Love in Vain ─ A Vision of Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson was undoubtedly the most outstanding of the Mississippi Delta blues musicians and also one of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but his short life remains steeped in mystery and wrapped in some of the most enduring legends of modern music. Love in Vain is Alan Greenberg’s remarkable, highly acclaimed, and genre-defying screenplay and is widely considered to be one of the foremost books on Robert Johnson’s life and legacy and an extraordinary exercise in American mythmaking. Newly revised and complete with extensive historical notes on Johnson’s life and the culture of the Mississippi Delta and blues music during the 1930s, Love in Vain is at once a classic of music writing and a screenplay whose reputation lies firmly in the realm of great American literature.

Alan Greenberg is a writer, film director, film producer, and photographer. He worked on Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear and Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 and with Werner Herzog on his classic screenplays Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde, and Heart of Glass. Greenberg’s documentary Land of Look Behind was awarded the Chicago International Film Festival’s Gold Hugo award, and he is the author of Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of “Heart of Glass.”

Stanley Crouch is a columnist, novelist, and essayist and a founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He is the author of many books, including Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz.

Martin Scorsese is an Academy Award–winning director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. He was executive producer for the acclaimed seven-part film series The Blues.