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

Barry Lee Pearson; Bill McCulloch

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9780252028359: Robert Johnson: Lost and Found (Music in American Life)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 025202835X ISBN 13: 9780252028359

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2003

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With just forty-one recordings to his credit, Robert Johnson (1911-38) is widely regarded as one of the greatest performers in the history of blues music. Johnson's vast influence on twentieth-century American music, combined with his mysterious death at the age of twenty-seven, has allowed speculation and myth to obscure the facts of his life. Perhaps the most famous legend in American music depicts a young Johnson standing at a dusty crossroads at midnight and selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for prodigious guitar skills.
In this volume, Barry Lee Pearson and Bill McCulloch examine the full range of writings about Johnson (such as books, articles, and record notes) and sift fact from fiction. They compare conflicting accounts of Johnson's life, weighing them against interviews with blues musicians and others who knew the man. Through their extensive research Pearson and McCulloch uncover a life every bit as compelling as the fabrications and exaggerations that have sprung up around it. In examining Johnson's life and music, and the ways in which both have been reinvented and interpreted by other artists, critics, and fans, Robert Johnson: Lost and Found charts the broader cultural forces that have mediated the expression of African American artistic traditions.

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Book Description:

With just forty-one recordings to his credit, Robert Johnson (1911-38) is a giant in the history of blues music. Johnson's vast influence on twentieth-century American music, combined with his mysterious death at the age of twenty-seven, has allowed speculation and myths to obscure the facts of his life. The most famous of these legends depicts a young Johnson meeting the Devil at a dusty Mississippi crossroads at midnight and selling his soul in exchange for prodigious guitar skills.

In this volume, Barry Lee Pearson and Bill McCulloch examine the full range of writings about Johnson and sift fact from fiction. They compare conflicting accounts of Johnson's life, weighing them against interviews with blues musicians and others who knew the man. Through their extensive research Pearson and McCulloch uncover a life every bit as compelling as the fabrications and exaggerations that have sprung up around it. In examining Johnson's life and music, and the ways in which both have been reinvented and interpreted by other artists, critics, and fans, Robert Johnson: Lost and Found charts the broader cultural forces that have mediated the expression of African American artistic traditions.

About the Author:

Barry Lee Pearson is a Professor of English and American studies at the University of Maryland at College Park.

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