![]() ![]() The people doing the work were mostly blues fans like McCormick, and there weren’t many of them. He did most of this work in the 1960s and early 1970s-starting at a time when professors and career musicologists had little interest in undertaking this kind of laborious research into the origins of the Delta blues. ![]() While others speculated about Robert Johnson, McCormick was determined to uncover the truth-at whatever the cost. We heard crazy stories about him selling his soul to the devil, or showing up in unlikely cities under assumed names, or finally getting poisoned by a jealous husband who literally got away with murder in the racist South.īut it was hard to know what was true and what merely rumor or conjecture-until McCormick started making lengthy field trips into Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and elsewhere, going anywhere or everywhere even a speck of information might be found. But what little we knew about his own life was more legend than reality. ![]() Robert Johnson (1911-1938) profoundly influenced later generations of blues, rock, and folk performers-impacting everybody from Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones. Ever since it was announced a half century ago, this work has been eagerly anticipated by blues fans and music scholars-who hoped it would solve all the mysteries surrounding the most enigmatic figure in twentieth century American music. The book is the long awaited biography of blues legend Robert Johnson by the late Robert ‘Mack’ McCormick (1930-2015). The release of this work has set off arguments that, I suspect, will continue for decades to come. And it’s all about a book written 50 years ago-and finally published on Tuesday. A scandal is taking place in American music this week.
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