The 27 Club—and Why You Should Never Sell Your Soul
Long before anyone called it the 27 Club, there was Robert Johnson—a haunted bluesman who walked into legend at twenty-seven and left behind a story soaked in darkness, desire, and the devil’s due.
Before The Beatles, before Elvis, before rock n roll even had a name, there was Robert Johnson. The first phantom. The first rock star. And the first to prove the diabolical transaction was real. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame itself admits: “Legend has it that Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads and gave him his soul in exchange for mastery of the guitar.”
THE CROSSROADS
Picture a moonless Mississippi night in 1930. Highway 61 meets Highway 49. A young man kneels in the dirt, guitar in hand, whispering a deal with the shadows. The air grows heavy. A low growl echoes from the darkness.
Robert Johnson was a mediocre player at best—his mentor, Son House, said he “couldn’t play worth a d–n.” Then he vanished. When he returned, his fingers moved like lightning, his sound like fire. People didn’t believe what they heard. They said something had entered him—that he’d come back from that dark midnight meeting with more than music in his hands.
Johnson sang about it plainly: “Hellhound on My Trail.” “Me and the Devil Blues.” “Cross Road Blues.” These weren’t metaphors. They were confessions.
He knew he’d made a deal—and that the collector was coming. Johnson kept voodoo charms for protection—black cat bones, hot foot powder, conjure magic. He told them he wouldn’t live long. According to bluesman David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Johnson died an agonizing death and “crawled on all fours, barking and hissing like a dog.”
The king of the Delta Blues died in torment as the hellhounds collected his immortal soul.
Robert Johnson traded the sound of heaven for the music of the pit. On August 16, 1938—age twenty-seven—he had gained the world but lost his soul.
The 27 Club was born. Johnson would be the first of many. The hellhounds waited.
THE GATEWAY OPENS
July 3rd, 1969, Brian Jones—founder of The Rolling Stones—drowned in his swimming pool. Age twenty-seven.
Jones had followed the same haunted road. He traveled to Morocco to record pagan trance music called The Rites of Pan—ancient rituals invoking the demon goat-god of chaos and lust. The same Pan that Aleister Crowley identified as Satan in his “Hymn to Pan.”
Stones guitarist, Keith Richards, later admitted he’d warned Brian: “You’ll never make thirty, man.” Brian nodded. “I know.”
July 3rd, 1969. The gateway opened. The hellhounds poured through.
THE VOODOO CHILD
September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix—the greatest guitarist since Robert Johnson—was found dead in a London hotel. Asphyxiation. Mysterious circumstances. Age twenty-seven.
Hendrix called himself the “Voodoo Child.” He wasn’t exaggerating. His girlfriend Fayne Pridgon witnessed the torment: “He used to always talk about some devil or something was in him, and he didn’t have any control over it. He was so tormented and just so torn apart, like he was obsessed with something really evil.”
In 1969, he told his tarot card reader and multiple friends, “I’ll die before I’m 30.”
Two days before he died, he told journalist Sharon Lawrence, “I’m almost gone.”
September 18, 1970. The Hellhound caught him. The prophecy fulfilled.
BURIED ALIVE
October 4th, 1970, Janis Joplin didn’t just flirt with darkness—she learned its language early. Her sister Laura remembered that in high school, Janis developed “an interest in the religion of voodoo,” passed to her by their family’s maid, Theresa.
Onstage, she became something more than a singer. Biographer Ann Angel called her “our shaman woman”—a performer whose sets felt like possession. She wrapped herself in voodoo amulets and feathers and branded her music the Kozmic Blues. She consulted astrologers and was dubbed the Cosmic Witch—because audiences felt what she conjured: a voice like a spell, the presence of the demonic.
Just months before her death, she wrote home: “I managed to pass my—gasp—27th birthday.”
Two days before she died, she amended her will and set aside $2,500 for friends to “get blasted after I’m gone.” On October 1st, 1970, she recorded “Mercedes Benz.” The next song scheduled was titled “Buried Alive in the Blues.” She never made it to the microphone.
October 4th, 1970. The cosmic witch had been buried alive in the very darkness she dabbled in.
THE SHAMAN’S LAST DANCE
July 3rd, 1971, exactly two years after Brian Jones, Jim Morrison was found dead in a Paris bathtub. Heart failure. No autopsy. Age twenty-seven.
Morrison called himself a shaman. As a boy, he claimed spirits entered him after witnessing a highway tragedy. He studied shamanism and occult rituals at UCLA, seeking trance states through dancing to exhaustion. But his darkest confession came in his journal Wilderness. Morrison wrote of an encounter on the Venice Canal when he was homeless—a meeting with what he described as the spirit of music. “Satan” himself.
In interviews, he predicted his death: “I think I’m only good for about two more years.”
In 1971, he fled to Paris, telling friends: “Jimi’s gone. Janis’s gone. I’m next.”
The second death on July 3rd. The shaman was devoured by the hellhounds.
THE WARLOCK’S FAREWELL
March 8, 1973, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan—founder of The Grateful Dead, originally called The Warlocks—was found dead alone. Gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Age twenty-seven.
Pigpen was steeped in Delta blues and occult imagery from the start. The Dead’s hit song “Friend of the Devil” confessed:
“I lit out from Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds.”
“A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.”
The hellhounds that chased Robert Johnson were still hunting. Pigpen told bandmates, “I don’t want you around when I die.”
The first Warlock had fallen. The devil doesn’t have any “friends” after all.
THE GRUNGE PROPHET
April 5, 1994, the curse returned. Kurt Cobain—the prophet of grunge—was found dead in a Seattle greenhouse. Shotgun suicide. Age twenty-seven.
At fourteen, Kurt announced: “I’m gonna be a superstar musician, get rich, kill myself, and go out in a flame of glory—just like Jimi Hendrix.”
He exclaimed his goal “to get stoned and worship Satan.” He painted blasphemies like “God is gay” on a church. As an adult, he was obsessed with the Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey and wanted him to play cello on Nirvana’s Nevermind album.
In April 1994, he finished what he’d prophesied at fourteen. His suicide note quoted Neil Young: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” When his mother, Wendy O’Connor, heard the news, she wept:
“Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club. I told him not to join that stupid club.”
BACK TO BLACK
July 23, 2011, Amy Winehouse is found dead in her London home. Alcohol poisoning. Age twenty-seven.
Her voice was smoke and honey, her soul tormented. Back to Black became a prophecy—a descent into despair. She often told friends and her mother, “I think I’m going to die young.” Her assistant said, “She knew she’d join the 27 Club.” In a 2008 recording session, she burst into tears and screamed: “The devil makes me use drugs… Satan is giving me drugs!”
That wasn’t metaphor. That was confession. The Bible calls illicit drug use sorcery—pharmakeia—a doorway for demonic control. Amy wasn’t free. She was enslaved.
Satan’s chains never set free. The stage lights dimmed, but the darkness never left. One after another, their songs became their eulogies.
THE PATTERN IS REAL
Eight artists, dead at twenty-seven. Legends who sang of darkness, dealt with the devil, predicted their deaths, and walked the haunted road. All felt the same deadly price.
Robert Johnson. Brian Jones. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Kurt Cobain. Amy Winehouse.
No coincidence. Dark consequence!
THE CROSS VS. THE CROSSROADS
Jesus, God in the flesh, asked the question that echoes through every 27 Club death:
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
Jesus declared: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
Satan still steals. He still kills. He still destroys.
The same enemy that whispered at the crossroads still whispers today—offering shortcuts to power, fame, pleasure, anything but surrender to God. And he never changes his price. He still demands your soul.
Maybe you’re not standing at Highway 61 and 49—but you are standing at a crossroads. Every soul eventually comes to that same intersection—the place where eternity meets decision.
At the crossroads, Satan says, “Bow to me, and I’ll give you the world.” At the Cross, Jesus says, “Come to Me, and I’ll give you life.”
At the crossroads, you might gain a moment of glory but lose your soul.
At the Cross, you lay down your sin—and receive a crown that never fades.
At the crossroads, the hellhounds start hunting.
At the Cross, Jesus Christ stands guard—and leads you home to glory.
Jesus declared, “You cannot serve two masters.” You cannot dance with the Devil and expect to escape hell. The 27 Club traded the sound of heaven for the music of the pit.
But Jesus Christ left the throne of heaven for the cross—to buy back every soul the devil has stolen. The Bible says:
“The Son of God appeared for this purpose: to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
“Through death He destroyed the one who has the power of death—that is, the devil—and freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Jesus died and rose from the dead and broke the chains of sin and death. He rose from the grave. He holds the keys to Death and Hell (Revelation 1:17-18).
YOUR DECISION
The truth is—you don’t have to sell your soul at a crossroads to lose it. Sin does that on its own. The Bible says, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Friend, have you ever lied? Stolen? Used God’s name in vain? Looked with lust? God calls those sins, and His justice demands payment. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
If you die in your sin, no fame or goodness can buy you back. Hell is not a party—it’s a place of separation, regret, and unending darkness where the anguish never stops screaming. Jesus warned of a fire that is never quenched and a worm that never dies (Mark 9:43-48).
But the same Lord who exposes our sin also offers mercy. He bore our judgment on the Cross so that you could stand forgiven on the day of judgment when you meet Him.
Friend, listen—you don’t have to join the “stupid club,” as Cobain’s mother called it. You don’t have to go “back to black.” Whatever deals you’ve made or guilt that haunts your nights—Christ’s blood is stronger—His mercy runs deeper. His grace is free.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
You can walk away from the crossroads right now— and rest in the arms of Christ.
A PRAYER TO BEGIN AGAIN
If you’re ready to be free from Satan’s chains and receive eternal life, pray this:
“Lord Jesus, I’ve sinned and walked my own way. You died for me and rose again to give me new life. I turn from sin and place my faith in you. I give my life to You. Forgive me and make me Yours. Amen.”
If you truly mean that, Jesus has heard you. He has promised: “Whoever comes to Me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).
The hellhounds tremble when you belong to Christ. The song changes. The night ends. And a new melody begins—one written not in despair, but in redemption. Don’t burn out like a shooting star. Shine forever in His light. God’s word warns:
“Stop at the crossroads and look around,” the Lord says. “Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it… and you will find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16 NLT).
Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life—and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
Every soul must choose before the music stops. At every crossroads, one path still leads home—and it runs through the Cross of Christ.