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The most celebrated bluesman ever was allegedly knocked off aged 27 after drinking from a bottle of whiskey spiked by the husband of a woman he was sleeping with, surely a fittingly bluesy end, and one worthy of a thousand blues songs.

There is little else undisputed about Johnson’s life (even the story about his death has a few variations) and although he surpassed in renown contemporaries such as Sonny Boy Williamson and Charlie Patton, was mentor to Elmore James and directly inspired Muddy Waters, he only ever recorded 29 songs. No wonder people have had to make up stories about him.

So it’s refreshing to find a guitarist so in touch with the Johnson who actually was and an approach so focussed on what made him a phenomenon, his playing. Johnson expert Simon Ainslie teaches seven of Johnson’s songs including ‘Sweet Home Chicago’, ‘Come on in my Kitchen’ and ‘Cross Road Blues’.

This is definitely a guitarists’ DVD, not for someone still struggling with the basics. Ainslie delves into Johnson’s fingerpicking and slide techniques, in three tunings and revealing subtle and genius chord changes and a few techniques which are fairly difficult to pull off successfully. This could all have led to a dry, technical lesson, but his chatty style, keeps the pace up, and he often adds in nuggets of background information on conditions that brought about certain styles of playing or interesting asides about earlier players who influenced Johnson.

Although the DVD is only fairly short there’s enough material and ideas here to keep even an advanced player interested, and you will learn something new even if you think you know it all.

So did the Delta bluesman sell his soul to the devil for his staggering talents — I really hope so, but sadly it’s rather unlikely.

So where did he get those licks then?