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The Father Of Rock ’n’ Roll

December 2023
1min read


For thirty years the musical historian Samuel Charters has pursued the ghostly figure of Robert Johnson across the flat Mississippi Delta country, seeking the source of a handful of scary, passionate, compelling songs. Those songs have nourished rock music from the very start; this spring a reissue of Johnson’s recordings sold well over 350,000 copies and won their author a Grammy more than half a century after he was murdered.

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