This is an article I had written a few years back and forgotten about. I resurrected this piece inspired by the release of the book ‘Brother Robert – Growing Up With Robert Johnson’, by his sister Annye C. Anderson, where she makes a case to reclaim her brother’s humanity, which essentially made the same point as I tried to do here.
By Frank Matheis
The marketing strategy of Robert Johnson’s music by Columbia Records had from the outset been largely based on mythological tales and persona-glorification. What a great story to sell records with: the young itinerant minstrel died from poisoning at age 27, in 1938, with only 29 recorded songs– he sold his soul to the devil at a dirt road crossing in the Mississippi night in exchange for limitless musical prowess. Just as John Hammond was about to make him famous by featuring him in the Carnegie Hall “From Spirituals to Swing” concert in 1938, he was nowhere to be found, having been killed a jealous husband.
Good stuff and great fodder for an advertising agency. After all, the devil legend in the blues is well documented and takes its roots in both Judeo-Christian theology and West-African Voodoo-based soul-sacrifice mythology. Then, international blues-revival folklorists and ethno-musicologists picked up on the legend by supporting the contention with imagery from Johnson’s own lyrics. Books were sold, reputations made and stories told. A legend was created and the cash register rang all around with over-romanticized tales of glory. All was closely tied to the Goethe play ‘Faust’, where Mephistopheles received the soul of the tortured, forsaken doctor.
In recent times, a new cadre of musicologists has greatly diffused the myth so hyped by the marketers and the previous generation of musicologists have so successfully purveyed. Elijah Wald did a good job dispelling some of that nonsense in his book ‘Escaping the Delta’, as did others, such as Dr. Barry Lee Pearson. The origins of this hype are well documented. Along the way, however, too much has been made of it and even otherwise normal, reasonable people among the blues audience have somehow gotten swept up in this cult-like mystification of Johnson. His records were predominately sold to the baby-boomer generation in Europe and the US. It’s one thing to market a record to otherwise sensible people by hyping a folk-legend, but it’s another to take the quantum leap to fathom that people actually buy into this Faustian story.
Are people that easily fooled? Apparently so.
I once talked to Robert Lockwood Jr., Johnson’s’ stepson, about this situation. He just disdainfully shook his head and said “Shiiiit”. The outrage at the perpetuation of this myth, the very demonization of the young blues bard, had become personally offensive and repugnant to his kin. Does anyone care how his family feels?
Do people really believe that there is a real personified devil in the first place? Would these same “educated”, white listeners really believe that someone, like, let’s say, their own grandfather, could have sold his soul to the devil in 1932 and that he actually was able to complete the deal to sell his soul? Does all that devil stuff fit into their own belief system or life experiences of the blues audience?
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. 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.
Unfortunately, this marketing hype has taken an 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, in the most base and primitive exploitation. Johnson’s name and likeness, particularly his two validated photos have been copied, reproduced and absconded by so-called artists. They have painted and misrepresented him in every conceivable way, to the point of completely stripping Robert Johnson of his humanity and dignity.
The worst example, which not just personally demeaning to the late musician, but fundamentally and inherently racist, is a popular poster by the self-described “folk-artist”, Grego. (No disrespect intended to true folk-art, which is a beautiful genre. When it comes to the blues, it tends to be a refuge for people who are actually with very little skill and talent and pretend that this is representational of the blues). His crude paintings are regularly sold on eBay. The worst among Grego’s many ill-fated paintings shows Johnson in the now familiar guitar-holding pose, complete with devil’s horns, hell-fire red skin and claw like fingers with the inscription “Robert Johnson-Delta Bluesman- He had a hellhound on his trail but a glass of whiskey set him free”. People like Grego, and countless others who shamelessly cash in on the Robert Johnson cult following, debased a great artist and reduced him to the very personification of the devil himself.
If this was real-blues art, how come black people hate it so? When you speak to contemporary African-American blues musicians it becomes clear that they desire no association with any of that stuff. It does not have to be black musicians to be the authority on this. Show this stuff to any regular black folks and see what a reaction you get. You won’t see that painting hang in the walls of too many African-Americans.
No wonder Johnson is having a hard time getting the deserved respect and admiration among African-Americans, who generally revile the entire white-created marketing-image of the blues-scene, especially these types of horrid things. Johnson has not gained acceptance as a great artist among his own people, even though he is a legitimate international cultural success. He is skipped over in African-American Month celebrations when other black historical figures, artists, actors and writers are widely celebrated. This caricature of a true genius created by all those who profited from him, including his new found legal heirs, actually served to deprive him of his rightful place in cultural history-as a true musical giant and genius. Because of all this hype, over-intellectualization of lyrics, misinterpretation and financial exploitation, the focus on Robert Johnson as a gifted musician, as an immensely talented singer, whose music reached international appeal because of its own merit, seems to have been lost.
Grego, and those like him, have gone so far as to dehumanize a person, an African American artist of significant cultural significance, in order to profit from the hype. Grego does not draw the line at Robert Johnson. He depicts numerous of the old blues masters in pseudo-primitive paintings, attempting to evoke a “folk-image”.
Who buys this shameless stuff? It must be the same white blues audience. This whole thing has gotten out of hand. The time has come for the blues community and audience to draw the line and protest against these ugly, debasing images. Let’s call it what it is: racist, exploitative and offensive, not to mention stupid. It’s time to stand up against this nonsense.
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