Biography of a Phantom : A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey

Contents Cover Map Title Page Copyright Contents Editor’s Preface Introduction The Town The Search The Map Back to the Delta Copiah County Other Johnsons Mississippi Leatherman Listening and Remembering Hindsight Greenwood Afterword Notes Acknowledgments Index Landmarks Cover Cover Title Page Table of Contents Start Copyright Print Page List i i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx xxi xxii xxiii xxiv xxv xxvi xxvii xxviii xxix xxx 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 © 2023 by Robert McCormick
 Editor’s Preface, Afterword, and Notes © Smithsonian Institution
 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
 Published by Smithsonian Books
 Director: Carolyn Gleason
 Senior Editor: Jaime Schwender
 Assistant Editor: Julie Huggins
 Copyedited by Duke Johns and Gregory McNamee
 Designed by Gary Tooth
 This book may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please write: Special Markets Department Smithsonian Books P.O. Box 37012, MRC 513 Washington, DC 20013
 ISBN 9781588347343
 Ebook ISBN 9781588347374
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: McCormick, Robert “Mack,” author. | Troutman, John William, editor.
 Title: Biography of a phantom : a Robert Johnson blues odyssey / Robert “Mack” McCormick ; edited by John W. Troutman.
 Description: Washington : Smithsonian Books, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022047107 (print) | LCCN 2022047108 (ebook) | ISBN 9781588347343 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781588347374 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCSH: Johnson, Robert, 1911–1938. | Johnson, Robert, 1911–1938—Death and burial. | Blues musicians—Mississippi—Biography. | African Americans—Mississippi—Delta (Region)—Social life and customs—20th century. | McCormick, Robert.
 Classification: LCC ML420.J735 M33 2023 (print) | LCC ML420.J735 (ebook) | DDC 782.421643092 [B]—dc23/eng/20221004
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047107
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047108
 Unless otherwise noted at the end of an image caption, all images are courtesy of Susannah Nix from the Robert “Mack” McCormick Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
 For permission to reproduce illustrations appearing in this book, please correspond directly with the owners of the works. Smithsonian Books does not retain reproduction rights for these images individually, or maintain a file of addresses for sources.
 Title page: Section from a roadmap of the Mississippi Delta region, cut by McCormick.
 a_prh_6.0_143000296_c0_r0
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Editor’s Preface John W. Troutman
 
 Introduction
 
 The Town
 The Search
 The Map
 Back to the Delta
 Copiah County
 Other Johnsons
 Mississippi
 Leatherman
 Listening and Remembering
 Hindsight
 Greenwood
 Afterword John W. Troutman
 
 
 
 Notes John W. Troutman
 Acknowledgments
 Index
 
 
 
 EDITOR’S PREFACE
 John W. Troutman
 
 His work is a tribute to the untrammeled imagination.
 —Peter Guralnick, on Mack McCormick’s study of Robert Johnson, 2002
 The biggest problem came from Mack McCormick.
 —Annye Anderson, sister of Robert Johnson, 2020
 
 The half-century saga of Biography of a Phantom, Robert “Mack” McCormick’s fabled, long unpublished manuscript chronicling his pursuit of the legendary musician Robert Johnson’s story, provides a unique opportunity for a reckoning with the powerful forces, intimate and familial, imaginary and systemic, that have long pulled and prodded at the workings of the blues in American life. The saga comprises much more than just another book on Robert Johnson. It provides an astonishing vantage point for considering the relationships between the material world of the family of a renowned Black composer, singer, and instrumentalist who together experienced the trauma and terrorism of Jim Crow Mississippi; the manner by which a number of Johnson’s acquaintances, friends, and family, thirty years after the blues artist’s early death, were “discovered” by McCormick, a white, Houston-based, self-taught folklorist and writer; the decision made by Johnson’s sisters, Carrie Thompson and Bessie Hines, to share details of Johnson’s life and more to McCormick; and then in consequence, and tragically for them all, the toll of their encounter. In more ways than either might suspect, both Guralnick’s and Anderson’s sentiments about Mack McCormick are true.
 In one sense, the book chronicles a short period of McCormick’s career, between around 1969 and 1975. During that time, he doggedly researched the life of Johnson by locating and then knocking on the doors of people who knew him, if not loved him. In another sense, however, the book’s history asks us to consider the forty years that followed, until McCormick’s death in 2015. During that period McCormick wrote, abandoned, and rewrote the book several times, sometimes from the ground up, often entirely revising his claims and in some