*Starred Review* The story of blues guitarist Robert Johnson--both the
legend and the facts--hardly seems the stuff of a picture book. Johnson
died young--in 1938, at 27, most likely poisoned in a dispute over a
woman, or, as legend has it, the victim of a deal with the devil, who
claimed Johnson's soul in exchange for mastery of the guitar. His
influence on generations of blues, jazz, and rock musicians is
unquestioned, however, and Lewis tells the story in evocative poems that
use Johnson's lyrics to evoke the spirit of the blues and the hard
times Johnson endured growing up in the Mississippi Delta. Like Wynton
Marsalis' poems in Jazz A B C (2005), Lewis' imagery is probably
too subtle for even middle-graders to grasp without help, but older
readers with an interest in Johnson and the blues will feel the rhythm
and understand the message of living for the moment and the music.
Kelley's striking paintings, heavy with multiple shades of blue and
brown, capture all the emotions that swirl around the Johnson myth:
loneliness, obsession, and melancholy, of course, but also the up-tempo
electricity generated by a bluesman in full cry. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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