The Search for Robert Johnson
Encyclopedia
The Search for Robert Johnson is a 1991 UK television documentary film about the legendary Delta blues
musician Robert Johnson, hosted by John Hammond
, and produced and directed by Chris Hunt. In it, Hammond travels through the American Deep South
to pursue topics such as Johnson's birth date, place and parents, his early musical development, performances and travels, romances, his mythic "pact with the devil," his untimely murder in his late twenties, the discovery of possible offspring, and the uncertainty over where Johnson is buried. Throughout, Johnson's music is both foreground and background, from recordings of Johnson and as performed on camera by Hammond, David Honeyboy Edwards
, and Johnny Shines
.
His father, record producer and jazz impresario John H. Hammond
, had planned and advertised for Robert Johnson to perform at Carnegie Hall
, but Johnson died prior to the concert.
The film is loosely organized around field work by Johnson researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick. Throughout the film, Hammond travels to locations where Johnson lived, performed, recorded, and purportedly where he died, and interviews two of Johnson's girlfriends and blues musicians who knew him, as well as two noted blues researchers. Locations include the "Delta
, the floodplain of northwestern Mississippi, on into Arkansas and Texas, and into southern Mississippi, where he was born and died."
The film has been noted for its presentation of new evidence, at the time, about Johnson's life.
and
Eric Clapton
,
blues researchers Gayle Dean Wardlow
and Robert "Mack" McCormick, childhood acquaintance Wink Clark,
Nat Richardson, a "juke house" owner's son,
Delta blues musicians David Honeyboy Edwards
and
Johnny Shines
,
girlfriends Willie Mae Powell and
'Queen' Elizabeth,
discovered son Claude Johnson, his son Gregory and grandson Richard,
Greenwood Councillor David Jordan, and
cemetery attendant Miller Carter were all interviewed for the film.
Folk singer Dave Van Ronk
, reviewing the released video for Entertainment Weekly, wrote of its "lucid narration," and gave the film an "A," satisfied that it stayed focused on the music.
Chicago Tribune reviewer Bill Dahl's four-star review termed the film "fascinating" and summarized, "Questions remain about this blues legend who claimed he sold his soul to achieve musical immortality, but this exceptional video answers a great many of them."
Prior to its showing on American network Bravo, a 1994 New York Times review described the film as "outstanding" and "a riveting combination of biography and American history."
Upon the Sony DVD's release in 2000, Ian Morris of MichaelDVD.com rated the film itself at 4.5/5 stars, calling it "like manna from heaven for a music aficionado like myself," and "an almost essential purchase about one of the true legends of music," while faulting the DVD's video quality and lack of closed captions, for an aggregate score of 4/5 stars.
In 2004, author Patricia R. Schroeder analyzed the film in depth in Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture, writing that the film is "a well researched attempt to recover what is knowable about the historical Robert Johnson. It was well received by critics, as Emmy-winner Chris Hunt's documentaries on musical figures usually are."
But Schroeder found that the film's documentary goals of objectivity and authenticity were partly undercut, first by the lavish praise heaped upon Johnson early in the film and Hammond's self-acknowledged "quest", and second because Hammond was featured prominently in the film playing long passages of several Johnson songs, and seeming to stand in for Johnson in sessions and in the re-enactment of headcutting
.
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
musician Robert Johnson, hosted by John Hammond
John P. Hammond
John Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:...
, and produced and directed by Chris Hunt. In it, Hammond travels through the American Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
to pursue topics such as Johnson's birth date, place and parents, his early musical development, performances and travels, romances, his mythic "pact with the devil," his untimely murder in his late twenties, the discovery of possible offspring, and the uncertainty over where Johnson is buried. Throughout, Johnson's music is both foreground and background, from recordings of Johnson and as performed on camera by Hammond, David Honeyboy Edwards
David Honeyboy Edwards
David "Honeyboy" Edwards was a Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South. Edwards was the last Delta bluesman before his 2011 death.-Life and career:Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi...
, and Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth...
.
Documentary
Blues musician and "keeper of the flame" John Hammond described his journey into the American South as "the quest of a lifetime".His father, record producer and jazz impresario John H. Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, had planned and advertised for Robert Johnson to perform at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, but Johnson died prior to the concert.
The film is loosely organized around field work by Johnson researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick. Throughout the film, Hammond travels to locations where Johnson lived, performed, recorded, and purportedly where he died, and interviews two of Johnson's girlfriends and blues musicians who knew him, as well as two noted blues researchers. Locations include the "Delta
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
, the floodplain of northwestern Mississippi, on into Arkansas and Texas, and into southern Mississippi, where he was born and died."
The film has been noted for its presentation of new evidence, at the time, about Johnson's life.
- Hammond describes Johnny Shines arriving in Helena, Arkansas, hearing there was a guitar player who thought highly of himself, and going to meet him. Shines re-enacts, with Hammond standing in for Johnson, the performance battle he had with Johnson on opposing street corners in Helena, where the two played and sang to pull away the other man's crowd of listeners. In the re-enactment scene, Shines gradually draws onlookers away from Hammond, "cutting heads," as described by Barbara Schroeder.
- Interviewing Willie Mae Powell, once Johnson's girlfriend, Hammond plays for her Johnson's recording of "Love in VainLove in Vain"Love in Vain" is a 1937 blues song written by Robert Johnson.The song is noted for its sad lyrics, tone, and style. In the 1991 documentary film The Search for Robert Johnson, John P. Hammond plays Robert's recording of "Love in Vain" for the elderly Willie Mae Powell, the woman for whom it was...
" which she had not heard before. When Johnson calls out Willie Mae's name in the song, she is visibly surprised. - In the first documented interview with Claude Johnson, son Gregory and grandson Richard, Claude's birth certificate is shown, as he describes that "Robert Lee Johnson" is his father. Claude was legally declared to be Robert Johnson's son in 1998.
- David Honeyboy Edwards, riding with Hammond through Greenwood, MississippiGreenwood, MississippiGreenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The population was 15,205 at the 2010 census. It is the...
, points out a yellow shotgun houseShotgun houseThe shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than 12 feet wide, with doors at each end. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from the end of the American Civil War , through the 1920s. Alternate names include shotgun shack,...
where he says Johnson died. This location was mapped in the National Park ServiceNational Park ServiceThe National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
photographic documentary project "Trail of the Hellhound". - The film presents the first record of direct testimony by Johnson researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick. McCormick had not published previous research under his own name.
- In the film, McCormick discloses that Johnson's association with "satanic legends" started not merely as myth concocted by others, but had its roots in the death of Johnson's first wife during childbirth while he was away. Her family blamed Johnson, mainly for being an itinerant musician singing "the devil's music". McCormick asserts that Johnson was condemned so severely for her death that he gradually "became that person", associating himself with the devil in his music.
- Robert Johnson's death certificate is shown in the documentary, "answering some questions, but prompting even more." It had been located by blues researcher Gayle Dean WardlowGayle Dean WardlowGayle Dean Wardlow is an American historian of the blues. He is particularly associated with research into the lives of musicians Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson and the historical development of the Delta blues, on which he is a leading world authority.He was born in Freer, Texas, but was...
in 1968, and independently by McCormick, who also tracked down witnesses to events surrounding Johnson's poisoning and death.
Interviewees
Guitarists Keith RichardsKeith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
and
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
,
blues researchers Gayle Dean Wardlow
Gayle Dean Wardlow
Gayle Dean Wardlow is an American historian of the blues. He is particularly associated with research into the lives of musicians Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson and the historical development of the Delta blues, on which he is a leading world authority.He was born in Freer, Texas, but was...
and Robert "Mack" McCormick, childhood acquaintance Wink Clark,
Nat Richardson, a "juke house" owner's son,
Delta blues musicians David Honeyboy Edwards
David Honeyboy Edwards
David "Honeyboy" Edwards was a Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South. Edwards was the last Delta bluesman before his 2011 death.-Life and career:Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi...
and
Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth...
,
girlfriends Willie Mae Powell and
'Queen' Elizabeth,
discovered son Claude Johnson, his son Gregory and grandson Richard,
Greenwood Councillor David Jordan, and
cemetery attendant Miller Carter were all interviewed for the film.
Reception
The film received positive reviews, especially from musicians and music critics. Upon its broadcast in 1992, UK producer and blues critic Neil Slaven, quoted later by Schroeder, wrote that the film "encompasses a detective story overlaid with folk memory, its interviews succinctly to the point, containing humor, superstition, and contextural information in equal parts."Folk singer Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
, reviewing the released video for Entertainment Weekly, wrote of its "lucid narration," and gave the film an "A," satisfied that it stayed focused on the music.
Chicago Tribune reviewer Bill Dahl's four-star review termed the film "fascinating" and summarized, "Questions remain about this blues legend who claimed he sold his soul to achieve musical immortality, but this exceptional video answers a great many of them."
Prior to its showing on American network Bravo, a 1994 New York Times review described the film as "outstanding" and "a riveting combination of biography and American history."
Upon the Sony DVD's release in 2000, Ian Morris of MichaelDVD.com rated the film itself at 4.5/5 stars, calling it "like manna from heaven for a music aficionado like myself," and "an almost essential purchase about one of the true legends of music," while faulting the DVD's video quality and lack of closed captions, for an aggregate score of 4/5 stars.
In 2004, author Patricia R. Schroeder analyzed the film in depth in Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture, writing that the film is "a well researched attempt to recover what is knowable about the historical Robert Johnson. It was well received by critics, as Emmy-winner Chris Hunt's documentaries on musical figures usually are."
But Schroeder found that the film's documentary goals of objectivity and authenticity were partly undercut, first by the lavish praise heaped upon Johnson early in the film and Hammond's self-acknowledged "quest", and second because Hammond was featured prominently in the film playing long passages of several Johnson songs, and seeming to stand in for Johnson in sessions and in the re-enactment of headcutting
Guitar Battle
A guitar battle is where two or more guitar players take turns soloing, either with or without a rhythm section. The purpose of the guitar battle is to determine who among each of the guitar players present is the most proficient on the instrument...
.
Releases
- TV: UK Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, 1992. - VHS: Sony Music Video 49113. 1992
- DVD: Sony Music. October 31, 2000 ASIN: B000050IKX UPC: 007464491139
- DVD: Digital Classics. May 8, 2006. ASIN: B000EU1LOA