Robert Johnson: Lost and Found (Music in American Life)

Rating:
Summary: Lost the plot.
Review: A truly terrible book, that treats the reader like a moron.
The blindingly obvious is explained over & over,& then again
in case you still don't get it.The entire premise of this book could have been distilled in two pages.
Don't bother ,play the music.

Rating:
Summary: Lost the plot.
Review: A truly terrible book, that treats the reader like a moron.
The blindingly obvious is explained over & over,& then again
in case you still don't get it.The entire premise of this book could have been distilled in two pages.
Don't bother ,play the music.

Rating:
Summary: A Major Disappointment
Review: First, I should state my qualifications and prejudices. I am writing biographies of Robert Johnson's stepson Robert Lockwood Jr. and his best friend Alex "Rice' Miller AKA Sonny Boy Williamson II and I have done over 300 hours of original oral research interviews and many more hours of library research including collecting nearly every blues magazine and relevant liner notes on records from many countries to find the source interviews of many misunderstandings about the artists. Barrie Lee Pearson told me that Sonny Boy was the single blues musician mentioned more often in other blues musicians oral histories. So my expectations for this book were high and my first hand knowledge of the resources available for new insight into this subject were extensive. I could have written this book from my research.
Therein lies the rub. While a new Robert Johnson book was never on my agenda, I was anxious to read this book.
Sadly, this book never seeks to add to the original research on Robert Johnson that would have been available simply by asking the many researchers. It is largely a rehash of published resources. There is little evidence that these authors ever bothered to visit the Delta or talk to the many still living and very credible sources. They are suspect in the text of claims that were easilly researched favoring the legend over the reality. Older Delta residents are amazingly accurate reporters and when their stories are coordinated by a researcher their rememberences dovetail in great detail. This is not a recommended addition to the Robert Johnson legend or history. I was heartbroken to see such a minor volume be published and possibly preclude the publications of a substantive volume. This is the history of the soundtrack of the Baby Boom generations and as such requires greater respect. Visit www.sonnyboy.com for more information.
Fessor Mojo AKA William E. Donoghue
Host, www.sonnyboy.com

Rating:
Summary: A Major Disappointment
Review: First, I should state my qualifications and prejudices. I am writing biographies of Robert Johnson's stepson Robert Lockwood Jr. and his best friend Alex "Rice' Miller AKA Sonny Boy Williamson II and I have done over 300 hours of original oral research interviews and many more hours of library research including collecting nearly every blues magazine and relevant liner notes on records from many countries to find the source interviews of many misunderstandings about the artists. Barrie Lee Pearson told me that Sonny Boy was the single blues musician mentioned more often in other blues musicians oral histories. So my expectations for this book were high and my first hand knowledge of the resources available for new insight into this subject were extensive. I could have written this book from my research.
Therein lies the rub. While a new Robert Johnson book was never on my agenda, I was anxious to read this book.
Sadly, this book never seeks to add to the original research on Robert Johnson that would have been available simply by asking the many researchers. It is largely a rehash of published resources. There is little evidence that these authors ever bothered to visit the Delta or talk to the many still living and very credible sources. They are suspect in the text of claims that were easilly researched favoring the legend over the reality. Older Delta residents are amazingly accurate reporters and when their stories are coordinated by a researcher their rememberences dovetail in great detail. This is not a recommended addition to the Robert Johnson legend or history. I was heartbroken to see such a minor volume be published and possibly preclude the publications of a substantive volume. This is the history of the soundtrack of the Baby Boom generations and as such requires greater respect. Visit www.sonnyboy.com for more information.
Fessor Mojo AKA William E. Donoghue
Host, www.sonnyboy.com

Rating:
Summary: When Legend becomes Fact.
Review: Robert Johnson might be the most famous of all country bluesman. But we actually know very little about the man himself and what we think we know (the selling his soul at the crossroads story and forever being demon haunted)was a late addition to the legend. Pearson and McCulloch peel back the layers of what commentators have said about Johnson to reveal what we can really know about him--and it is not very much. They then tackle the literature on Johnson and show how a legend is created through wishful thinking, academic desire, and faulty deconstruction of lyrics. This is a wonderfully written, intelligent book that exposes the flaws of some methods of interpreting entertainers and the danger of interpreting them outside of the artist's culture. Johnson emerges as a human not such much chased by demons, but who chases women and whiskey too much. A fantastic study that should serve as both a model and a warning for all who write about entertainers.

Rating:
Summary: When Legend becomes Fact.
Review: Robert Johnson might be the most famous of all country bluesman. But we actually know very little about the man himself and what we think we know (the selling his soul at the crossroads story and forever being demon haunted)was a late addition to the legend. Pearson and McCulloch peel back the layers of what commentators have said about Johnson to reveal what we can really know about him--and it is not very much. They then tackle the literature on Johnson and show how a legend is created through wishful thinking, academic desire, and faulty deconstruction of lyrics. This is a wonderfully written, intelligent book that exposes the flaws of some methods of interpreting entertainers and the danger of interpreting them outside of the artist's culture. Johnson emerges as a human not such much chased by demons, but who chases women and whiskey too much. A fantastic study that should serve as both a model and a warning for all who write about entertainers.

Rating:
Summary: An Important Book
Review: Starting in the 1930's with a handful of jazz buffs, a procession of writers, most of them white, tried to fathom the life and music of Robert Johnson. With little to go on besides Johnson's recordings, the early writers wrongly portrayed him as a genius in coveralls, a farm worker whose music offered a glimpse back in time to the origins of jazz. One of the points of this book, a point clearly missed by some reviewers, is that many later writers doggedly continued to present fanciful views of Johnson and his art, even though such views were contradicted by a large and growing body of reliable information about Johnson and the tradition from which his music sprang. As Pearson and McCulloch document, Johnson was effectively separated from his own rural African-American cultural roots, and his rightful place in American musical history was taken by an imposter, a creation of marketing hype, cultural ignorance, and romantic imaginings. Although this book may annoy some of Johnson's dreamy fans, it's an important addition to the writing on this iconic blues musician, and I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: An Important Book
Review: Starting in the 1930's with a handful of jazz buffs, a procession of writers, most of them white, tried to fathom the life and music of Robert Johnson. With little to go on besides Johnson's recordings, the early writers wrongly portrayed him as a genius in coveralls, a farm worker whose music offered a glimpse back in time to the origins of jazz. One of the points of this book, a point clearly missed by some reviewers, is that many later writers doggedly continued to present fanciful views of Johnson and his art, even though such views were contradicted by a large and growing body of reliable information about Johnson and the tradition from which his music sprang. As Pearson and McCulloch document, Johnson was effectively separated from his own rural African-American cultural roots, and his rightful place in American musical history was taken by an imposter, a creation of marketing hype, cultural ignorance, and romantic imaginings. Although this book may annoy some of Johnson's dreamy fans, it's an important addition to the writing on this iconic blues musician, and I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Dismaying and dreary.
Review: The writers of this book would have you believe that not only is it idiotic to have any sort of mythology surround an artist, but they also want us to ignore many of the real life experiences that Robert Johnson most likely faced. If they had just wanted to focus on the "real" story and downplay the urban legend style that Robert Johnson's life is usually told as, all they would have had to do was...focus on it. Instead, they not only pooh-pooh the myths, they disregard the entire lifestyle of African Americans in the early part of the 20th century. We are to believe that Johnson played with lots of people, but none of the people we have ever been told of. No one is telling the truth about anything regarding Johnson, except the authors themselves. They insist that Robert Johnson himself did not have fears for his soul, in spite of a slew of songs pertaining to the subject. They seem unaware that this theme had a basis in the African American community of true belief, and still does to this day in many areas. Apparantly, they have never heard the term "write what you know"(either for writing songs, or this book). It would appear mostly that a lack of people who actually wanted to discuss the subject with the authors may have contributed to the authors' explaining over and over the insignificance of the themes in Johnson's work. They seem to distrust absolutely everyone who ever had any story to tell about Johnson, so it would be no wonder. Whether you believe that Robert Johnson ever went down to the crossroads, or the Louisana swamps, or any other part of that story, the fact remains that his voice and playing is haunting and haunted. The authors speak as if they have some deep inner ability to see into Johnson's mind and soul, and found it somehow lacking and not at all as the story goes. In the end, I just felt sorry for them, because it appears that they do not have the hair-raising, spine tingling thrill when they listen to his music that most people do when they hear it. This music was not intended to be listened to by an impartial, unaffected, disinterested audience. Maybe it is just the authors showing a touch of sour grapes at missing out on the larger experience. Over all an arrogant, mind dulling, disappointing dry telling of an otherwise exciting topic. Want a more interesting, less blabby version that gets down to the facts and preserves some of the myth? Read Peter Guralnick's Searching For Robert Johnson instead. Read Robert Johnson Lost and Found only if you do not care one bit about Robert Johnson, his music or his life, and don't care if it is narrated with as much enthusiasm as a Mutual Of Omaha Wild Kingdom program about snails.

Rating:
Summary: Casting out Satan!
Review: This book does a wonderful job of looking at the man whose dark mythology often supercedes his deep music. Yes, some who want to believe in his devil might get a little ruffled by the actual journalism here but I'm, for one, just as interested in the reality as I am in the legend. I find the true story of the tales woven around him captivating and curious. A critic on this list said that one could have researched everything in this book and to that I say, "huh?" Any accurate history revisits the facts and the faces, hopefully gaining new insight and accounts. This book does both and is a great read to boot.