Biography of a Phantom (Robert Johnson)

[JSngry]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/mack-mccormick-quest-to-find-real-robert-johnson/

Not that I was going to read it anyway (because at this point I don't/can't care anymore), but this article is a fascinating look at the author and how some mythologies are created, not always benevolently. 

It might be telling that McCormick named his by all accounts staggering archive "The Monster" 

[T.D.]

Thanks, very interesting article...though I kind of skimmed it at warp speed. Bookmarking it for when I see a copy of the book in a store.

Enjoyed the article, but definitely passing on the book. That McCormick dude seems too crazy to believe whatever he wrote. I applaud but don't envy the researcher(s) who spend a lot of time down the rabbit hole of "The Monster".

[Dan Gould]

Really fascinating piece, I remember reading about this guy back when the Times did their piece about the obscure female blues singers ... in the end you have someone who did extraordinary work documenting musicians and histories, even as he also worked to obscure the truth as it suited him, or suited what was clearly a diseased mind.

I will be interested to see what the Smithsonian puts out from the archive. I mean The Monster.

[Big Beat Steve]

Fascinating indeed ...
Mack McCormick was a force (source? ) to be reckoned with at the (for want of a better word) "folksy" end of the writings on the history of popular music.
Sadly this article also shows him as another case where excessive obsession with one's lifelong interests turns you into a nut job who feels suspicious about anyone and anything out there and seems to feel a need to get even with everyone ... A case of a deep down inside feeling that regardless of all acknowledgments and achievements he has not been given his due by his peers and the audience at large but rather has been taken advantage of by just everyone? Pity ...

I wonder what he had to say about the Robert Johnson biography "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald (bought this one upon recommendations here IIRC and found it very interesting).

P.S.: Have saved the article and will peruse it in detail later so I have not taken in every word yet - but ... can anyone fill me in on what the photograph of LeDell Johnson halfway through the story means in THIS context? I did a word search through the article but he only comes up in the photo caption. However, AFAIK LeDell was the brother of blues singer TOMMY Johnson, an altogether different blues man (not much less mythic or mysterious - cf. the Tommy Johnson bio by David Evans publicshed by Studio Vista in 1971).

PS.2: I think the below story on Mack McCormick was mentioned here some months ago as well:

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/my-quest-to-preserve-the-secret-blues

 

[T.D.]

1 hour ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Fascinating indeed ...
Mack McCormick was a force (source? ) to be reckoned with at the (for want of a better word) "folksy" end of the writings on the history of popular music.
Sadly this article also shows him as another case where excessive obsession with one's lifelong interests turns you into a nut job who feels suspicious about anyone and anything out there and seems to feel a need to get even with everyone ... A case of a deep down inside feeling that regardless of all acknowledgments and achievements he has not been given his due by his peers and the audience at large but rather has been taken advantage of by just everyone? Pity ...

I wonder what he had to say about the Robert Johnson biography "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald (bought this one upon recommendations here IIRC and found it very interesting).

P.S.: Have saved the article and will peruse it in detail later so I have not taken in every word yet - but ... can anyone fill me in on what the photograph of LeDell Johnson halfway through the story means in THIS context? I did a word search through the article but he only comes up in the photo caption. However, AFAIK LeDell was the brother of blues singer TOMMY Johnson, an altogether different blues man (not much less mythic or mysterious - cf. the Tommy Johnson bio by David Evans publicshed by Studio Vista in 1971).

PS.2: I think the below story on Mack McCormick was mentioned here some months ago as well:

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/my-quest-to-preserve-the-secret-blues

 

Good question about Ledell Johnson. 

As far as I can tell, Ledell Johnson is an oft-cited source for at least part of "the Devil Legend".

See

https://www.facebook.com/BluesAdvocate/photos/celebrating-the-life-and-music-of-legendary-bluesman-robert-johnson-born-may-8-1/502188696554305/

Further details were absorbed from the imaginative retellings by Greil Marcus[60] and Robert Palmer.[61] Most significantly, the detail was added that Johnson received his gift from a large black man at a crossroads. There is dispute as to how and when the crossroads detail was attached to the Robert Johnson story. All the published evidence, including a full chapter on the subject in the biography Crossroads by Tom Graves, suggests an origin in the story of Blues musician Tommy Johnson. This story was collected from his [Tommy's? TD] musical associate Ishman Bracey and his elder brother Ledell in the 1960s.[62] One version of Ledell Johnson's account was published in David Evans's 1971 biography of Tommy,[63] and was repeated in print in 1982 alongside Son House's story in the widely read Searching for Robert Johnson.[64]

In another version, Ledell placed the meeting not at a crossroads but in a graveyard. This resembles the story told to Steve LaVere that Ike Zinnerman of Hazlehurst, Mississippi learned to play the guitar at midnight while sitting on tombstones. Zinnerman is believed to have influenced the playing of the young Robert Johnson.[65]

Recent research by blues scholar Bruce Conforth, in Living Blues magazine, makes the story clearer. Johnson and Ike Zimmerman did practice in a graveyard at night, because it was quiet and no one would disturb them, but it was not the Hazlehurst cemetery as had been believed. Zimmerman (his actual name as it was reportedly spelled on census records for the family going back into the early 1800s, his social security card, social security death notice, funeral program, and by his daughters) was not from Hazlehurst but nearby Beauregard. And he didn't practice in one graveyard, but in several in the area.[66] Johnson spent about a year living with and learning from Zimmerman, who ultimately accompanied Johnson back to the Delta to look after him.
 

Speaking of Conforth, I very recently saw the following 2019 book in a shop. I'm far more likely to read this than McCormick's opus.

Edited April 17, 2023 by T.D.

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks for this info. It has been ages since I read the Tommy Johnson biography in full (I bought the book in London - along with a Charley Patton bio - at age 17 in 1977) but that name LeDell did stick. Must check that "source" again soon.

[Dub Modal]

Conforth & Wardlow's book is excellent. I recommend it to anyone. 

[T.D.]

2 hours ago, Dub Modal said:

Conforth & Wardlow's book is excellent. I recommend it to anyone. 

Thanks. I just requested a copy via interlibrary loan.

I'm covered by a really good ILL network and have read some excellent titles that way.

[Brad]

A Biography of a Blues Legend, Five Decades in the Making

“Mack McCormick’s long-awaited book about the musician Robert Johnson has arrived, in modest and expurgated form.”

[Big Beat Steve]

10 hours ago, Brad said:

A Biography of a Blues Legend, Five Decades in the Making

“Mack McCormick’s long-awaited book about the musician Robert Johnson has arrived, in modest and expurgated form.”

Paywall!

[Face of the Bass]

That Texas Monthly article is really good, thanks for posting.

[T.D.]

On 4/18/2023 at 8:30 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

Paywall!

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