[150 years ago this week, the great W.C. Handy was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Handy and other icons of the Blues, leading up to a special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]
On one
reason I really like the Robert
Johnson & the Devil mythos, and one way I’d push back.
I wrote a
bit about the story of Robert Johnson & the Devil as part of this
post on the wonderful TV show Hap &
Leonard’s fictionalized retelling, and in lieu of a first paragraph here
would ask you to check out that post and then come on back for more on that folktale
and its focal Blues icon. (You should check out that show as well, but maybe
not before reading the rest of this post!)
Welcome
back! I’m a big fan of the Johnson/Devil story, and particularly of the unique
and vital work it does in creating a rooted American folklore (work that our
artists have been trying to do since at least Washington
Irving). No offense to the likes of Paul
Bunyan and Pecos
Bill, the stories of whom young AmericanStudier greatly enjoyed reading,
but that’s precisely the problem: to my mind much of our folklore feels
distinctly childish, aimed at youthful audiences and as a result without a lot
of the multilayered darkness that the best folktales tend
to include. Or there are American folktales like those featuring the
Wendigo, which are purely supernatural and terrifying. Whereas I’d argue
that the Robert
Johnson & the Devil folktale really balances those various elements—able
to appeal to young audiences but with some seriously adult complications,
supernatural to be sure but connected to a very real historical and cultural
figure (and to broader social
issues of race and region as well, of course). Indeed, if I were to make
the case for one American folktale as exemplifying that complex genre, I think
this is the one I’d choose.
But
nothing in American culture is simple (that could be a motto for this blog and
my whole online public scholarly career), and there are also some real
downsides to the prominence of this folktale version of Johnson. I don’t
disagree with the arguments in the last hyperlinked article above, that the
Devil story both demonizes Johnson and demeans the whole genre of the Blues.
But even if we don’t go that far, there’s no doubt that the focus on the
folktale can make it more difficult to remember and engage with the very human
layers to Johnson’s
life and story. For example, Johnson only took part in two recording
sessions before his tragically
early death in August 1938 at the age of 27, recording a total of 29 songs
in those 1936
and 1937 sessions. Yet in that far too brief period he helped establish the
genre of the
Delta Blues, and he did so at least in part through precisely the element
that is turned into something supernatural by the folktale: his unique guitar playing
and sound. Apparently he did learn that craft remarkably quickly, since his mentor
Son House noted that when they first met Johnson wasn’t much of a
guitarist. But that’s a striking artistic and human success story, and one we
shouldn’t allow a compelling folktale to minimize.
Next Blues
icon tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?
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