Annye C. Anderson's memoir of her stepbrother Robert Johnson stands as an act of love, a rich oral history, a pointed straightening of the record and, above all else, an illumination. Anderson and music historian Preston Lauterbach (The Chitlin' Circuit; Beale Street Dynasty) flesh out what's publicly known of the Depression-era blues great Robert Johnson, the doomed, epochal singer and guitarist who died at age 27 and is reputed to have sold his soul to the devil at a Mississippi crossroads.
Brother Robert, assembled by Lauterbach from his interviews with 93-year-old Anderson, strips away the legend to reveal the man, who of course developed his chops the way all musicians do: practice and dedication. Anderson paints Johnson as an enthusiast and showman, a shimmying performer who would ask his audiences, "What's your pleasure?" Far from the haunted figure of lore, this Johnson plays the spoons, yodels along with Jimmie Rodgers on The Grand Ole' Opry and knew every hymn in the book, despite rarely attending church. If Johnson was the hard-living vagabond of myth--if he did have hellhounds on his trail--Anderson never saw it, though she admits, "I didn't have him in my pocket." Revelations abound, both in Anderson's memories of Johnson's short life and in her recounting of his family's struggle, as Johnson's legend grew, to claim their inheritance. (Johnson's "Crossroad" boasts almost 24 million YouTube views.) The book concludes with an interview with Anderson, Lauterbach and music historians Peter Guralnick and Elijah Wald. It pulses with discoveries. --Alan Scherstuhl, freelance writer and editor