GREENWOOD (AP) — When not tearing through an untold amount of whiskey, women and city limits, Robert Johnson composed 29 songs that changed the course of American music. Then, at the age of 27, he laid down and died in Leflore County. But where?

‘‘The only person who knows for certain is Robert Johnson,’’ said Paige Hunt, executive director of the Greenwood Convention and Visitors Bureau. ‘‘And he can’t exactly answer our questions right now.’’

Many historians say the iconic bluesman died at Star of the West Plantation, just north of Greenwood. Four years ago, though, state Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, placed a sign in Baptist Town that reads, ‘‘Robert Johnson played music and died on this corner.’’

Jordan, who serves as president of the Greenwood City Council, said the sign is part of an effort to promote Greenwood’s cultural past. With five Mississippi Blues Trail markers already in Leflore County and four more scheduled, the blues is an obvious part of that history.

‘‘There are so many spots in the African-American community that are connected to history,’’ Jordan said. ‘‘I put that sign there to remind us of our history and our legacy so it won’t be forgotten. And, so others can learn it.’’

Jordan believes Johnson died in Baptist Town because of conversations he had with David ‘‘Honeyboy’’ Edwards during the filming of a documentary about Johnson’s life that the BBC made in 1990. Edwards, a bluesman who occasionally played with Johnson, was present the night someone poisoned Johnson.

Steve LaVere, a music historian who operates Greenwood Blues and Heritage Museum, said Jordan’s sign is ‘‘totally erroneous and he knows it.’’

‘‘The only thing that (Edwards) ever said Robert Johnson ever did in Baptist Town was have a room there.’’

LaVere believes Johnson died at Star of the West Plantation. Of the location, he said, ‘‘There is no disagreement among people who know the facts.’’

When dealing with a poor, traveling bluesman like Johnson — whose myth says he sold his soul to Satan at a Delta crossroad in exchange for mastery of the guitar — separating fact from legend can be a murky endeavor.

During the summer of 1938, Johnson, who spent his life in obscurity, came to Greenwood and performed at Three Forks Club, a juke joint west of town blown away by a storm in 1942. According to LaVere and Sylvester Hoover, another local blues historian, Johnson, as he had the previous summer, stayed in Baptist Town.

Hoover, a Greenwood native who has researched Johnson’s life since 1973, claims Johnson stayed in a house in Baptist Town that sat directly behind Jordan’s sign. During the week that preceded Johnson’s death, Hoover said, the wife of the man who owned Three Forks Club stayed in the now-demolished home with Johnson, a known womanizer.

‘‘He loved the ladies,’’ Hoover said, ‘‘and the ladies loved him. It went both ways.’’

Hoover claims Johnson showed up for an engagement at Three Forks Club one Saturday night with another woman — the wife of a worker from Star of the West Plantation — on his arm. This sent the club owner’s wife into jealous rage and she poisoned Johnson’s whiskey.

‘‘Probably rat poison,’’ Hoover said.

LaVere, though, said the owner of the club probably poisoned Johnson after learning of his wife’s affair. Hoover doesn’t agree.

‘‘Steve LaVere knows a lot about Robert Johnson, but he’s also got a lot of stuff wrong.’’

Hoover, who operates Back in the Day Museum in Baptist Town, said a black man’s pride wouldn’t have allowed him to seek revenge for infidelity in such a secretive way.

‘‘Poisoning another man wasn’t in a black man’s vocabulary,’’ he said. ‘‘If he had a problem with you he would stab you, shoot you, maybe beat you to death. He would have wanted other people to see what would happen if you crossed him.’’

Jordan maintains that having been poisoned, an ailing Johnson was carried back to the home in Baptist Town, where he died.

Hoover claims the bluesman was taken from the juke joint directly to Star of the West Plantation, dying three days later.

‘‘He drew his last breath on that plantation the following Tuesday,’’ he said.

LaVere agrees with Hoover on the location of Johnson’s death, but believes the singer was initially taken to Baptist Town, where he laid ‘‘for a couple of weeks,’’ before being moved to the plantation. Johnson’s birth certificate gives the site of his death as ‘‘Greenwood (outside),’’ LaVere said.

Today, Johnson has three burial markers in Leflore County. Most agree, however, that he is buried beneath a pecan tree in the cemetery at Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church. This location, LaVere said, makes sense — it’s just up Money Road from Star of the West Plantation.

Jordan said there is no argument in his eyes as to where Johnson gave up the ghost. He takes Edwards’ word over LaVere’s and Hoover’s, he said.

‘‘You bet I do. Honeyboy ran the railroads with him, lived with him and played with him. He was there the night he died.’’

Jordan’s sign in Baptist Town also claims Johnson performed in Baptist Town, something else LaVere disputes.

LaVere said Edwards never said there was a venue to play in Baptist Town.

Jordan, however, claims there were definitely clubs in the area.

‘‘I went to plenty of holes-in-the-wall juke joints in my day,’’ he said. ‘‘I know what they look like and I know where they were.’’

LaVere, who has spent more than three decades researching Johnson’s life and work, said Jordan isn’t a historian and claims Hoover showed no interest in the blues until LaVere’s museum opened.

‘‘Their intentions are self-motivated,’’ he said.

Today, Greenwood’s showing an interest in the blues. And the bickering that hovers around Johnson’s mysterious death can only help the city promote its cultural history, Hunt said.

‘‘At the end of the day, we know he died in Leflore County,’’ she said. ‘‘For certain, we know that. So we will always be attached to his legacy.’’

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Information from: The Greenwood Commonwealth, http://www.gwcommonwealth.com