When you think about the myth of Robert Johnson,” says Jeremy Jones, “it’s the idea that’s true. You have this guy who came from not being a good musician at all to go on to the ‘crossroads’ to meet the devil. It’s just provocative. And then for that myth to come out on the other side — you hear the music, and you’re like ‘Yo, this is great!’ ”

The new play Leroy and Lucy, by Ngozi Anyanwu, is loosely based on the folklore surrounding the blues legend, who died at 27 in 1938. Jones, an accomplished bassist and guitarist, serves as the composer and music director for the Steppenwolf Theatre production. No stranger to melding blues and theater — last winter, he served as musical arranger for a play about singer Bobby Rush as part of the Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival — Jones was tapped to set Anyanwu’s lyrics to original music that would evoke Johnson’s Delta blues. Actors Jon Michael Hill and Brittany Bradford will perform Jones’s songs onstage. 

“I listened to a lot of Robert’s music and other music of the time, and then I said, Well, let me see how I can incorporate the feel,” says Jones, who grew up in Roseland and now lives in Bronzeville. “That’s a really fun experiment, because you think of the blues as just being very simple chord progressions, but it’s much more than that. You have some blues forms that are just 12 bars. Then you have others that are like, ‘We do what we want.’ ” 

Leroy and Lucy runs at Steppenwolf October 24 to December 15.