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A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey
by Robert 'Mack' McCormick
The drama of In Cold Blood meets the stylings of a Coen brothers film in this long-lost manuscript from musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick, whose research on blues icon Robert Johnson's mysterious life and death became as much of a myth as the musician himself
When blues master Robert Johnson's little-known recordings were rereleased to great fanfare in the 1960s, little was known about his life, giving rise to legends that he gained success by selling his soul to the devil. Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey is musicologist Mack McCormick's all-consuming search, from the late 1960s until McCormick's death in 2015, to uncover Johnson's life story. McCormick spent decades reconstructing Johnson's mysterious life and developing theories about his untimely death at the age of 27, but never made public his discoveries. Biography of a Phantom publishes his compelling work for the first time, including 40 unseen black-and-white photographs documenting his search.
While knocking on doors and sleuthing for Johnson's loved ones and friends, McCormick documents a Mississippi landscape ravaged by the racism of paternalistic white landowners and county sheriffs. An editor's preface and afterword from Smithsonian curator John W. Troutman provides context as well as troubling details about McCormick's own impact on Johnson's family and illuminates through McCormick's archive the complex legacy of white male enthusiasts assuming authority over Black people's stories and the history of the blues.
While Johnson died before achieving widespread recognition, his music took on a life of its own and inspired future generations. Biography of a Phantom, filled with lush descriptive fieldwork and photographs, is an important historical object that deepens the understanding of a stellar musician.
"This edited version of the manuscript could stand on its own as a revelation, but the contextual material adds to the intrigue... A worthwhile investigation into a true legend of the blues." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"This page-turner, crime-thrillerlike odyssey leads readers through the American South for details about the blues guitarist... McCormick conveys a wild enthusiasm for his research and the music of Robert Johnson that readers will find contagious." —Library Journal (starred review)
"This volume is a significant contribution to scholarship on Black culture and the blues, told by a flawed man whose perseverance, patience, diligence, and methodical methods provide valuable insights into Robert Johnson and the milieu from which his music sprang." —Booklist
"When in 1973 Mack McCormick first told me about Biography of a Phantom, he called his search for the facts of Robert Johnson's life 'a detective story,' and it is. But what McCormick really found and brought home is a gorgeous intimacy with Johnson's works and days, all culminating in a 1970 Mississippi listening party where people who knew Johnson more than thirty years before, who heard him play, who played their now long-gone Johnson 78s until they wore out, gather to hear King of the Delta Blues Singers. McCormick's research may have been superseded by other books; the spirit in his book, a thing in itself, has not been. Not even close." —Greil Marcus, author of Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music
"One of the most coveted books in blues scholarship, Biography of a Phantom is truly a brilliant firsthand account by Mack McCormick. While it is a book about Robert Johnson, it is also a window into Mack's idiosyncratic method of folkloric research. In a world without reference books dedicated to the blues, one can't help but be drawn into Mack's search through a sea of small southern towns for a specter of a blues singer." —Dom Flemons, The American Songster
"At long last, a legendary manuscript sees the light of day. In the half century since Mack McCormick began his Biography of a Phantom, Robert Johnson has become much less phantom-like, with numerous books, articles, and films devoted to illuminating his life and legacy. It is instead McCormick who has become a mystery—and who is this book's most compelling revelation. Through Smithsonian historian John Troutman's editorial framing and McCormick's own narrative, we understand for the first time the real life of a phantom, just not the one McCormick intended. —Preston Lauterbach, author of The Chitlin' Circuit: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll
This information about Biography of a Phantom was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Robert "Mack" McCormick (1930–2015) was an American musicologist and folklorist who researched the lives of blues musicians while supporting himself by writing, census taking, and in 1968 and 1971, working with musicians in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. John W. Troutman is curator of American music at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
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