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This brief but absorbing meditation on Johnson's life and art, originally published in 1989 in anticipation of the first release of his complete recordings, benefits from the detective work of earlier blues scholars, most notably Mack McCormick, who began piercing the veil surrounding Johnson's life in the '60s. By the '80s, reminiscences from the bluesman's contemporaries, more solid evidence of his shadowy lineage, and even the belated discovery of photographs added more dimension to McCormick's "phantom" Johnson. Yet, possibly by his own design, Robert Johnson remained more outline than flesh, still explained more lucidly in the fevered nightmares and earthy imagery of his songs than by the scattered details of his life.
Guralnick succeeds in conveying the power of Johnson's music and delineating both its origins and, ultimately, singular genius. His debts to delta blues avatars Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson are solidified, yet, more crucially, Guralnick roots Johnson's artistic growth in the specific context of this rural corner of Mississippi, at this particular moment between the world wars. He also frankly addresses the potency of Johnson's myth and an early death that only glorifies the brief, bright arc of his work. No less crucial is Guralnick's ability to convey the dark beauty of the music itself, giving Searching for Robert Johnson a broader sweep as an essential blues primer. --Sam Sutherland
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. Reprint. Music critic, author, and screenwriter Peter Guarlnick illuminates the life and legend of blues guitarist Robert Johnson in this extended essay.He was probably the most influential of all bluesman. And yet Robert Johnson remained virtually unknown to a wider audience until the release of his complete recordings in 1990, fifty-two years after his death.Unquestionably the main influence on Muddy Waters and an entire generation of rock 'n' roll and blues musicians including Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, Johnson is known for the ferocity and originality of his work, and for the tormented sensibility that lay behind it. Poisoned by a jealous husband at the age of twenty-seven, widely believed to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his musical gifts, Robert Johnson has long enjoyed a myth that has at times overshadowed his music.This brilliant ode to the King of the Delta Blues evokes the place and time that gave birth to the man and the myth and gracefully mirrors the world and artistry of Robert Johnson himself.I finished the book feeling that, if only for a brief moment, Robert Johnson had stepped out of the mists.-New York Times Book Review. Seller Inventory # DADAX0452279496
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Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Searching for Robert Johnson: The Life and Legend of the "King of the Delta Blues Singers" 0.23. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780452279490
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. reprint edition. 96 pages. 8.00x5.25x0.50 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0452279496