Sometimes the fictions that spring up around pop music are the most direct source of its truth.It's highly unlikely that Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil at the crossroads, but no one cares that the story isn't 100 percent true, or even just 1 percent true. Even though pop music needs its obsessive discographers and fact gatherers -- you've got to have someone around to keep the story straight for future generations -- music finds its true home in our imagination anyway. The tall tales and legends that go along with the artists we love become part of the texture of the music; they're the hiss and pop between the grooves.
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