to kids to color in at restaurants.

376. Who's that?

377. Oh!

378. That is your mugshot in a color

379. book form.

380. Like you know when you go to restaurants and

381. they give the kids coloring books and crayons?

382. That's what they give them.

383. Wow, I m infamous.

384. What s the weirdest thing you ve ever

385. seen your name on?

386. I saw a diaper once with Ozzy Osbourne.

387. That s funny.

388. Can I get ya ll anything or do ya ll need anything?

389. I m good at the moment.

390. What s the story with this?

391. Well there s a lot of randomness so,

392. you never know what you re going to find.

393. Right?

394. So what did this place used to be?

395. This was a plantation.

396. This would have been a functioning

397. cotton gin from early mechanization

398. of cotton.

399. I mean many of the shacks, like the

400. one s that are out here, would have been

401. something that would have been around

402. during that era.

403. Where like what Robert Johnson would

404. have hung out at, you know?

405. And then they would just set up, kind of spur

406. of the moment till the law would show up.

407. If they were serving liquor or moonshine.

408. Good times. Yeah.

409. Do you know Super Chicken?

410. Super Chicken s played here a good bit.

411. We ve actually got one of his guitars

412. in here if ya ll want to check it out.

413. Yeah, let s check it out.

414. This is one of the guitars he made.

415. I don t think I ve ever seen a

416. Jerry can guitar.

417. Oh it s heavy!

418. Don t drop it. Yeah it is quite heavy.

419. Hold it! Oh wow!

420. Wow!

421. How much does this go for?

422. It can be anywhere from like a grand to like-

423. Three thousand.

424. Yeah.

425. Wow!

426. He s charging three thousand dollars for a

427. gas can that he turned into a guitar.

428. This guy must be a legend around there!

429. Supposedly! I mean hey Super Chicken

430. is one of the greats!

431. But when you say his name what s his name,

432. is Super Chicken I go, Maybe he s not really-

433. I never know whether you re

434. winding me up or what?

435. So, do you know what these shacks are?

436. They call them share cropper shacks.

437. And what it was, farmers would give

438. land to the workers for them to work

439. the land themselves, and then they would

440. have to share the profit of what they got

441. with the farmers.

442. So it was basically a step above slavery

443. but it wasn t slavery you know?

444. That s. Isn t it?

445. Yeah it was total , but some

446. share croppers would kind of translate

447. that daily hardship into songs,

448. and the lyrics would form what

449. we now know as the delta blues.

450. You know Robert Johnson for instance,

451. he was once a poverty stricken rural

452. southern share cropper.

453. Are we ever going to find this

454. Fried Chicken Super Foot whatever

455. his name is.

456. Well first, let s go check out

457. The Crossroads.

458. So this is officially Clarksdale.

459. Is this it?

460. My dad and I were on our way to

461. see the mystical crossroads.

462. Which is where the blues legend,

463. Robert Johnson, supposedly sold his soul

464. to the devil.

465. Also known as, my father s father.

466. So Clarksdale s kind of significant because

467. it s really just a small little town,

468. but it was kind of like the staging

469. point for a lot of artists to come up to Memphis.

470. Ike Turner, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson,

471. you know all these classic blues and

472. early rock guys, so you know the song

473. The Crossroads?" Yeah.

474. Well it was originally recorded by

475. Robert Johnson.

476. It was like a standard blues song

477. that everybody-

478. Yeah.

479. We all ripped off him. Every one of us.

480. Yeah.

481. He comes from jazz blues.

482. Cause when we started off Black Sabbath,

483. when we used to be called Earth.

484. We used to do like blues, just covers, you know.

485. So when you started pre- Black Sabbath in your-

486. It originated as a twelve bar blues band.

487. But why the blues?

488. Was it just kind of what the vibe around them?

489. Free form of music it s like twelve bars.

490. When you listen to a Black Sabbath first

491. album, you can here the kind of blues.

492. Metal came from blues.

493. Whatever they call it.

494. This is unbelievable these places.

495. It s like Sunday afternoon every day!

496. Oh look, that s the dude we were just talking to.

497. Is it?

498. Yeah, that s werid.

499. Hopefully he s the devil.

500. Perhaps he is.

501. It was just like the weirdest thing,

502. like he like time warped.

503. Yeah.

504. It was a little Twilight Zoney.

505. This is The Crossroads right here.

506. Look at the sign.

507. Now seeing that we are at The Crossroads,

508. I think it s only appropriate that

509. we listen to the original.

510. It s really good!

511. Yeah. 1936 it was recorded.

512. That was recorded on my mic.

513. That's why it sounds that way.

514. Yeah.

515. So Robert Johnson, he was born in 1911.

516. He recorded this in 1936.

517. But he died in 1938, two years later.

518. From what?

519. There s a lot of myths around how he died.

520. There s one myth that he was poisoned

521. by a lover s husband or boyfriend.

522. Another one is that he was poisoned

523. by another woman.

524. And then some say he died of syphilis.

525. It said on like his death certificate,

526. it said cause of death, No doctor.

527. Like there wasn t a doctor available

528. to treat him, so they just said he

529. died because a doctor Couldn't get to him.

530. Well...

531. Ye old merry, old cross roads.

532. I expected it to be like a-

533. A dusty road.

534. A dusty road.

535. So the story kind of goes like this:

536. On this spot, this is where Robert Johnson

537. supposedly brought his guitar and

538. met with the devil.

539. The devil then tuned his guitar and

540. returned it to Johnson,

541. giving him mastery over the instrument in

542. exchange for his soul.

543. Get that picture.

544. All righty.

545. I thought the devil was going to be there

546. with like a pitchfork just waiting.

547. Now s the time to tell us, as the

548. prince of darkness.

549. What?

550. You can relate can t you?

551. There s no one hear you can tell me.

552. You d like to know wouldn t you?

553. We re at the cross roads you can-

554. Your head is going to start spinning around.

555. Your mother knits that smell.

556. All right. So, when I was researching

557. Super Chicken, I came across this

558. guy by the name of Deak.

559. And Deak is a local musician who also

560. makes his own harmonicas and kind of

561. knows a lot about the music scene here.

562. And seeing as, Super Chicken hasn t

563. returned any of my calls,

564. I thought we d stop by this guys store real quick.

565. And see if he can help us with finding

566. the man they call Super Chicken.

567. I don t know.

568. How did you learn and when did

569. you learn to play the harmonica?

570. I picked it up a bit,

571. I'm not great by any means but

572. the first time I played it was on

573. the Wizard, the song The Wizard

574. Yeah.

575. I mess around with it from time to time.

576. I would play in the key of D."

577. Like deez nuts?

578. What?

579. Oh there we go, Deaks and Blues

580. What my dad didn t know was that

581. I called Deak prior to our visit

582. and had set up a little surprise for him.

583. Boom. "Mississippi, Saxophones

584. and Blues Emporium."

585. Hiyah Hello.

586. Hey Ozzy! How are you sir?

587. This is my son Jack.

588. Hey Deak, how are you sir?

589. How have you been? I talked to you right?

590. Yes you did!

591. All right.

592. What s going on?

593. Welcome to Clarksdale.

594. Thank you very much!

595. Uh-huh.

596. Well, I got just the thing right here!

597. This is called a strobe tuner.

598. I'm going to tune the fore draw which

599. I put a screw in it.

600. And it s flat.

601. So all I've got to do, is take a little

602. bit off the back side of this piece.

603. Wow!

604. Until that meter says it s good.

605. Now see it s just a little bit sharp.

606. So I can just flatten it.

607. You see how they stick together?

608. And that's a full tuned harmonica.

609. Cool, so you just scrape the reed

610. until it's in tune? Yes.

611. Oh wow. That s great.

612. Where did harmonicas originate from, Germany?

613. Well, in the 1600s the Chinese

614. made a glass harmonica.

615. Really?

616. And then the Germans took that design,

617. after the patents ran out and made

618. a free reed instrument.

619. And actually I got one right here that is pre-war.

620. You could see the Star of David in it.

621. Oh yeah.

622. And Hitler made them take that star

623. out before the war.

624. Wow.

625. I ve played Chicago blues all my life,

626. but once I moved here in the Delta,

627. I got a diddley-bow.

628. I got one over here hanging on the wall.

629. What s a diddley-bow, what s that mean?

630. It has three strings- Yeah, I built this.

631. This is a post hole digger handle.

632. You know how you put it in the ground

633. and you take the dirt out of the ground?

634. That's a mouse trap spring, to hold the springs down,

635. and a bolt for a nut.

636. They call that a nut on a guitar,

637. but I put a bolt there.

638. That s great.

639. And it s got a Humbarker pick up.

640. You know what sounds good,

641. a little amplifier yeah?

642. Oh it s a killer rocket, man!

643. It s amazing!

644. Plug it in.

645. You want to hear it? Yeah!

646. I call it my Delta Lickin Stick!

647. And then I invented this rig to hold

648. my harmonica in and it s got an

649. old pick up in it and a wireless.

650. Oh it s a wireless!

651. That's really good!

652. Then he plays it and it s like woah!

653. Yeah.

654. It s just so powerful!

655. Brilliant!

656. That s one of the-

657. That s amazing!

658. That s how I learned how to play the guitar,

659. on this thing.

660. And I got James Cotton to sign it,

661. cause you know you got to have a mojo

662. on everything.

663. The mojo is the most important thing in music.

664. What does a mojo mean?

665. Well it s just something that you

666. tag luck on.

667. Oh yeah yeah yeah.

668. I've got my mojo working like you.

669. I ll show you over here one of the

670. first marine bands.

671. They called it a mouse ear.

672. German? Yes, this is an 1896-

673. Wow!

674. Marine band harmonica.

675. I collect them, and That's why a lot

676. of people come to my store to like.

677. Well what s for sale? and I say,

678. Well, not much because it s all my stuff

679. Should we bust out the surprise?

680. Is it a good surprise?

681. I think it s kind of a good surprise.

682. Oh yeah, wow!

683. Should we bust out the surprise?

684. All right!

685. We were in a harmonica shop in

686. Clarksdale, Mississippi.

687. Looking for the elusive Super Chicken.

688. And I was about to super surprise my father.

689. Ozzy, Jack called me and he pre-ordered

690. one of these for you from him.

691. Oh yeah, wow!

692. How long does it take you to set

693. a blank one from scratch?

694. About fifteen hours because

695. I hand paint them.

696. So I put the black in the front here-

697. That s really cool!

698. How does it play?

699. Good!

700. I got to say, when I was a kid

701. the first music that I heard with the harmonica

702. Yeah yeah.

703. After I heard your first record,

704. with the Wizard on it,

705. I went and got a harmonica the next day.

706. That was it, I was finished.

707. You, you did it to me.

708. It s amazing what music does to you, isn t it?

709. It was 1977 I was playing the harp

710. three years then.

711. So here s what I first learned!

712. Do you want to try it together?

713. I still remember it after all these years too.

714. Yeah!

715. Yeah!

716. That was amazing!

717. You were much better than me!

718. His harmonicas are really good!

719. Carry it with you everywhere?

720. Everywhere I go in that case,

721. it s in my bag now.

722. That s cool, I m sure Deak would

723. love to hear that.

724. Thank you, Jack, for taking me to that place.

725. Now Deak, we re on a quest to find Super

726. Chicken and I hear you know him.

727. I m pretty sure he s down at the

728. Ground Zero Blues Club right now.

729. Okay. He plays there a lot.

730. Hi, welcome to Ground Zero!

731. Come on in and have a seat wherever you like!

732. I ordered some wings to start.

733. That s good.

734. Got enough lemon? No.

735. Do you want more lemon?

736. Yeah. Here you go.

737. What s the deal with so much lemon

738. in your iced tea?

739. I like lemon more than tea!

740. It s cool though.

741. I think it s great!

742. This is literally the cradle of Blues,

743. like this is hallowed ground.

744. You re not going to find a more authentic

745. Blues experience than coming to this place.

746. No.

747. You don t get them places anywhere else!

748. No, felt genuine.

749. That place was like rickety and it worked!

750. The hunt continues for Super Chicken.

751. He s got to be a regular here,

752. cause there s the Super Chicken salad.

753. We have a question for you.

754. Yes.

755. How often does Super Chicken

756. come in here?

757. Normally he plays every other week or so.

758. So he s around? Yes.

759. We ve been trying to track down

760. Super Chicken and I've left him a couple

761. messages on his cell phone.

762. Okay.

763. Do you know- what s the best way

764. to get ahold of Super Chicken?

765. Go to his house.

766. Go to his house? Yeah.

767. And just knock on his door?

768. Yes! Hi!

769. Okay, I might have to have you

770. write down his address before we leave.

771. Okay. Perfect.

772. All right, thank you!

773. Thank you! You all enjoy now!

774. Will do.

775. Now that's good, we re just going to

776. go knock on his door.

777. Huh?

778. It s off to meet Super Chicken.

779. I ve got to find out if he eats chicken

780. or if he thinks it's cannibalism at that point.

781. Super Chicken where art thou?

782. Super Chicken s house.

783. Well hey. Is this-?

784. This is the Chicken Coupe.

785. I mean Super Chicken's house wasn t

786. exactly what I was expecting.

787. No.

788. There was no chicken fencing, there was no coupe.

789. There weren t no chickens!

790. There was no chickens anywhere!

791. Hello

792. Hello, are you Super Chikan?

793. Super Chikan: Oh, there s somebody there!

794. How are you?

795. I m good. How s it going?

796. How are you?

797. I m fine this is my son Jack.

798. We ve been looking for you!

799. Here I am!

800. So what did I do to honor this pleasure?

801. Well, we re doing some research into

802. the Cossroads

803. Okay.

804. And reading about Robert Johnson,

805. and we heard your grandfather knew him.

806. Yup! Wow.

807. Did he ever tell you anything about him?

808. Oh he talked about him all the time,

809. I was just a little kid but he was talking

810. about Robert Lee.

811. And one day I asked him who s Robert?

812. And he said the most famous man in Mississippi.

813. He kept talking about Robert Lee.

814. Who the hell was Robert Lee?

815. Robert Lee, is Robert Johnson,

816. and Lee was his middle name,

817. so they called him Robert Lee.

818. So how d you get the name Super Chikan?

819. Back in the old days I used to take care

820. of the chickens, and I was so good with

821. the chickens like I am with the dogs out there,

822. see how I shake my fist to get them quiet?

823. I got the name Chicken Boy.

824. Then I grew into a super chicken.

825. So how long have you been building guitars?

826. Since about '96.

827. The music business wasn t doing it for me.

828. I think I was barely making it,

829. so I started making the guitars and every time

830. I made one, somebody bought it

831. so I just kept making them and they kept buying them!

832. Can you step- That Black and Decker

833. toolbox there.

834. This one? Yeah.

835. Ozzy do you know what a diddley-bow is?

836. Well we just learned about a diddley-bow!

837. No we grew up poor.

838. Like we were so poor we were recycling

839. before recycling was invented.

840. So we- I used to make our own toys,

841. we made our own furniture half of the time.

842. And I'm stuck in my old ways so I still make

843. my own toys and this is what I do.

844. Wow.

845. I used to like shiny stuff, pretty

846. shiny stuff, and everything shiny

847. I would save it up.

848. And then I didn t know what to do with it,

849. and I finally figured out what to

850. do with it so this is not just my

851. diddley-bow, I call it my stimulus package.

852. Your stimulus package.

853. I ll show you why.

854. All right let s see this.

855. That is awesome!

856. Reason I call it my stimulus package,

857. when all else is done I go to the pawn shop.

858. Pawn me some diamonds and jewelry.

859. Re-stimulate myself.

860. There you go!

861. He could make a guitar out of this

862. shoe and like-

863. A pair of underpants!

864. And where we live here in Mississippi,

865. is near three state lines.

866. Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas.

867. I put them all three together and

868. I call it "Sippi Seekan' Saw."

869. And I wrote a song about it.

870. That sounded, when he played it,

871. was great! Awesome!

872. So, Robert Johnson, do you think he really

873. sold his soul to the devil,

874. to become a better musician?

875. He didn t play guitar very well,

876. to start out with.

877. And he would go out and they d laugh at him

878. and talk about him and get him all

879. embarrassed and stuff.

880. So he stayed away for a while.

881. And when he come back he could play

882. a lot better.

883. And back then there were no such things

884. as music teachers and music schools.

885. And the people you know believed in

886. black power and voodoo and stuff back

887. then so they figured he had made a

888. deal with the devil.

889. Wow.

890. But I give the man credit for having

891. the ability to go home and woodshed.

892. So you don t think he really sold

893. his soul to the devil?

894. I don t even know if that's possible.

895. Right?

896. The devil don t want to have to

897. buy your soul.

898. He can just take it.

899. He can just take it.

900. I knew you couldn t sell your soul to the devil.

901. Well, how do you know?

902. Trust me.

903. So we went by and checked out

904. the Crossroads today.

905. Is that actually where the song was based?

906. Well, forty-nine and sixty-one are the

907. major two highways, Blues highways they

908. called 'em, right there where they cross.

909. And since it s so close to the Crossroads,

910. they call it the crossroads.

911. The original Crossroads, is like downtown Clarksdale

912. where Tallahatchie and Full St.

913. We just call it Martin Luther King now,

914. right there at the railroad.

915. I knew the first one didn t look familiar to me.

916. Oh!

917. So that's the crossroad he s actually talking about?

918. The original crossroad, yeah.

919. How come it- So it changed that just

920. because it s a more, an easier road to get to?

921. Well tourist and travelers you know,

922. come and- so they put the sign there.

923. This is the crossroad area.

924. Is that very- is that known or is

925. that just kind of local knowledge?

926. It s not very well known.

927. Thank you so much for the time!

928. Really appreciate it.

929. My pleasure.

930. I had no problem, and it s a pleasure

931. meeting you Ozzy!

932. Been watching you for years.

933. He s very talented. Yeah.

934. There s only one of him.

935. So it s pretty interesting.

936. So it turns out that Robert Johnson,

937. everyone thought he sold his soul

938. to the devil just cause he got better

939. at playing guitar.

940. Yeah, yeah of course.

941. Back then it was voodoo.

942. I mean you go to New Orleans

943. and there s still voodoo shops.

944. Oh yeah.

945. So, according to my map, the cross walk which is on-

946. This is King, Tallahatchie, right here.

947. This is supposedly the real Crossroads

948. because it's Martin Luther King and

949. Tallahatchie right at the rail road tracks.

950. This is the real Crossroads.

951. So this is it?

952. This is the original Crossroads.

953. It s where Robert Johnson wrote the song.

954. Well, this is where it s based on it.

955. So what was your crossroads moment?

956. I wouldn t have been near here.

957. Yeah.

958. I didn t realize that until well after

959. my mother and father died.

960. But you know it s life, you know.

961. You re young, you don t realize these things, you know?

962. Mmhmm.

963. Where I lived, we weren t very well off.

964. I'm a believer in fate.

965. I believe somebody plans your life

966. before you even get here.

967. Maybe the devil!

968. So what d you think of Clarksdale?

969. It s been very educational.

970. I've really had a blast.

971. For me, this is the hands down

972. best one so far.

973. Really! Yeah.

974. Wow. Well it s in your world.

975. It s about my stuff you know.

976. Yeah.

977. We started out playing these songs.

978. The harmonica guy was great.

979. This guy Super Chikan-

980. There he is!

981. Is that the harmonica guy?

982. The return of Deak.

983. Is that him? Yeah.

984. Let's go for a piss somewhere Jack.

985. We ll go.