BROTHER ROBERT

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

Though only 27 years young and relatively unknown at the time of his tragic death in 1938, Robert Johnson's 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. Many of the biographies written about him have relied on tall tales and re-circulated rumors to paint a picture of his life. In Brother Robert, Anderson, Johnson's stepsister, reveals what Johnson was really like by sharing personal anecdotes from the people who knew him best: his own family. Anderson is the last living person who knew him and can provide insight into Johnson's character and demeanor.

In Brother Robert, nonagenarian Annye 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 accounts of his life that have passed for biography. Brother Robert is here to set the record straight. Featuring a foreword by blues guitarist and music historian Elijah Wald, and a Q&A with Anderson, Lauterbach, Wald, and Peter Guralnick, this book paints a vivid portrait of an elusive figure who forever changed the musical landscape as we know it.

Annye C. Anderson is a retired educator and administrator of the Boston Public Schools in Massachusetts.
Preston Lauterbach is the author of Bluff City, Beale Street Dynasty, and The Chitlin Circuit. He lives near Charlottesville, VA.