By Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow
Chicago Review Press . 2019
by Frank Matheis
Time has a way to answer all questions. Who was Robert Johnson really? What was his life actually like? How did he become such an astonishing musician? What was his authentic self? What shaped his weltanschauung? This engaging book is the first reliable, fair and balanced account of one of the 20thCentury’s most important blues musicians that answers these questions.
Even those who have never heard of bluesman Robert Johnson will notice a peculiarity in the tag title of this biography. It’s not “The Life of…” or “The Life and Times of…” It is titled “The Real Life of…” What a difference that little adjective ‘real’ makes, because therein lies the revelation of what this book unveils: Virtually everything that has been written over the past 50 years or so in volumes of previously published liner notes, articles and books about the prodigal genius bluesman Robert Johnson has been either incomplete, partially correct or outright wrong. The implied supposition is that this book tells the “real story” – a tall order, but mission accomplished.
Up Jumped the Devil – The Real Life of Robert Johnson is perhaps the first definitive biography of the iconic, mythical bard, more thorough and most complete to date than any previously published. The authors had “a great long story to tell” impressively setting the record straight, factually and historically. This is a compelling read for any blues fan, a very well-written and thoroughly interesting book by two eminent blues scholars, both foremost experts about the legendary Mississippi musician Robert Johnson. Dr. Bruce Conforth is a former professor of folklore, blues, popular culture and American history at the University of Michigan. Gayle Dean Wardlow is a highly regarded blues historian who amassed one of the world’s largest collection of prewar blues records (WWII). His book Chasin’ That Devil Music is a classic of blues literature. Their combined research spans over decades going back to the 1960s. Essentially this is largely the culmination of their life’s work.
If they had done nothing before and will do nothing thereafter, Up Jumped the Devil – The Real Life of Robert Johnson will stand as their literary masterpiece.This biography is a riveting tale of the brilliant itinerant acoustic bluesman who posthumously ascended to iconic international fame. Perhaps the strongest achievement of this book is to restore dignity and humanity to Robert Johnson. We are guided through the hard luck, existentialist struggles of a young man who was a true musical virtuoso. Conforth and Wardlow tell you the real-life story of a Mensch,who he was and what he went through, a story that was somehow distorted by all the misinformation of the past. Realism and fact in Up Jumped the Devil finally expose his humanity and identity, and allows us to see the ultimate absurdity of the fiction that has surrounded this artist who died so young.
Millions of his records have sold worldwide, partly because of his astonishing musicality. Yet, his persona was shrouded in mystery, and to a certain degree devil legends, coupled with exaggerated marketing. The often-repeated cliché tale that Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil at the Mississippi crossroads in order to gain musical prowess was there from the get-go, since the 1959 publication of Samuel Charter’s book Country Blues, repeated in virtually every album, article and book about the famed bard. Over decades, the things that have been said and done to his image and persona, by those who happily cashed in on the Robert Johnson cult following, have been nothing short of dehumanizing, stripping the masterful musician of his dignity. Unfortunately, Johnson’s marketing hype has taken an outrageously ugly turn in recent years, as more and more people, almost exclusively white, continue the trend of milking poor Robert Johnson for all he is worth with cheap kitsch, in the most base and primitive exploitation. False, debunked photos have been “validated” by charlatans. Hucksters catapulted themselves to 15 minutes of fame by fraudulently claiming that they own his actual guitar, or, that his records were “too slow.” They have misrepresented him in every conceivable way. The self-described “folk-artist” Grego went so far as depicting Johnson in the now familiar guitar-holding pose, complete with devil’s horns, hell-fire red skin and hideous claw fingers with the inscription “Robert Johnson-Delta Bluesman – He had a hellhound on his trail but a glass of whiskey set him free,” reducing this human being to the very personification of the devil himself. It all got to be shamefully despicable, dehumanizing and insulting.
The authors chose the title Up Jumped the Devil, an alternate title to the Robert Johnson song Preaching Blues, again playing up to the devil connection that was part of the lore. Fortunately, that’s where the devil thing ends. The authors do well to explain the origin of the “soul selling” legends in both European Faustian and African voodoo folklore and beliefs. Even Johnson’s lyrics were misinterpreted to suit this narrative, and to a certain point perhaps the teenage Johnson followed others, like Tommy Johnson and Peetie Wheatstraw, to play-up this image as a way to rebel against the conservative elements of the African American establishment that considered blues as “the devil’s music” and rejected his artistry.
The authors provide a detailed biography of Johnson from his birth in 1911 to his tragic death in 1938, at age 27, wisely focusing on filling in the missing parts of the historical record of his life and times and of his musical legacy. Along the way they confront some of the previously published errors and misinterpretations, largely exposing the marketing of his legend and mythical persona. They avoid finger-pointing to the problematic mass psychology of his modern blues audience and the Robert Johnson cult-following, which could be fodder for a separate book. Previous publications have either glorified Johnson and propped him up to illusionary heights, others have dethroned him, claiming that he was actually unimportant and his music largely derivative. When Eric Clapton declared Johnson as his primary hero in the 1970s, throngs of young white fans followed. When Elijah Wald counteracted some of the marketing hype by setting up an alternative analysis in Escaping the Delta, some blues fans on web forums joined in to advance the idea that Johnson was not important after all, to the point that admitting to still love and admire Robert Johnson’s music was actually disparaged. Here was the best-selling, most widely covered country blues singers of them all, but it actually became uncool to love him. To some degree it was all exaggeration, a kind of sheep mentality. The marketing and promotion of a record in liner notes and media kits can glorify someone with terms like “King of the Delta Blues”, mere marketing slogans, but people believe it. This coronation was pure advertising, but ill-advised ranking, as if other contemporaries were less worthy. When we are sold an artist with the notion that he is the most important musician in the genre, it is not much different than being told that a brand of potato chips is the best tasting of them all. Numerous debates have ensued on blues forums indicating that to some blues fans the myth is more vital than the music itself. The authors do a terrific job of analyzing the music for its own sake, the recorded history and the related origins of the songs.
The mass psychology of the blues audience is remarkable. It is both intriguing and puzzling how it can be that modern day, educated and intelligent people can so willingly and knowingly go along with perpetuating a myth that has been marketed to them. There are certainly people who believe in the devil and that the eternal soul can be sold in exchange for some magical powers. No disrespect to them. This writer’s beloved grandmother was one of them. She was never taught evolution, had an eight-grade education and was taught creationism in school. If you asked her how the world started she only knew about Adam and Eve. To her, heaven and hell were real, as was the devil. To believe the soul-selling fable, the supposition would be that those who perpetuate this tale would have to first believe for themselves in an eternal soul and in the existence of the devil. It gets bizarre when people who normally don’t believe in God, or a personified devil, would so happily step along with the Robert Johnson legend, even though all that devil stuff does not really fit into their own belief system or life experiences. The authors debunk this without hitting the audience head on about this contradictory paradox. It’s clarified without having to address it. They don’t deviate from clear facts and evidence.
The various writers have over time added to the myth. When the second volume of the Columbia album Robert Johnson-King of the Delta Blues Singers was released in 1970, the great blues writer Pete Welding wrote the liner notes, and this was emblematic of the yarn that was weaved to create the Johnson persona:
“No other blues are so apocalyptic in their life view. They are shot through the dark foreboding, and almost total disenchantment with the human condition [and] besetting, mindless terrors that haunted all his days and nights…His songs are the diary of a wanderer through the tangle of the black underworld, the chronicle of a sensitive black Orpheus in his journey along the labyrinthine path of the human psyche. In his songs one hears the impassioned, unheeded cries of man, rootless and purposeless. The acrid stench of evil burns ever in his mind.”
Poetic, powerful, awesome writing, literally breathtaking words, but what does it really mean? Yeah, it was bullshit. Maybe it is just romanticized nonsense, the blues recreated in the image that impressed new white audiences. Decades later we can mock this type of writing as mere word-fluff, but what else could a good writer say back then about the enigmatic bluesman other than making up impressive, fascinating creative prose? Now that this book provides a true picture, people won’t need to make stuff up anymore.
Until now, fallacious stories were accepted as real. Son House and Willie Brown allegedly said that “little” Robert Johnson went away for a while and came back with supernatural playing skills that he had acquired from the devil by selling his soul. None such! There are earthly explanations for everything, and the authors expose the real story. Robert Johnson was a musical apprentice to Ike Zimmerman in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. All indications are that Zimmerman was “better than anyone Robert had ever heard.” One of the many major takeaways of this book is the recognition that so many of the great blues musicians were never recorded and we will never know the music of Ike Zimmerman.
Up Jumped the Devil – The Real Life of Robert Johnson accomplishes what any good biography should, it reveals the humanity and identity of the artist. It creates understanding, not based on myth but on allowing the readers to see the life and times, his art, his persona and his struggles. Once the nonsense is exposed, we are left with a portrait of a brilliant young man born into tumultuous, difficult times – poverty, segregation and family difficulties. He moved from tragedy to tragedy. Robert Johnson was abandoned by his mother, yanked from his adopted family in Memphis, the only family he knew, when his mother returned unexpectedly. Subsequently he was forced to work in cotton fields, forbidden to follow his desire to play blues, and beaten by an abusive stepfather. He rebelled, left home early and married very young to the even younger love of his life, who sadly died at childbirth. Robert Johnson lost his wife and baby and was a widower as a teenager. He later remarried only to have his second wife also die, and he was rejected by the mother of his second child, his second true love, because his music made him persona non-grata with her family. This was a young fellow going through some seriously tough times and hard luck, not someone who had made a voodoo pact with Legba or Mephistopheles. The authors lead us to understand the reasons for his wild rambling ways and his need to drift; and his commitment to being a bluesman despite the stigmatization of blues as “the devil’s work” in his own African-American community. These trials and tribulations, his alcoholism, womanizing and his genius musicality, are described in the context of the Great Depression, Jim Crow segregation and a backdrop of violence, poverty and hardship. Yet, we see the prevailing spirit of an artist’s drive and determination. His seemingly insatiable womanizing and sexual conquests seems no different than your average rock-and-roll guitarists of the baby-boomer generation. It seems like a perk of the music profession, not unusual or exceptional. He sang, “I got women’s in Vicksburg, clean on into Tennessee” and he was not far from the truth. All of that can be understood in the context of his rough and tumble life.
In the course of this book, we see a virtuoso and musical genius, driven by his life circumstances, whose music was not just as an evocation but an existentialist creative force, the core heart and soul of his essential humanity.
Nathaniel Hawthorne once said, “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” In this case, what we were shown of Robert Johnson was skewed and we, the blues audience, were ultimately bewildered by the cacophony of allegories. The face we were shown of this young musician was distorted. Truth was overshadowed by fable, with too much unknown. Now we are finally shown a path to a better understanding of who the man truly was. Hopefully, people will again respect Robert Johnson for the only important aspect of this entire story – his amazing musicality.
PS: Every writer will bring their own perspective based on their own experience to any project. My journey with Robert Johnson goes back to my teenage years when I first got ahold of “Robert Johnson-King of the Delta Blues Singers.” I was enthralled and mesmerized by his music, but the devil stuff never counted for me. I just don’t believe that. Now, almost 50-years later, he still twangs the bass string of my soul. Over the years I read almost everything published about him. This book for me is unquestionably the best of them all.