John Leroy Robertson was born on a garbanzo bean plantation in Mississippi, either in 1910, 1911 or 1912. Little is known of his early life, except that as a child he loved making hand shadows on the wall of his family's shotgun shack.
As a young man, he realized that he had no interest in garbanzo beans, and decided to become a professional hand shadowist. Hand shadowry was a popular form of entertainment among the poor people of the Delta at the time, as it only involved a pair of hands and a light source.
At first, John's repertoire consisted of the usual hand shadows: bunny rabbits, alligators, birds in flight and such. But he knew there could be more to it. He wanted his hands to tell stories that hadn't been told before, to reach down into people's inner depths of emotion, and amaze them in the process.
According to legend, he was instructed by an old, blind hand shadowist to take his hands down to a certain crossroads at midnight, where he met up with the Devil himself. The Devil shook his hand, and turned John Robertson into a master hand shadowist, in exchange for his immortal soul.
Soon John was astounding crowds with hand shadow renditions of lobsters, celebrities, metaphysical concepts and cryptozoological monsters in funny hats.
Within a few years he had become the King Of The Delta Hand Shadowists.
His career was cut short in 1938 when he was poisoned by the boyfriend of a hand shadow groupie.
However, he has been a major influence on hand shadowists ever since, and his legend lives on, in the shadows.
1 comment:
... thanks for throwing light on that
heretofore shady genre...
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