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The real stuff of legend
TONY BURKE recommends a biography which sets the record straight on the great blues musician Robert Johnson

THOUGH he only made 40 recordings, US blues artist Robert Johnson’s legacy has endured for over eight decades and his songs are now part of the blues canon.

Those recordings — some were never issued and others were alternate takes — were made in 1936 and 1937, yet even with such a modest catalogue Johnson’s influence has stretched from the late 1930s to the post-war Chicago blues era of Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Howlin’ Wolf through to the 1960s, 1970s and beyond.

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