Dick Waterman
2007-08-21 19:10:41 UTC
A recently had a visit from a senior writer from "Vanity Fair" who has been
given both time and budget to bring forth a major piece on Robert Johnson. Now
it is certainly noteworthy that a publication of their stature across the
global literary pantheon will undertake a project of this scope.
The writer's purpose seems to pose the question, "Why Robert Johnson? What is
so special about this one musician that creates an iconic status now seven
decades after his death?" He was not a major commercial success in his own
lifetime and musicians such as Leroy Carr, Kokomo Arnold, Lonnie Johnson and others
were much more accepted within the black community than Johnson was.
The intriguing part of his visit was the appearance of a photograph that
supposedly is a third image of Johnson. I had the opportunity to give it a long
look and, although I am cynical and skeptic to the bone, I admit that I am
convinced that it might well be him.
He is wearing a white shirt, no hat or jacket and he is holding a guitar.
There is a second man in the photo who is round-faced with soft features. It
supposedly is Johnny Shines and I simply could not make a determination on this
although I knew him well in his late years.
The man in the photo might or might not have a 'lazy' left eye that Johnson
supposedly had. However, in plain sight, are those long spidery thin fingers of
the left hand across the strings. It is a pretty compelling image to view.
I tuned him over to local Oxford attorney Tom Freeland, an expert on the
Mississippi inheritance circus that has evolved over the years regarding the
estate. I gave him contact information for Steve LaVere, Elijah Wald, Peter
Gurlanick, Gayle Dean Wardlow and some others.
He will be working on this for some period of time with no publication date
set. I suspect they'll try for the 70th anniversary of his death which is next
Spring.
So it asks the question of whether Robert Johnson was a black man who
achieved fame through his musical accomplishments or is he a white man's creation of
mythology (i.e. the crossroads legend) completely apart from the
African-American world?
I know that the Creative Editor of "Vanity Fair" (David Friend) is a huge
blues fan and he has given this established writer free rein to bring forth some
definitive findings.
Stay tuned . . .
Dick Waterman
Oxford, MS
www.dickwaterman.com
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given both time and budget to bring forth a major piece on Robert Johnson. Now
it is certainly noteworthy that a publication of their stature across the
global literary pantheon will undertake a project of this scope.
The writer's purpose seems to pose the question, "Why Robert Johnson? What is
so special about this one musician that creates an iconic status now seven
decades after his death?" He was not a major commercial success in his own
lifetime and musicians such as Leroy Carr, Kokomo Arnold, Lonnie Johnson and others
were much more accepted within the black community than Johnson was.
The intriguing part of his visit was the appearance of a photograph that
supposedly is a third image of Johnson. I had the opportunity to give it a long
look and, although I am cynical and skeptic to the bone, I admit that I am
convinced that it might well be him.
He is wearing a white shirt, no hat or jacket and he is holding a guitar.
There is a second man in the photo who is round-faced with soft features. It
supposedly is Johnny Shines and I simply could not make a determination on this
although I knew him well in his late years.
The man in the photo might or might not have a 'lazy' left eye that Johnson
supposedly had. However, in plain sight, are those long spidery thin fingers of
the left hand across the strings. It is a pretty compelling image to view.
I tuned him over to local Oxford attorney Tom Freeland, an expert on the
Mississippi inheritance circus that has evolved over the years regarding the
estate. I gave him contact information for Steve LaVere, Elijah Wald, Peter
Gurlanick, Gayle Dean Wardlow and some others.
He will be working on this for some period of time with no publication date
set. I suspect they'll try for the 70th anniversary of his death which is next
Spring.
So it asks the question of whether Robert Johnson was a black man who
achieved fame through his musical accomplishments or is he a white man's creation of
mythology (i.e. the crossroads legend) completely apart from the
African-American world?
I know that the Creative Editor of "Vanity Fair" (David Friend) is a huge
blues fan and he has given this established writer free rein to bring forth some
definitive findings.
Stay tuned . . .
Dick Waterman
Oxford, MS
www.dickwaterman.com
**************************************
Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
Blues-L web site: http://www.netspace.org/~blues-l/
Archives & web interface: http://lists.netspace.org/archives/blues-l.html
NetSpace LISTSERV(R) software donated by L-Soft, Inc. http://www.lsoft.com
To unsubscribe from BLUES-L, send an email with the message UNSUBSCRIBE BLUES-L to: ***@lists.netspace.org