In the film, Hammond journeys through the American Deep South to pursue topics such as Johnson's birth date, place and parents, his early musical development, performances and travels, romances, his mythic "pact with the devil," his death in the late 1930s, the discovery of possible offspring, and the uncertainty over where Johnson is buried.

Guitarists Keith Richards and Eric Clapton, blues researchers Gayle Dean Wardlow and Robert "Mack" McCormick, childhood acquaintance Wink Clark, Nat Richardson, a "juke house" owner's son, Delta blues musicians David Honeyboy Edwards and Johnny Shines, girlfriends Willie Mae Powell and 'Queen' Elizabeth, discovered son Claud Johnson, his son Gregory and grandson Richard, Greenwood Councillor David Jordan, and cemetery attendant Miller Carter were all interviewed for the film.

Upon its broadcast in 1992, UK producer and blues critic Neil Slaven, quoted later by Schroeder, wrote that the film "encompasses a detective story overlaid with folk memory, its interviews succinctly to the point, containing humor, superstition, and contextural information in equal parts.

"[26] Folk singer Dave Van Ronk, reviewing the released video for Entertainment Weekly, wrote of its "lucid narration," and gave the film an "A," satisfied that it stayed focused on the music.

"[28] Upon the Sony DVD's release in 2000, Ian Morris of MichaelDVD.com rated the film itself at 4.5/5 stars, calling it "like manna from heaven for a music aficionado like myself," and "an almost essential purchase about one of the true legends of music," while faulting the DVD's video quality and lack of closed captions, for an aggregate score of 4/5 stars.