Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson

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.

A book of this sort demands a review for those who might have long Searched in Vain for the real data and true story of Robert Johnson's brief life and even more brief career. The book covers well how the Crossroads Myth developed -- and how it was not unique to Johnson -- and then dispells the nonsense and brings the reader the hard facts, as much as they can be known. No source, whether recorded data or testimony of those living or dead, seems to have been overlooked. The research is extensive and conjecture is kept to an absolute minimum. What is most amazing is how well it reads and how steadily the story keeps its interest, considering the amount of scholarship poured into clearing the fog of myth, make believe, and decades past while providing the facts.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the accurate story of Robert Johnson. The book is an "easy read" and appears historically accurate, as evident by the sources cited. Many of the legends and myths (including the alleged deal with the devil at the crossroads) are addressed, and information is given to support, or refute, their validity. I personally am not a fast reader, but I read the book in approximately 2 days; I couldn't put it down!

I have heard the Robert Johnson story my whole life. I never really believed he actually sold his soul to the devil, but this book provides very well researched information about Robert Johnson and his short life. It left me sad for the short and troubled life of Robert Johnson, and a real feeling I now know him as a real human being. That coupled with some insight into the culture of the times and the people, helps to explain the mysteries around him. I don't suppose this would be a good choice for a lot of people, notably those who have no interest (historical or otherwise) in delta blues and no exposure to the people who performed it, but I loved it.

There a good chance that Robert Johnson isn't who you think he is but, in real life and the context of his time, was much more. This is, without a doubt, the best biography of Robert Johnson I have ever read and I think I have read them all. Conforth and Wardlow have done a meticulous job of documenting as much of Johnson's short and difficult life as anyone may ever be able to do. Unlike some previous bios, they avoid romanticizing Johnson and dispel many of the myths, some of which Johnson himself propagated. They explore the likely sources of the most often repeated myths and how (or if) they correspond to known facts. Their portrait is of a real person with real flaws and challenges but they also document aspects of Robert Johnson that are genuinely worthy of admiration. Robert Johnson is a key figure in the history of popular music. He was influenced by those who came before him but he took what he learned and extended and expanded the art. The recordings are evidence of that but the true facts of his life and talent ensure Johnson's proper place in music history. Despite extensive footnotes and detailed references, the book reads like a popular biography and not a textbook. I highly recommend this book to all fans of Robert Johnson and the history of the Blues.Here's a tidbit for those that read to the end of this review: on page 252-253 the authors reveal the name of the person that poisoned Robert Johnson and the details of why and how. You'll have to read the book to know more.

You can throw away all of your other attempts at writing a book about Robert Johnson's life and music. "Up Jumped The Devil" finally has what we have been waiting for, an accurate, well documented, and verified history of the life of Robert Johnson. I read it in one sitting and the next time I listened to his music I felt as though it was the first time. There was a real person playing and singing, not a phantom, not a mysterious dealing with the Devil at the crossroads fellow who became a musical genius overnight but a young man who worked hard to learn from everyone around him including the recorded music of the day and gradually became the iconic link between the "country blues" and the "city" blues. Clear your shelves of the books and videos that have made attempts at unraveling this man's life and get a copy of "Up Jumped The Devil", you won't be disappointed!

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.

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.

Loved this book. Well researched and very informative.