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Guitar battle

In the 1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson, blues musician Johnny Shines re-enacts a headcutting battle he had with blues legend Robert Johnson on opposing street corners in Helena, Arkansas in the 1930s - to draw away each other's onlookers.

John P. Hammond

In the early part of the 1990s, Hammond hosted the 1991 UK television documentary The Search for Robert Johnson, detailing the life of the legendary Delta bluesman, Robert Johnson.

The Search for Robert Johnson

The film is loosely organised around field work by Johnson researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick.

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Throughout, Johnson's music is both foreground and background, from recordings of Johnson and as performed on camera by Hammond, David Honeyboy Edwards, and Johnny Shines.

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But Schroeder found that the film's documentary goals of objectivity and authenticity were partly undercut, first by the lavish praise heaped upon Johnson early in the film and Hammond's self-acknowledged "quest", and second because Hammond was featured prominently in the film playing long passages of several Johnson songs, and seeming to stand in for Johnson in sessions and in the re-enactment of headcutting.

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The Search for Robert Johnson is a 1991 UK television documentary film about the Delta blues musician Robert Johnson, hosted by John Hammond, and produced and directed by Chris Hunt.

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