According to legend, a young guitar player named Robert Johnson made his way to a crossroads near Clarksdale, Mississippi sometime in the early 1930s. At midnight, Johnson held his guitar behind his back, and the Devil tuned it for him. Johnson had gained a staggering new talent for playing the blues—in exchange for his soul. Just a few years later, Johnson died at the age of 27 under mysterious circumstances. He had recorded only 29 songs, one of the smallest, and yet most influential bodies of work in all of American music. In this event, we will discuss Johnson's moving lyrics, his incredible style of finger-picking blues, but also the mythology that surrounds blues music and its tragic heroes. We'll compare the legend with the more complicated history of Johnson and of blues music, as it emerged from the Mississippi Delta and became a recognized musical genre.
To access the lyrics for the songs we will discuss, click here or visit any branch for a physical copy.
This program is the nineteenth in our ongoing "Race and American Culture" series.
About Dr. Ian Afflerbach
Dr. Ian Afflerbach is an Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of North Georgia, where he teaches courses in African-American literature, modern American fiction, and the history of ideas. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and has lived in Montreal, Vermont, North Carolina, and Germany. His first book, Making Liberalism New, was published in 2021, and he's currently working on a second, Sellouts! The Story of an American Insult, which examines the history of "selling out" in American culture.
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TAGS: | Literature | Culture |
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