Up Jumped the Devil

by Bruce Conforth

  22Elizabeth Moore, interview by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  Chapter 5: Musical Roots and Identity

  1Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 44.

  2Israel “Wink” Clark, Search for Robert Johnson, DVD.

  3Israel “Wink Clark, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD.

  4Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 45–46.

  5Jas Obrecht, “Robert Johnson Revisited,” Guitar Player, September 1990, 63; Jas Obrecht, “Robert Johnson,” Blues Guitar, September 1990, 4.

  6Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 45.

  7Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 46.

  8Willie Moore, interview by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  9Willie Moore, interview by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  10Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  11Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  12Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  13Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  14Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  15Nat Richardson, Search for Robert Johnson, DVD.

  16Steve LaVere, Liner notes to Robert Johnson: The Complete Original Masters Centennial Edition (Columbia, 2011), 6.

  17Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 45–46.

  18Wink Clark, Search for Robert Johnson, DVD.

  19Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  20Jan McPeek, Merchants, Tradesmen and Manufacturers Financial Condition for Greenville, Mississippi 1921 (Salem, OH: Jan and Naomi McPeek, 2003). Information obtained from 1921 R.G. Dun Mercantile Agency Reference Book, University of Mississippi Libraries Mississippi Delta Archives, https://guides.lib.olemiss.edu/delta.

  21Charles Reagan Wilson, “Chinese in Mississippi: An Ethnic People in a Biracial Society,” Mississippi History Now (November 2002), http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/86/mississippi-chinese-an-ethnic-people-in-a-biracial-society.

  22Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, McManus Plantation, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969. If Moore’s recollection is correct then we have more evidence that Johnson had a guitar and was at least learning to play by early 1927, as the Mississippi levees broke in April of 1927.

  23Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, McManus Plantation, Sumner, Misssissippi, November 30, 1969.

  24Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, McManus Plantation, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  25Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, McManus Plantation, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  26Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, McManus Plantation, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  27Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, McManus Plantation, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  28Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  29Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  30Wink Clark, Search for Robert Johnson, DVD.

  Chapter 6: Marriage, Death, and the Blues

  Much of the information in this chapter was originally published in Bruce Conforth, “The Death of Robert Johnson’s Wife—Virginia Travis,” Living Blues 226, vol. 44, no 4 (August 2013).

  1The information given on the Johnson-Travis record of marriage is misleading. Virginia apparently listed Lula Samuels as her mother, yet her death certificate identifies Mattie Barrett as her mother. Lula Samuels is listed on census records as Virginia’s grandmother.

  2Johnson-Travis marriage license, Tunica County courthouse, Tunica, Mississippi.

  3“Commodity Data,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/data, Retrieved November 30, 2008; Willard W. Cochrane, “Farm Prices, Myth and Reality,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics (1958), 15.

  4Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, State, Mississippi; County, Bolivar; Beat 3 (part); Enumeration District 6-24, Sheet 4-B, April 12, 1930.

  5Steve LaVere, “Robert Johnson’s Census Records,” Living Blues 203, vol. 40, no. 5 (2009), 75.

  6LaVere, Complete Recordings, 7.

  7Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, State, Mississippi; County, DeSoto; Beat 3 (part); Enumeration District 17-10, Sheet 3-A, April 7, 1930.

  8Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, State, Mississippi; County, Bolivar; Beat 3 (part); Enumeration District 6-24, Sheet 4-B, April 11, 1930.

  9Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, State, Mississippi; County, Bolivar; Rosedale City; Enumeration District 6-8, Sheet 21-A, April 12, 1930.

  10LaVere, “Robert Johnson’s Census Records,” 75; Pearson and McCulloch, Robert Johnson, 56; Obrecht, “Robert Johnson Revisited,” 63: “For many plantation blacks, blues was ‘devil’s music’ and strictly taboo.”

  11Jas Obrecht, “Johnny Shines: The Complete 1989 Living Blues Interview,” http://jasobrecht.com/johnny-shines-complete-living-blues-interview; Henry Townsend, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD.

  12Jim O’Neal, “The Death of Robert Johnson,” Living Blues no. 94 (November/December 1990), 15.

  Chapter 7: The Music Begins

  1Jas Obrecht, “Robert Johnson,” Blues Guitar, September 1990, 4.

  2Willie Moore, interview by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  3Willie Moore, interview by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sumner, Mississippi, November 30, 1969.

  4Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  5Julius Lester, “I Can Make My Own Songs: An Interview with Son House,” Sing Out! vol. 15, no. 3 (July 1965), 41.

  6Lester, “My Own Songs,” 41.

  7Nick Perls, “Son House Interview, Part One,” 78 Quarterly vol. 1 (1967), 60.

  8Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 46.

  9H. C. Speir, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Pearl, Mississippi, April 10, 1964.

  Chapter 8: Here Comes That Guitar Man

  1Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  2All direct quotes from Loretha Zimmerman in chapter 8 are from her interview with Bruce Conforth, Beauregard, Mississippi, May 15, 2007.

  3Henry Townsend, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD; Loretha Zimmerman, interview by Bruce Conforth, Beauregard, Mississippi, May 15, 2007.

  The name Zimmerman has been presented in different manners: Zinneman, Zinnerman, Zinman, Zinermon, Zinemon. He is mentioned as Zinnerman in Pearson and McCulloch, 7; in Palmer as Zinneman, 113; in Schroeder as Zinermon, 22 This last spelling is based upon Schroeder’s assertion that blues researcher Steven LaVere “uncovered a document with his signature from the cemetery where he buried his wife and where he was buried a short time later. The signature on the document is spelled Zinermon.” (Schroeder, 167 fn. 2). The accuracy of this evidence would seem to point to someone else signing the form (if it exists) since 1) Zimmerman’s daughter was quite insistent that her father spelled the name with two Ms, as did she and the rest of her family, 2) Zimmerman was buried in California prior to his second wife’s death, 3) on his funeral program Zimmerman’s name is spelled as such, 4) his Social Security records spell the name Zimmerman, and 5) all census records going back to the early 1800s record the name as Zimmerman.

  Myriad blues fan websites make claims regarding Zimmerman. For instance, www.thunderstruck.org makes the claim that some contemporaries of Johnson thought that Zinnerman was actually the Devil, www.canadajoeblue.com calls Zinnerman a “dark and devilish looking man,” artruch.wordpress.com claims that Zinnerman was “a shadowy figure
,” en.wikipedia.org calls Zinnerman a “mysterious figure,” and bitterman. journalspace.com even goes so far as to claim that “Robert Johnson made a deal with a rakish devil named Ike Zinnerman to learn how to play the blues.”

  4Willie Mason, Wink Clark, and Johnny Shines, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD.

  5Personal experience of the author. When Conforth was visiting Son House in Detroit his wife would not let him play the blues in the house. He was only allowed to play spiritual songs.

  6Loretha Zimmerman, interview with Bruce Conforth, Beauregard, Mississippi, May 15, 2007.

  7Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  8Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 44.

  9Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  10Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  11The idea that Zimmerman believed that in order to learn the blues one had to play in a graveyard at midnight has been claimed widely in most sources discussing him.

  12James Zimmerman Smith, interview with Bruce Conforth, Beauregard, Mississippi, May 15, 2007.

  13James Zimmerman Smith, interview with Bruce Conforth, Beauregard, Mississippi, May 15, 2007.

  14Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  15Eula Mae Williams, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Hazlehurst, Mississippi, May 20, 1998.

  16Eula Mae Williams, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Hazlehurst, Mississippi, May 20, 1998.

  17Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  18Eula Mae Williams, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Hazlehurst, Mississippi, May 20, 1998.

  19Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  20Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  21Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  22Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  23Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 48.

  24Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 48.

  25Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 47.

  Chapter 9: Ramblin’ at the Crossroads

  1Loretha Zimmerman, interview with Bruce Conforth, Beauregard, Mississippi, May 15, 2007.

  2Lester, “My Own Songs,” 42.

  3Lester, “My Own Songs,” 42.

  4Daniel Beaumont, Preachin’ the Blues: The Life and Times of Son House (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 44.

  5Julio Finn, The Bluesman: The Musical Heritage of Black Men and Women in the Americas (London: Quartet Books, 1986), 215; Pearson and McCulloch, Robert Johnson, 45, 49, 51.

  6Jeffrey E. Anderson, Conjure in African American Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 11.

  7Niles Newbell Pucket, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1926, reprinted by Patterson Smith, 1968).

  8Zora Neale Hurston, “Hoodoo in America,” Journal of American Folklore 44 (1931): 317–417.

  9Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008).

  10Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo - Conjuration - Witchcraft - Rootwork (Racine, WI: Western Publishing, 1974).

  11Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (New York: Viking Press, 1939), 286–287.

  12Willie Mae Powell, Search for Robert Johnson, DVD.

  13“Queen” Elizabeth, Search for Robert Johnson, DVD.

  14Dean, Chasin’ That Devil Music, 197.

  15O’Neal, “Death of Robert Johnson,” 12.

  16Henry Townsend, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD.

  17Barry Lee Pearson, Sounds So Good to Me: The Bluesman’s Story (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), 62.

  18Pearson, Sounds So Good, 63.

  19Pearson, Sounds So Good, 63.

  20Clara Smith, “Done Sold My Soul to the Devil,” recorded September 20, 1924, 140053 Columbia-14039.

  21Peg Leg Howell, “Low Down Rounder Blues,” recorded April 1928, Columbia-14320.

  22Bessie Smith, “Blue Spirit Blues,” recorded October 11, 1929, Columbia-14527.

  23J. T. “Funny Paper” Smith, “Fool’s Blues,” recorded April 1931, Vocalion-1674.

  24Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  25Joe Callicott, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Hernando, Mississippi, December 30–31, 1967.

  26Pete Franklin, interview with Steven Calt, June 1971.

  27Joe Callicott, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Hernando, Mississippi, December 30–31, 1967.

  28Tom Freeland, “Some Witnesses to the Short Life of Robert Johnson,” Living Blues 31, no. 2 (March–April 2000): 42.

  29Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 48.

  30Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 44.

  31Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 44.

  32Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 48.

  33Johnnie Temple, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Jackson, Mississippi, April 1965.

  34Johnnie Temple, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Jackson, Mississippi, April 1965.

  Chapter 10: Traveling Riverside Blues

  1Eula Mae Willams, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Hazlehurst, Mississippi, May 20, 1998.

  2Freeland, “Some Witnesses,” 48.

  3Willie Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sumner, Mississippi, McManus Plantation, November 30, 1969.

  4Pete Welding, “Ramblin’ Johnny Shines,” Living Blues 22 (July–Aug., 1975): 27.

  5Welding, “Ramblin’ Johnny Shines,” 27.

  6Larry Hoffman, “Robert Lockwood, Jr.,” in Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, ed. by Jas Obrecht (Backbeat Books, 2000), 165.

  7Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, State, Arkansas; County, Lee; Big Creek Township; Enumeration District 114, Sheet 6-A, January 29, 1920.

  8Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, State, Arkansas; County, Phillips; Helena City; Enumeration District 54-21, Sheet 26-A, April 26, 1930.

  9Bruce Conforth was married to Lockwood’s goddaughter and during their many conversations Lockwood admitted that he made dates up “just to mess with” the people interviewing him.

  10Robert Lockwood, International Folk Alliance interview with Robert Santelli, 2000, FP-2006-CT-0187.

  11Hoffman, “Robert Lockwood, Jr.,” 165.

  12Hoffman, “Robert Lockwood, Jr.,” 166.

  13Hoffman, “Robert Lockwood, Jr.,” 166.

  14Hoffman, “Robert Lockwood, Jr.,” 166–67.

  15Robert Lockwood, Blues Narrative Stage: “Robert Johnson Remembered” interview by Worth Long, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, 1991. Festival recordings tape FP-1991-DT-0033.

  16Hoffman, “Robert Lockwood, Jr.,” 166–67; Robert Lockwood, Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD.

  17Lockwood, “Robert Johnson Remembered.”

  18Guralnick, Searching for Robert Johnson, 48.

  Chapter 11: I’m Booked and Bound to Go

  1All H. C. Speir quotes in chapter 11 are from interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Pearl, Mississippi, April 10, 1964, unless otherwise noted.

  2Speir music contract papers, collection of Gayle Dean Wardlow.

  3Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  4Freeland, “‘He Would Go Out and Stay Out,’” 48.

  5Marie Oertle, interview with Mack McCormick, 1984. McCormick interviews with Steve Cushing, December 2010, January 2011, and March 2011, in Pioneers of the Blues Revival Rev. Ed. (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2014); McCormick converstations with Bruce Conforth, December 2008; McCormick conversations with Gayle Dean Wardlow, June 2000.

  6H. C. Speir, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Pearl, Mississippi, April 10, 1964

  7Label Copy. N
otice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-03-56, Release Date January 4, 1937, Perfect and Oriole Records SA-2580 (Kind Hearted Woman Blues) and SA 2586 (Terraplane Blues); Label Copy. Notice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-04-60, Release Date February 10, 1937, Perfect and Oriole Records SA-2616 (32-20 Blues) and SA 2631 (Last Fair Deal Gone Down); Label Copy. Notice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-04-81, Release Date March 10, 1937, Perfect and Romeo Records SA-2628 (Dead Shrimp Blues) and SA 2581 (I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom); Label Copy. Notice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-05-81, Release Date April 20, 1937, Perfect and Romeo Records SA-2629 (Cross Road Blues) and SA 2583 (Ramblin’ On My Mind); Label Copy. Notice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-07-57, Release Date June 1, 1937, Perfect and Romeo Records SA-2627 (They’re Red Hot) and SA 2585 (Come On In My Kitchen); Label Copy. Notice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-09-55, Release Date August 1, 1937, Perfect and Romeo Records DAL-379 (From Four Until Late) and DAL 294 (Hell Hound On My Trail); Label Copy. Notice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-10-65, Release Date September 15, 1937, Perfect and Romeo Records DAL-403 (Milkcow’s Calf Blues) and DAL 296 (Malted Milk); Label Copy. Notice of Coupling and Assignment. Combination No. 7-12-67, Release Date November 15, 1937, Perfect Records DAL-377 (Stones In My Passway) and DAL 378 (I’m A Steady Rollin’ Man). Collection of Lawrence Cohn. Used by permission.

  8Don Law Jr., Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD.

  9The fact that Johnson’s guitar was destroyed by the San Antonio police and that Law had to borrow one for him should help put an end to the claims of ownership of the Gibson L-1 that he’s holding in the famous Hooks Brothers studio photograph. If that was actually Johnson’s guitar, since the photo was taken in 1936 shortly before his recording in San Antonio, that would, in all likelihood, have been the guitar that he had with him when arrested for vagrancy. It would have been the guitar that was destroyed.

  10Don Law Jr., Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl, DVD.

  11Elizabeth Moore, interview with Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mitchner Plantation, May 18, 1968.

  12Larry Cohn, phone interview with Bruce Conforth, June 12, 2014.

  13Frank Driggs, Original liner notes, Robert Johnson: King of the Delta Blues Singers (Sony Music Entertainment, 1961).