Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson

by Annye C. Anderson, Preston Lauterbach, Elijah Wald Narrated by Janina Edwards

Overview

An intimate memoir by blues legend Robert Johnson's stepsister, including new details about his family, music, influences, tragic death, and musical afterlife

Though Robert Johnson was only twenty-seven years young and relatively unknown at the time of his tragic death in 1938, his enduring recordings have solidified his status as a progenitor of the Delta blues style. And yet, while his music has retained the steadfast devotion of modern listeners, much remains unknown about the man who penned and played these timeless tunes. Few people alive today actually remember what Johnson was really like, and those who do have largely upheld their silence-until now.

In Brother Robert, nonagenarian Annye C. Anderson sheds new light on a real-life figure largely obscured by his own legend: her kind and incredibly talented stepbrother, Robert Johnson. This book chronicles Johnson's unconventional path to stardom, from the harrowing story behind his illegitimate birth, to his first strum of the guitar on Anderson's father's knee, to the genre-defining recordings that would one day secure his legacy. Along the way, readers are gifted not only with Anderson's personal anecdotes, but with colorful recollections passed down to Anderson by members of their family-the people who knew Johnson best. Readers also learn about the contours of his working life in Memphis, never-before-disclosed details about his romantic history, and all of Johnson's favorite things, from foods and entertainers to brands of tobacco and pomade. Together, these stories don't just bring the mythologized Johnson back down to earth; they preserve both his memory and his integrity.

For decades, Anderson and her family have ignored the tall tales of Johnson "selling his soul to the devil" and the speculative to fictionalized accounts of his life that passed for biography. Brother Robert is here to set the record straight. Featuring a foreword by Elijah Wald and a Q&A with Anderson, Wald, Preston Lauterbach, and Peter Guralnick, this book paints a vivid portrait of an elusive figure who forever changed the musical landscape as we know it.

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Janina Edwards perfectly captures the graceful cadence and dignity of a woman in her 90s as she reminisces about her childhood in Depression-era Memphis. She pays tribute to her stepbrother, Robert Johnson, who took her to county fairs and entertained children by singing nursery rhymes and playing guitar. Author Annye Anderson fills in the gaps between Brother Robert, who came to Sunday dinner after playing the juke joints on Saturday nights, and the hugely influential “chased-by-hell-hounds” legendary Delta-blues guitarist whose 1937 recordings are now part of American and pop culture myth. Edwards adopts a righteous tone as the audiobook discusses and humanizes the thorny subject of artistic and cultural appropriation. Anderson’s family never owned or profited much from her brother’s iconic songs. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

01/27/2020

In conversation with journalist Lauterbach (Bluff City), Anderson offers vivid, personal glimpses of her stepbrother, legendary blues musician Robert Johnson (1911–1938), providing a colorful picture of the bluesman while attempting to debunk the myths surrounding him. In her earliest memory, an 18-year-old Johnson scoops up the three-year-old Anderson and carries her up the stairs to their new house in Memphis. She writes that her father taught the seven-year-old Johnson to play the guitar and recalls how much Johnson loved movies, especially Westerns, and that he wore a Stetson hat like his hero, actor Tom Mix. Anderson addresses the legend of Johnson selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads to become the world’s greatest blues guitarist, arguing that the mythical event could never have taken place because her brother was a devout Baptist. Anderson also relays sordid stories of how two musicologists—Steve LaVere and Mack McCormick—swindled Anderson and her family out of Johnson’s royalties, as well as family photos. She shares Johnson’s deathbed prophecy (“I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He Will call me from the Grave”), and believes it “came true,” since his reputation became bigger after his death. Anderson’s earnest and enlightening memoir will please Johnson’s listeners. (June)

From the Publisher

A Rolling Stone-Kirkus Best Music Book of 2020

Winner of the Audiofile Earphones Award
 
Publishers Weekly, "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020"

No Depression, "Best Music Books of 2020"

Best Classic Bands, "Best Music Books of the Year"

OnMilwaukee, "10 Great Books from 2020"

"Anderson offers vivid, personal glimpses of her stepbrother ... providing a colorful picture .... [An] earnest and enlightening memoir."—Publishers Weekly

"An illuminating portrait of an artist lost in the mists of history and mystery."—Kirkus

"Annye Anderson's lush, vivid memories from Robert Johnson's home base give the bluesman a personal dimension like never before. How he walked, the pomade in his hair, his protection of his guitar. The aura of mystery remains, but with Brother Robert, Johnson gains character and context, and becomes more of a person than we've ever known this specter to be."—RobertGordon, author of Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Watersand It Came From Memphis

"Cutting through the mythos that has long surrounded this iconic artist, this is an intriguing addition to the history of 20th-century blues."—Library Journal

"Although it's been more than 80 years since Anderson last saw Johnson, her memories are vivid and personal, as she recalls a well-loved older sibling who entertained his family and community with his guitar and vast repertoire of songs. [...] Anderson's account debunks myths about Johnson: he had a loving family; he was exposed to all kinds of popular music; he was not illiterate; and he did not go to the crossroads and sell his soul to the devil. Consider Anderson's heartfelt chronicle an earnest attempt to set the record straight."—Booklist

"Anderson's a charming storyteller, and her stories provide a fresh perspective."—No Depression

"A breathtaking look into the provenance of one of the 20th century's great musical minds, the social warp and woof of Black Memphis in the 1920s and '30s, and, in spite of racial violence that continues to this day, the persistence of family and the power of music."—Memphis Flyer

"[This book reveals] "new details about everything from Johnson's birth to his romantic history to his life at home with family - even his favourite foods and brands of tobacco and pomade. The book also arrives with a new photograph of Johnson - just the third confirmed image in the world."—CBC

"Mrs. Anderson summons up poignant memories of the young man she so admired... If Johnson has become an idealised figure, Anderson's book helps us to see him as a flesh-and-blood individual, an entertainer rather than some tortured mystic."—The Times (UK)

"A remarkable book, one which so richly complements those that came before it documenting Robert Johnson's life and legacy."—Under the Radar Magazine

"Rich... there is an intimacy that fires the story to life.”—New York Review of Books

“[Brother Robert} book does much to pull the blues master out of the fog of myth.” (A Rolling Stone-Kirkus Best Music Book of 2020)—Rolling Stone

"Intimate and warm."—No Depression

"[This book] paints a lively portrait of the African American community in Memphis in the 1930s.”—Daily Hampshire Gazette

"Brother Robert is, by my count, the twelfth book about Johnson, and it’s one of the best, because after decades of stories of the musician as a dark blues lord, Brother Robert, which featured a new photo of him smiling on the cover, humanizes Johnson, showing the musician from the perspective of a young girl."—Texas Monthly

Library Journal

02/01/2020

The legends about musician Robert Johnson (1911–38)—that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his formidable musical prowess—and his hallowed status as the greatest blues musician have eclipsed his actual life. Though Anderson, Johnson's stepsister and one of the few still living who knew him, doesn't fill in the lacuna surrounding Johnson's death—the family didn't find out that he'd died until weeks later—she does present a more detailed picture of an ambitious and meticulous artist surrounded by a tight-knit family and community. Anderson offers a heartrending account of the legal battle over the disposition of Johnson's estate and, specifically, the considerable royalties from both his own records and recordings of his songs by other artists—all of which had a devastating personal and financial effect on the family. Structured as a series of interviews between Anderson and coauthor Lauterbach (Beale Street Dynasty), this achingly intimate book puts Anderson's memories and feelings front and center. As for why Anderson is finally sharing her memories of Johnson: "I felt that I had to protect the real Brother Robert that I knew. He didn't get his abilities from God or the Devil. He made himself." VERDICT Cutting through the mythos that has long surrounded this iconic artist, this is an intriguing addition to the history of 20th-century blues.—Genevieve Williams, Pacific Lutheran Univ. Lib., Tacoma

AUGUST 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Janina Edwards perfectly captures the graceful cadence and dignity of a woman in her 90s as she reminisces about her childhood in Depression-era Memphis. She pays tribute to her stepbrother, Robert Johnson, who took her to county fairs and entertained children by singing nursery rhymes and playing guitar. Author Annye Anderson fills in the gaps between Brother Robert, who came to Sunday dinner after playing the juke joints on Saturday nights, and the hugely influential “chased-by-hell-hounds” legendary Delta-blues guitarist whose 1937 recordings are now part of American and pop culture myth. Edwards adopts a righteous tone as the audiobook discusses and humanizes the thorny subject of artistic and cultural appropriation. Anderson’s family never owned or profited much from her brother’s iconic songs. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2020-02-26
Robert Johnson's nonagenarian stepsister shows sides of him that few have seen.

Part of the aura of Johnson’s eminence atop the blues world has been the mystery surrounding him. Much of his public presence has been established through a single photograph and some 29 recorded songs, which were cheaply recorded and weren’t widely distributed until decades after his death (also shrouded in mystery). Adding to that aura was the legend that he had come to his blues mastery by selling his soul to the devil down at the “Crossroads”—the title of the song that would become much better known as performed by Eric Clapton. If the Johnson of myth and legend is somewhat bare-boned, this memoir, co-authored by Lauterbach, adds flesh and blood. Anderson was only 12 when the older stepbrother she knew as “Brother Robert” died, but her memory remains vivid and detailed. The bluesman she knew was no unschooled primitive but rather a crowd-pleasing showman who could mimic country favorites such as Gene Autry and Jimmie Rodgers. As Anderson recalls, "In addition to yodeling, [he] had other talents. He could play with both hands" and "could play spoons, too." The first part of the memoir recalls the brother she knew that others didn’t while the second part details “how my family lost Brother Robert again,” as exploiters took advantage of the family’s photos and memories and turned Johnson into a popular commodity without sharing more than scraps with the family. The genealogy is occasionally confusing, and the late appearance of an unacknowledged son complicates the legal claim, but this memoir represents a valiant attempt to set the record straight and give Johnson's family their due.

An illuminating portrait of an artist lost in the mists of history and mystery. (photos)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172249792
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	06/09/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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