Sheet Music

Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues

Amistad, 342 pp., $24.95

How much of what we now think of Robert Johnson and the Mississippi Delta blues scene that produced him is based on historical fact as opposed to romanticized hindsight and projection? Longtime blues aficionado Elijah Wald tackles this question by recounting not only what the blues meant in the 1930s, but also the influences that helped shape Robert Johnson into a talented performer and folklore legend. While modern fans tend to perceive the Delta's past as dominated by bumpkin musicians who reveled in their marginality, the truth is a much more cosmopolitan outlook fueled their musical endeavors. With urban stars like Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, and Bessie Smith serving as marquee acts of the day, it becomes apparent that even the most remotely located bluesman wished to appropriate the successes of a more progressive orientation. Beyond the single-mindedness of a sharecropper wishing to exorcise his demons, a traveling musician such as Johnson was more likely to be proficient in the hits of the day, whether by Gene Autry or Peetie Wheatstraw, than his own originals. Because of this, Johnson was only a small cog in the wheel of a larger blues scene, proven by the fact that during his lifetime "Terraplane Blues" was his only hit, and a minor one at that. Yet since Columbia released his complete recordings in 1961 under the title King of the Delta Blues Singers, Johnson mentors and colleagues – Son House, Skip James, Leroy Carr, and Kokomo Arnold – have had their legacies dwarfed by the cult of all things Robert Johnson. Even the legend of Johnson selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads is a story transferred from another Delta artist named Tommy Johnson. Along with its companion CD, Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson, Escaping the Delta does an extraordinary job of sifting through the myths in order to unearth reality.