posted on 09 Dec 2016

Black Cat Bone : the life of blues legend Robert Johnson by J. Patrick Lewis illustrated by Gary Kelley

When I was about 15 or 16 I fell under the spell of the British interpretation of the blues – I simply doted on bands like  Cream, Chicken Shack and Peter Green’s version of Fleetwood Mac. As I listened to the music I really had very little idea of its heritage – in fact I didn’t really know that original black US blues versions of songs like Dust My Broom, Born Under A Bad Sign, Hellhound On My Trail and virtually the rest of their repertoire, existed out there waiting for me to discover a few years later.

At that time one of my absolute favourite tracks by Cream was Crossroads which I found exciting and enigmatic, hinting at some forlorn state of mind or desperate circumstance that was causing the narrator to ‘believe I’m sinking down’. What I subsequently discovered was that this was a song written and originally performed by one of the titans of the blues genre, Robert Johnson. Not only that but the song was written to capture something which, along with his music, made him legendary.

This is how the story goes: Robert was a dirt poor boy who wanted desperately to play the guitar like no-one else. One evening he takes his instrument down to the crossroads outside town where he meets the Devil himself and makes a fatal pact. The Devil tunes his guitar for him and Robert goes on to become the king of Delta Blues music. The price? His soul.

What J. Patrick Lewis has done here is to take the bare bones of Robert Johnson’s life story and tell that story primarily through Johnson’s own song lyrics. Gary Kelley’s superb illustrations, done in the form of block prints, add both drama, menace and depth to the bare bones of the story.

These kinds of books illustrating the cultural and artistic heritage of the USA is something that US authors do superbly and which we in the UK seem less keen to have a go at. I think I would have loved to have something equivalent to this but showcasing British music legends when I was young. The book is clearly aimed at a teenage market and matches format and audience to perfection.

The main purpose of a book like this is to entertain and intrigue but it also serves an additional important purpose in providing a way into a subject and giving the reader plenty of signposts about where to go next.

We picked this book up in Asheville, North Carolina and I don’t think I’ve ever seen another copy over here in the UK. I have checked however and there are copies available on the second hand market from the likes of Amazon or Abebooks and you might expect to pay about £15. That seems like quite a lot of money but if you have a youngster who has a passion for music – especially the blues – you’ll find that getting hold of a copy, from the library if it’s too expensive to buy, will be a thrill for them.

Terry Potter

December 2016