WeenieCampbell.com
Country Blues => Weenie Campbell Main Forum => Topic started by: arlotone on September 09, 2018, 07:28:13 PM
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I didn't see this posted here; forgive me if I missed it. Preston Lauterbach, author of The Chitlin' Circuit and Beale Street Dynasty, is writing a new book about Robert Johnson and is raising funds for the project:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brotherrobert/brother-robert/
Please consider supporting this author, who is documenting some great old stories in his books!
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Call me cynical but he's asking for eleven and a half grand to publish a book? Good grief.
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Call me cynical but he's asking for eleven and a half grand to publish a book? Good grief.
15 grand and he has 6.5 already
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Please consider supporting this author
Yeh right! :P
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I read his other books and was favorably impressed. But what strikes me as unusual about this project is that there is no breakdown regarding how the funds will be used. Some books have limited markets and the presses require authors to submit camera ready copy along with a subvention so the presses don't bear all--or sometimes any--of the costs. A while back I posted this link that gives some info about the publishing costs at twenty university presses:
http://www.sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SR_Report_Costs_Publishing_Monographs020516.pdf
The Chitlin Circuit and Beale Street Dynasty were both published by Norton.
As I wrote two years ago, one of the editors at the University of Washington sent it to me and said that $30K is the cost to bring a book to the pre-print stage at the UW Press. I don't know what Norton's costs would be if they decided to publish it.
My advice is not to be cynical, and I don't question Preston Lauterbach's credentials or motives, but I would definitely ask for more information before I made a contribution to the project.
Here's a link to his blog which gives a little more info:
https://prestonlauterbach.com/2018/08/
He writes in part, "I am delighted to share news of a project I?m helping out with, a memoir about growing up with Robert Johnson, by the last living soul who knew him well. I?m serving as ghostwriter and fundraiser."
He's not the author, so he can't shop it to Norton as his own work. This is certainly a limiting factor when it comes to finding a press willing to take it on.
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Speaking of limiting factors, if this woman is indeed an authentic witness to RJ's life (offering no opinion here), this project could really dampen interest and funding for trying to organize and research Mack McCormick's jumbled archive. I've assumed Mack revealed the crowning jewel (the L.V Thomas story) himself, knowing his time was short, wanting, and getting, one more turn in the spotlight. Otherwise his RJ "research" is probably the only thing that would produce a fundable exploration and book, but this could make that all moot. So, unfortunately, any other collateral that blues geeks might be hoping to see may have just become less likely to come to the surface.
Wax
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I mean I'd probably read it if it comes out, but obviously the guys don't have an idea how to properly set up and market a kickstarter... I'm backing all kinds of topics regularly, and all of them have a clear story to tell, interesting rewards and goals and stretched goals, and manage to create all kinds of excitement around it.
This reads like "this probably won't make any money, so let's try and cover my travel expenses and maybe have a little something extra to give to Mrs Anderson". Meh.
Of course, it would be great if this would be included in a "final" major piece of work on RJ, incorporating Mack's sources and the findings from other researchers, to collect the pieces that are out there.
To be honest, I personally really prefer the shorter and matter-of-fact style accounts in the style of Beaumont's Son House book, or even Guralnick on RJ. The artist biographies in Agram's "New Paramount Book of Blues" are also great, as well as the supporting information for the American Epic series or Jack White's Paramount Records History.
There are many artists I'd like to hear more about - but there's so many more artists I'd like to hear more FROM. (For example, rather than a Willie Brown biography I'd like the remaining sides to magically turn up).
Long story short: Does not really excite me the way it is set up.
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This snippet tells me everything I need to know about this project:
Johnson is an inductee of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and posthumous Grammy award winner. His compositions have been covered by Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and The Grateful Dead, and he inspired contemporaries such as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. It's no stretch to call him one of the most influential figures in American music.
Don't forget he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. He could also have shot someone on 5th Avenue and not lost any fans. Meh!
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I think it would be fascinating if the woman who is 92 and quite alert would recount her memories,, same as I was with the KC Douglas interview and his brief recounting experiences with Tommy Johnson on the Unissued Field Recordings from Axel K?stner show-- but (forgive me) shame on him for commercializing this - I suppose everyone will be denied tne info if they don't pony up their money.
IMHO: Just pay the woman out of your own pocket, or raise it privately among your friends, and get the info she would like others to know out there via an iphone, self published transcription from blurb publishing that can be ordered on demand.
All he's done from what I see in the non-huge-outpouring of donations is mislead a 92 year old woman into believing he was in a position to get the support for a credibly defined project and he doesn't appear to have the outreach or credibility. Why he would want to be involved with even risking disappointing a senior citizen of that age is reprehensible to my mind.
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I would guess he's pretty busy having to continue to make a living for himself and family. When you're already overworked and underpaid I can totally understand the impulse to put it on kickstarter.
We did one ourselves trying to get the extra capital we need to finish-out our cheese aging cave and put it into production, while still keeping our current creamery production going. We're already stretched for time and energy every week.
We didn't raise much money and the cave is still unfinished, so nothing is a given. As DerZauberer indicates, running the flag up the pole doesn't mean enough people are going to salute, it takes some work and a compelling story to do it successfully.
[Wow, this was my 6666th post on here >:D]
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Rivers,
I would like to invest in your cave business as long as I can occasionally use it as a hideout from the law.
Also, now that I know he won a Grammy, I'm going to have to give a listen to that Johnson feller.
Thanks,
Joe
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HeHe! We have two levels of access, nuclear holocaust (already sold out verbally to the neighbors), and a very attractive desperado time-share deal. I'll send you a brochure :P
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...but obviously the guys don't have an idea how to properly set up and market a kickstarter...
You hit the nail right on the head.
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She was twelve when he died on August 16, 1938.
This woman was twelve years old when Johnson died how much cohesion and depth is there to be found in a young girls assertion of a twenty something year old rambling bluesman really?
Johnson is an inductee of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and posthumous Grammy award winner. His compositions have been covered by Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and The Grateful Dead, and he inspired contemporaries such as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. It's no stretch to call him one of the most influential figures in American music.
Yup classic case to appeal the masses doesn't let the music stand on it's own:
"FORGET ABOUT ROBERT JOHNSON THE DEPTH AND QUALITY OF HIS MUSIC AND THE BLUES,
LOOK JIMI CLAPTON AND THE ROLLING ZEPPELIN COVERED HIS SONGS IN AN OVERBLOWN AND DILUTED
MANNER AND THEY'RE SO FAMOUS EVEN YOU MIGHT KNOW THEIR NAME"
Introducing Johnson by saying he's in the rock and roll hall of fame and won a Grammy. That's like introducing Edvard Grieg as the man who wrote the music for Alton Towers.
Another thing I'm confused by, in the campaign he states:
Funding would afford the collaborators the opportunity to meet in person and undertake the research and interview process that will build the material for the book. Mrs. Anderson and I live about eight hundred miles apart and we'll meet in Memphis, where she got to know Mr. Johnson, requiring travel for both of us.
But in an update even though he hasn't reach his goal of $$$
We've covered most if not all of what she knows about Robert Johnson's life. As a longtime Memphis history nerd, it's been a thrill to explore yet another neighborhood of the past, getting to know the characters who populated it, and spending time in the places where people relaxed, ate, went for beer, and listened to records. From here, we'll discuss Robert Johnson's afterlife, and how his growing stardom after death has affected his family.
??? ??? ???
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More interested in the cheese cave at this point
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Gail Dean Wardlow and Bruce Conforth just announced their exhaustive and definitive bio of Johnson will be published Spring of 2019.
I agree with Thomas88 . . . exactly what of any substance could a 90+ year old have to say about a Blues musician she knew when she was 12 years old and younger!? It's ridiculous.
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. . . exactly what of any substance could a 90+ year old have to say about a Blues musician she knew when she was 12 years old and younger!?..
I understand where you're coming from, but don't be too quick to dismiss what might at first appear to be meaningless trivia. Yeah, there's the guitar playing, singing, the stories and meaning behind the lyrics, who he associated with, traveling, womanizing, drinking, etc. But the memories of a now 92 year old who interacted with RJ when she was a child tell us about other aspects of RJ the person. Obviously, her personal memories are not going to be for everyone, but they will add to our overall understanding of RJ.
The way the Kickstarter project is structured is problematic to say the least, but that doesn't mean that Mrs. Anderson doesn't have something of value to offer.
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Hi all,
This may be something of a digression, but I'm curious--what is it that those of you who eagerly await and read biographies of musicians (not just Robert Johnson), painters, novelists, poets or sculptors, people involved in the arts, hope to learn by reading biographies of them?
All best,
Johnm
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Hi John:
I'll put the "eagerly await" part aside and give you a short answer: history, background, context, as well as the life and times of the person.
Not all biographies are the same, just as not all lives are the same, but no one lives and nothing happens in a vacuum--including music. You probably have run across Emerson's famous line, "There is properly no history, only biography," --perhaps in your undergrad days at Cornell. (I figured I'd just throw that in as food for thought.)
Quite honestly, I don't have time to read everything, just as I don't have time to listen to everything. --And if I was forced to choose between one OR the other, I'd choose to listen to and play music rather than to read about the people who made it. But that's a forced and artificial choice.
There are only 24 hours in a day and only so many days in a life. Time imposes limitations. So IMHO, it's a case of "To each his or her own." Let one's individual interests be the motivation for what one chooses to read or not to read--or to not read anything at all. There's no "one size fits all" answer that's going to work for everyone. It's as simple as that. At least in my humble opinion.
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Thanks for your reply, Stuart. Anybody else?
All best,
Johnm
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John,
I think, for some of us who aren't musicians, the reading of these artists' biographies allows us a way to -- I'm not sure what the right word is -- to "dive deeper" into something that moves us. We don't have the same ears and/or insight that could grant us the kind of purely musical explorations that a musician might enjoy upon repeated listenings of a favorite artist. Our repeated listenings are at a different level and of a different nature. I think exploring something about the artist's personality or life story allows us a different kind of appreciation of the recordings themselves.
-Jeff
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In most cases I speed read them looking for material for the weenie quotes database. Occasionally I find myself thoroughly immersed but not usually.
For example Wolfe/Lornell on Leadbelly, Porterfield on Jimmie Rodgers, Wardlow/Calt on Patton, and several others all deepened my understanding of the music, history and context. If I could find something of that caliber on Stokes, Sane, Batts et al I would be very happy.
RJ is so overexposed at this point that the seemingly endless BS detracts from his musical legacy.
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. . . exactly what of any substance could a 90+ year old have to say about a Blues musician she knew when she was 12 years old and younger!?..
I understand where you're coming from, but don't be too quick to dismiss what might at first appear to be meaningless trivia. Yeah, there's the guitar playing, singing, the stories and meaning behind the lyrics, who he associated with, traveling, womanizing, drinking, etc. But the memories of a now 92 year old who interacted with RJ when she was a child tell us about other aspects of RJ the person. Obviously, her personal memories are not going to be for everyone, but they will add to our overall understanding of RJ.
The way the Kickstarter project is structured is problematic to say the least, but that doesn't mean that Mrs. Anderson doesn't have something of value to offer.
I entirely agree with you.
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It feels like this Kickstarter is all about trying to pad what might be a very interesting magazine article into something book-length.
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John,
In response to your question I'll add that I really enjoy what I like to call "hidden history" which to me is the small details behind a person's life and the stories that they tell or that others tell about them. Often those stories may have nothing to do with the music or talent of the person I'm reading about but I often find them fascinating regardless. Of course the music the person made is what draws me to read about their life in the first place.
Lew
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I like analysis and discussion of the music as well as corroboration of recording sessions and of artists I'm familiar with, as well as the evolution of a musicians mind and style and how they learned and what was their process etc...
Sadly that tends to get a few pages or maybe a chapter if I'm lucky. Sometimes I read the lyric forums on here with the sole purpose of exploring the musical content within the pieces discussed rather than the lyrics, so I'm not sure how inclined I am to this book in the first place.
I just find it very satisfying to hear a piece of music and then read a text that discusses the nuances and what makes the piece tick.
As you could probably tell I'm a riot at parties :D
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Regardless of genre, subject, book type or subjective opinion, a really good writer is usually, and not always, a pleasure to read. Bad books written by good writers tend to be rushed efforts, I have found after digging into some of the backgrounds to disappointing books.
Some otherwise valuable books in our subject area fall so surprisingly short ah jes' cain't read 'em without rollin' mah eyes. It's probably a legacy of my time teaching English. I am a grammar nazi when reading a book that I've paid for and not so much when posting on the internet.
Please feel free to critique my post accordingly. Note that I did spell 'grammar' correctly, unlike last time I gave a mini-lecture on the importance of English grammar!! Thanks UB, and where the heck are you?
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CF mentioned the book that's currently scheduled for release in the spring of 2019 by Gayle Dean Wardlow and Bruce Conforth. I went looking for references to it. Here's an interesting interview with Bruce Conforth, dated 2017. Let us all hope the book will help move Robert Johnson's work out of the crazy zone.
https://youtu.be/Zi8u2AW0KJI
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Echoing others, I guess I have an interest in the times and lives that created the music I enjoy performing, the "lore". I think most players and appreciators of this music generally are. Certainly not "eagerly awaiting" the latest RJ tidbit, hence my mildly sarcastic post above (also mildly humorous, I hope).
But as a performer I rarely am playing for either other players or even other appreciators of country blues, just folks who may have a mild passing interest, or no knowledge at all of the music and it's lore. I have found that these audiences are immensely interested in this lore. Oddly, other musicians usually chide me for the various stories and explanations I provide, "You should just play the music, dude!" But many, many more audience members thank me for the stories and lore, and request more. And lets face it, 10 three minute songs don't really make a 50 minute set, so either you can spend a lot of time tuning, or telling the latest joke you heard, or you can actually hold the audiences interest between songs, let them have a deeper understanding of the music, and maybe create a few more appreciators.
I like to think I am just following the Weenie Campbell Mission Statement: Preserving Country Blues through Education, Performance and Technology.
Wax
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Two thumbs up to your approach, Wax. When done the right way, intros, stories, etc., only add to the appreciation of the songs and enhance the audience's enjoyment of the overall performance.
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The Wardlow Conforth book cover.
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Replying to John,
I like history. Reading the some of the better blues literature provided context for the development of this music. For me, that led into a wider interest in regional history. The history of Delta is very interesting and not widely known or understood I think. The practice of legally enforced peonage throughout the deep south, another example, was widespread and to my knowledge, not discussed in most high school curricula. I talked to my kids about this, and they were astounded that this went on into my adult life. Yet it's important to understanding how we got where we are today.
Having said all that, a lot of blues biographies I've read, especially some of the early ones, project the authors' romantic notions about blues players onto their subjects without really understanding the music, and are not all that well written. I don't read them much anymore. And as far as Robert Johnson goes, there's a whole lot of stuff out there that's beyond parody. But I will surely read Gayle Dean's book, because he's a really good storyteller.
In the end, it's the music.
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Amen Reverend.
I will read it too, because without the work of Gayle Dean Wardlow and some of the more narrative style writers are who got me interested enough in getting at the information, then taking the bits and pieces of evidence and putting them together not like some rote examination but a cohesive story with a good flow that does not make the reader try to keep going.
You make a good point about the historical context Eric, and lots of folks praise the late Paul Oliver for his approach. Not too many authors use his methodology. I believe that Bruce Conforth, despite all his boosterism, wrote a good book on Lawrence Gellart and his career. At one time, he claimed Gellart recorded RJ, but it was not in the book. Might it be in this one?
>:D
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they met their goal!
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I didn't expect this to be a controversial topic. Ultimately he's doing the same thing we're all trying to do here -- digging up knowledge about old blues music and bringing it to light. If you're not interested in another Robert Johnson project, that's fair. But I wonder how many of the critics here have published books or run successful fundraising campaigns and can appreciate how much dedication goes into these things.
Anyway, I'm happy that the campaign succeeded. I've been a fan of Preston's work since he helped me get a Beale Street Walk of Fame marker installed for Will Shade about 10 years ago.
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Guess people have money to burn
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But I wonder how many of the critics here have published books or run successful fundraising campaigns and can appreciate how much dedication goes into these things.
Hey arlotone most of us are just amateur critics and part time consumers.The onus on the writer of a published work is to convince us to make it worth our time and money to purchase what is already available.
If money needs to be raised upfront that's fine. But the onus then is on the author to convince us to suspend any lingering disbeliefs we might have and support the project.
I personally have not been sufficiently interested in the voluminous fawning works already published on RJ to believe that this project will reveal anything, beyond minor interesting snippets. Sorry about that.
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I was unaware that Stephen Calt wrote a Robert Johnson biography too. Is it worth seeking out?
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I was unaware that Stephen Calt wrote a Robert Johnson biography too. Is it worth seeking out?
It was never published. I don?t know if it was ever finished (or even started).
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The onus on the writer of a published work is to convince us to make it worth our time and money to purchase what is already available...
The onus...is on the author to convince us to suspend any lingering disbelief we might have and support the project.
I personally have not been sufficiently interested in the voluminous fawning works already published on RJ to believe that this project will reveal anything.
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For this project, the only new element is an interview with a nonagenarian, and she may very well have read or drawn her testimony from one of several already published accounts. Unless the testimony leads to corroborating documentation of some sort, the author may be transcribing a work of historical fiction based on already published accounts.
Is the onus, therefore, grounded in the difficulty of discovering new documentation?
The works of "fawning" authors are often more about themselves than the actual artists, and musicians who write rarely have an intense passion for archival research. Recent biographers of blues artists have also failed to conduct a comprehensive review of the secondary literature to interpret the evidence and tell the artists' story in its proper historical context.
So is the onus on writers to 1) actually be writing about the blues artist, 2) conduct research in previously unexplored archives and reevaluate existing evidence, 3) discover new evidence that increases our understanding of their history, and 4) place that evidence in the proper historical context and in conversation with previous works on the subject?
Or is the onus on authors to insert themselves and the readers in the story? One way to get around conducting serious research or a dearth of new evidence is to frame the story as a "searching for the mysterious musician" tale, which details the author's "field research" and pilgrimages.
Or might the onus be to lampoon the historical fiction that currently abounds in both older and newer blues studies? Most readers have sentimental attachments to the books that gave rise to their love of blues history, especially if the authors have an untrained, "everyman's a historian" aesthetic.
My point is, I guess, that the current body of literature leaves a lot of room for anyone interested in discovering more about the lives of the artists. Gaining a better understanding of the lives of the artists, however, has less appeal than a myth or the perpetuation of a stereotype, or the infusion of a political agenda into the story. Not too many people who attended a picnic with RJ are still with us, but there is a ton of documentation and archival material that remains unexplored. The pitch for the kickstarter campaign really plays up the concept of mystery and eliminating it, but the interview can't accomplish that goal...unless it contains an account of him going to find another mysterious and unrecorded guitarist. Solve a mystery with a mystery. That sounds like a winning formula in this instance...
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Update from mass email:
Thanksgiving progress report
Posted by Mrs. A.C. Anderson w/Preston Lauterbach (Creator)
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone--
The Brother Robert book is rolling along. Mrs. Anderson and myself met up during the week preceding Thanksgiving to work. We've begun to focus on the afterlife of Robert Johnson. It's a story that hasn't been told from her perspective, as one of the people who lost a claim to the Robert Johnson legacy. She has a terrific collection of letters that illustrate, from the family's perspective, the growing interest in Johnson's life and music from outsiders, and the family's struggle as they lost legal rights to their own photographs and family history, while being shut out of earning royalties from Johnson's music.
I passed along her portion of the funds you've donated, and she's quite thankful for all of you. As I am, you're making all of this possible. It's been a long, rough stretch for Mrs. A, and this effort represents real justice to her.
Our editor at Da Capo has seen a draft of the book's first section and is pleased with what we've done. We have a May 2019 deadline to complete the manuscript, and there's no reason to think we'll miss it.
Our supporters who chose the illustration of Brother Robert's Memphis should receive these rewards shortly--they shipped on Monday.
Thanks again, from me and Mrs. Anderson, I hope everyone's having a terrific holiday-- Preston
ALSO some one is currently selling several RJ tests on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Vinyl-Test-Pressing-ROBERT-JOHNSON-Possession-Over-Judgement-Day-BLUES-78/223232399693?_trkparms=aid%3D333200%26algo%3DCOMP.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20171012094517%26meid%3D7dd80e9218134b9cbde21d1ace71536b%26pid%3D100008%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D223232400753%26itm%3D223232399693&_trksid=p2047675.c100008.m2219