Photo Credit: Maxine Leonard (Robert Johnson)
Jesse Collins Entertainment is partnering with Concord Originals on a biopic of legendary blues man, Robert Johnson.
Production company Jesse Collins Entertainment and independent music company Concord’s production arm, Concord Originals, are partnering on a biopic of legendary blues man, Robert Johnson. The Untitled Robert Johnson Biopic marks the first authorized narrative feature on Johnson, known as the King of the Delta Blues.
Johnson is famous for his culture-defining influence on rock legends like The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Led Zeppelin, as well as the enduring myth that he sold his soul to the Devil for his guitar-playing prowess. The biopic will explore the myth and center on Johnson’s fascinating real-life story.
Written by Ridgeway Wilson, who wrote and produced “Black Girls Rock!” and was a producer on the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, the film is produced by Jesse Collins and Dionne Harmon for Jesse Collins Entertainment and Sophia Dilley and Charles Hopkins for Concord. Executive producers are Wesley Adams and Bob Valentine for Concord Originals.
The biopic tells the story of famed blues musician and songwriter Robert Johnson, born in 1911 in Mississippi, a “dirt-poor, African American child who pursued his passion of music, partly as a way to avoid the sharecropper lifestyle prescribed to him by the American South.” Johnson took the tortuous lifestyle that came with being a Black man in that time and place an transformed his personal experience into music of universal relevance and global reach.
When he died at only 27, allegedly murdered by the jealous boyfriend of a former lover, the few recordings of Johnson debuted posthumously at Carnegie Hall. In 1986, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on the basis that he may be the first ever rock star.
“My grandfather, Robert Leroy Johnson, is truly an American music legend,” added Michael Johnson of the Robert Johnson Estate. “Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and The Rolling Stones — they will all tell you that Robert Johnson’s music helped to define the foundational roots of blues and rock n’ roll. He was one of the innovators of this musical genre and depicting the Black experience in America and his life is an important story that is significant to American history. Robert Johnson’s story shows how talent can shine through any adversity.”
“We are elated to partner with Concord Originals and The Robert Johnson Estate to tell this story with Ridgeway Wilson,” said CEO Jesse Collins and President Dionne Harmon, Jesse Collins Entertainment. “Robert Johnson’s impact on music culture is unmatched.”