Advertisement

Greil Marcus

Greil Marcus is the author of Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby, among other books. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of the United States and with Sean Wilentz of The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad. (December 2020)

The Devil Had Nothing to Do With It

“Robert Johnson was one of the most inventive geniuses of all time,” wrote Bob Dylan. “We still haven’t caught up with him.”

Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson

by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow

Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson

by Annye C. Anderson with Preston Lauterbach, and with a foreword by Elijah Wald

Love in Vain: Robert Johnson, 1911–1938

by Mezzo and J.M. Dupont, translated from the French by Ivanka Hahnenberger

December 3, 2020 issue

Subscribe and save 50%!

Read the latest issue as soon as it’s available and browse the rich archive. With this offer you will have immediate subscriber-only access to over 1,200 issues and over 20,000 articles published since 1963!

Subscribe now

Issue

Archive

Subscribe and save 50%!

Get immediate access to the current issue and over 20,000 articles from the archives, plus the NYR App.

Already a subscriber? Sign in