Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson

This brilliant piece of historical research was so good that I struggled to put this book down and read it in a handful of sittings. The culmination of fifty years' worth of investigations by the authors, the book unravels Robert Johnson's troubled childhood and places him into the context of the dehumanizing society that replaced slavery in the Southern States. It is quite staggering to think that it would take so much effort to find out about someone born in 1911 yet the author's reveal a world which is unimaginable these days. These books about bluesmen seem to require a great deal of work to get to the bottom of largely unforgotten lives. I am an avid reader of history books and discovering the truth about Robert Johnson through censuses and births/marriage/ death records as well as discounting the many unreliable contemporary accounts always seems to me as a task akin to researching medieval lives in Europe. I think this books is as much a robust and fascinating piece of historical research as a biography. I love the fact that the authors take the trouble to disentangle the legends that surround Johnson's life whilst revealing just how these stories were propagated and what led them to be believed. In Johnson's case, it becomes apparent that his transient life-style fueled these legends whilst contemporaries like Son House transpire to be unreliable witnesses who have led previous biographers down the garden path. As the truth is revealed, I felt that the writers also managed to capture a good deal of Johnson's personality and they make him human, albeit not a character that is particularly likeable. Clearly a loner who relentlessly pursued women and ultimately to his detriment, I found the account as to how musical virtuosity was disseminated (or not !) fascinating and maybe offers a topic for a further book. The book serves as a social history, recreating a world which has been heavily romanticized in the past although markedly different from the reality. I think that the chapters concerning the two recording sessions are also fascinating and reveal Johnson to have borrowed a lot of his material from an earlier generation of artists. His guitar playing technique and the various tunings is intriguing although I found the chapter where he ultimately arrived in large urban centres fascinating because it was clear he was behind the curve with regards the way that blues evolved in the 1930s. There was clearly a lack of interest in electrical amplification or in the way that jazz players like Charlie Christian were taking guitar playing forward. Despite this, he was still familiar with the likes of Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, covering some of their more urban music. You sense that he was a musician who would have remained true to his acoustic, country roots. All in all, this book is a success in so many ways. The social history aspect is a revelation and a lesson that the often tragic and short lives lived by the musicians was a reflection of the brutality of their lives, often lived without any degree of sentiment. It also serves as a brilliant biography before opening up his music to analysis. I am not sure that there is much else to learn about Johnson's tragically short life after reading this book and the contrast with how his death was handled at the local level with the spurious, romanticized account given by impresario John Hammond is indicative of how even in the 1930s liberal white people had no understanding of the reality of the lives led by their black counterparts. All in all, whether you treat this a historical research or a biography of one of the 20th century's most mysterious artists, this is a fantastic read that I thoroughly recommend.

I desperately tried to read the book from the standpoint of someone who had only heard RJs recordings and had never been exposed to the stories, myths, ramblings and general bs surrounding him - a difficult task, believe me.The authors have, in my opinion, made a pretty good fist of producing a biography based on an incredible amount of interviews, records, documents and such going back over the last fifty years - thoroughly debunking the 'sold his soul to the devil' tale along the way.All of their sources and notes are listed at the end of the book which allows the reader to check the authors sources if they wish to do so.It tells the story of a young man from a broken home who only wanted to play guitar, compose songs, play differently to his peers, chase women, drink, play gigs, record and become famous but was eventually cut down in his prime.There is no evidence of dark deals and the like presented in this book - only of a guitarist/musicianer who worked bloody hard to be different and be the best in his chosen profession.Does this sound any bells out there?I'm of an age to have seen perform and met, albeit only briefly, Peter Green and Jimi Hendrix in their heydays and I sometimes really despair at the bs and downright lies that have been disseminated (usually by writers and commentators who weren't even born before 1970) about these guitarists and their true histories which I know about.In the case of Wardlow and Cornforth, even though they were born way after RJ had passed, I think they have done their research thoroughly, dispassionatley and brought together a book that will probably (hopefully?) come to be accepted as the nearest to the truth of RJs life and times.......and no doubt will be discussed ad nauseum just like everything else to do with RJ.It is well worth the read.LaVere - eat your heart out! ;)

Loved this book. It moves along at a nice pace and delivers the facts. Managed to do the Memphis New Orleans train journey couple year back n this book read like a movie. Would recommend

Great book to read by the pool :)

Forget what the moaners say, this book is the last word, the last accurate and honest word on Robert Johnson, without all the tosh about deals with the devil and crossroads etc etc !There are a few minor points I beg to differ on, eg. the “secret tuning” it is said he used for just one take of one song. I tried out the tuning myself and found myself very capable of playing the song quite close to the recording. However, it’s a weird tuning, needs a capo & difficult to stay in tune, and he doesn’t play the v low-tuned sixth string at all. When you can play the tune quite accurately in standard Open G tuning, why bother with this daft tuning ? Makes no sense to me !!Excellent book otherwise.

I bought this as a gift but I've been told to review it as a fascinating read about a man so many legends were based on.

Very detailed account of the life, after life, and death of Robert Johnson. No stone is left unturned in trying to answer what happened in his life, as well as how his death came to pass.Highly recommended.

Great book! Highly recommended to all the blues lovers. Also, an interesting portrait of the black people's life in the early 1900's...

Impeccably researched. Masterfully written and eminently readable. "Up Jumped the Devil" will be considered the definitive biography of Robert Johnson for a very, very long time.Other works have sought to place Robert Johnson's music within an historical context. Elijah Wald's "Escaping the Delta" painted a detailed portrait of the pre-war South that chronicled Johnson's ex post facto impact on the blues and popular music while demythologizing his ascendancy. Wald studiously cast Johnson as an incredibly skilled, distinctly modern musician with a broad repertoire. Conforth, however, provides chronological and contextual details about Johnson's life that reinforce Wald's more theoretical treatise on the birth of the blues (and its omnipresent influence on a distinctly American art form). If Wald impeccably narrated Johnson's lasting influence , then Conforth has cast breathtaking light on the man himself.I cannot recommend this book highly enough for serious and casual fans and historians.

Wonderful gift for my husband who is very much is enjoying the read.

Livro maravilhoso, fruto de extensa pesquisa (50 anos!).Não recomendo àqueles que gostam de fantasia, lendas e mitos - aqui não vai ter o "Robert Johnson que vendeu a alma ao diabo", que teria aprendido a tocar "com maestria por conta de um pacto" e demais histórias do gênero. Aos demais, que se interessam por história, há um trabalho magnífico, recheado de fontes confiáveis e documentação, que mostra quem de fato foi o homem Robert Johnson, pelo que passou em sua vida e que o tornou o "bluesman" inquieto, quase nômade, que viria a influenciar gerações futuras de forma tão impactante.Possivelmente será impossível substituir este livro por um ainda mais completo no futuro. Em 50 anos de pesquisa, os escritores definitivamente "escavaram" tudo que podia existir acerca de Robert Johnson. Ainda há uma fotografia inédita no acervo de Mack McCormick (musicólogo, falecido), e recentemente a irmã ainda viva de Robert Johnson lançou um livro com mais uma fotografia inédita - mas o livro de Annye Anderson, por exemplo, embora belíssimo, foca apenas no lado familiar do "Irmão Robert", de forma que a pesquisa de "Up Jumped The Devil" continuará sendo a definitiva, ao que tudo indica.

Documento importante, scritto dopo una ricerca durata oltre 50 anni. Una risorsa per gli amanti del blues. Ricca di chicche e dati storici utili a scoprire una realtà lontana e per noi italiani sconosciuta, questa biografia rimane un punto fisso.

Loved this book. Well researched and very informative.