As the story goes, a blues music fan was browsing eBay in 2005 when he came across a listing titled, “Old Snapshot Blues Guitar B.B. King???” Upon viewing the photo (shown above), the fan believed that the picture was of the legendary Robert Johnson. Only two known pictures of Johnson are in circulation.
Active in the late 1930’s, Robert Johnson is remembered for a number of reasons, including his soulful early blues recordings, and the mysterious nature of his untimely death in 1938 (at te age of 27). Some believe Johnson sold his soul at “the crossroads” to the devil in exchange for the ability to play guitar, a story that is perhaps embellished by Robert Johnson’s famous tune, “Cross Roads Blues” (which was later adapted by Eric Clapton for Cream). Clapton has called Johnson “the most important blues singer that ever lived.”
The fan wound up spending $2,200 on the picture, and two years later, sent it to the Johnson estate for verification. They passed it along to FBI Forensic Artist Lois Gibson, who compared the image to the two known pictures and concluded that it was indeed Robert Johnson.
However, a panel of 49 music historians, music writers, musicians and more have gathered together, believing now that the picture is not Robert Johnson. One of the panel members, a blues historian named Elijah Wald (who incidentally taught my Blues in American Music class at UCLA), was quoted as saying:
“It’s about money. I understand that everyone who finds an old painting in their attic wants to think that it’s a Da Vinci, but we don’t tend to say, ‘Yeah, you could be right!’… If it’s a fact that that is a picture of Robert Johnson then it’s worth a fortune. If it’s of any one of a hundred really, really good singers or guitar players of that generation, it’s not worth anything, and that’s kind of sad.”
They believe there are a number of inconsistencies, including a different shaped ear, a left handed wristwatch, and backwards button. They also note that Gibson, the FBI Forensic Artist, is not an anthropologist, and she only stated that the picture “appears” to be Robert Johnson.
What do you think? How does the known photo of Robert Johnson (seen in the article) compare to the one in question (at the top)?
[Via The Guardian]