WeenieCampbell.com
Country Blues => Weenie Campbell Main Forum => Topic started by: Stuart on August 03, 2015, 07:55:25 AM
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Awaiting the peer review of the peer review:
https://www.academia.edu/14588356/The_Guardian_article_Experts_Dispute_Robert_Johnson_Photo (https://www.academia.edu/14588356/The_Guardian_article_Experts_Dispute_Robert_Johnson_Photo)
https://www.academia.edu/14588079/The_Search_for_Robert_Johnsons_Guitar (https://www.academia.edu/14588079/The_Search_for_Robert_Johnsons_Guitar)
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Hey, thx Stuart!
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They note that two men who knew Johnson, Robert Lockwood and David Edwards, both failed to identify Johnson in the photo
Did they actually show it to Robert Lockwood? (died in 2006). The photo was "discovered" in 2008.
A third would be extraordinarily valuable
I guess Mack McCormick, who has the real McCoy, is sitting on a fortune. If it ever comes out of the mexican vault.
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They note that two men who knew Johnson, Robert Lockwood and David Edwards, both failed to identify Johnson in the photo
Did they actually show it to Robert Lockwood? (died in 2006). The photo was "discovered" in 2008.
Here's the relevant part of the Vanity Fair article:
"Schein wasn?t having any better luck. In May 2006, he learned that two veteran Delta bluesmen, David ?Honeyboy? Edwards and Robert Lockwood Jr., were playing at B. B. King?s Blues Club in Times Square. For a guy trying to establish the bona fides of a Robert Johnson picture, the show was a real opportunity. In his memoir, The World Don?t Owe Me Nothing, Edwards writes about witnessing a clearly ill Johnson trying to play at what would be his last show, and later, seeing him suffer greatly from what he asserts were the effects of poisoned whiskey. Lockwood, meanwhile, had learned how to play guitar from Johnson during the years that the itinerant artist lived on and off with Lockwood and his mother in Helena, Arkansas. But when Edwards?s manager allowed Schein to show his picture to the musicians?on the condition that he not prompt them with Johnson?s and Shine?s names?neither identified the men in the photo. Still, Schein wasn?t ready to give up. The bluesmen hadn?t said it wasn?t Johnson, and there was another man who might be able to help. "
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They note that two men who knew Johnson, Robert Lockwood and David Edwards, both failed to identify Johnson in the photo
Did they actually show it to Robert Lockwood? (died in 2006). The photo was "discovered" in 2008.
Schein acquired the photo in 2005. In terms of him showing it to Edwards and Lockwood, here's the relevant part of the Vanity Fair article:
"Schein wasn?t having any better luck. In May 2006, he learned that two veteran Delta bluesmen, David ?Honeyboy? Edwards and Robert Lockwood Jr., were playing at B. B. King?s Blues Club in Times Square. For a guy trying to establish the bona fides of a Robert Johnson picture, the show was a real opportunity. In his memoir, The World Don?t Owe Me Nothing, Edwards writes about witnessing a clearly ill Johnson trying to play at what would be his last show, and later, seeing him suffer greatly from what he asserts were the effects of poisoned whiskey. Lockwood, meanwhile, had learned how to play guitar from Johnson during the years that the itinerant artist lived on and off with Lockwood and his mother in Helena, Arkansas. But when Edwards?s manager allowed Schein to show his picture to the musicians?on the condition that he not prompt them with Johnson?s and Shine?s names?neither identified the men in the photo. Still, Schein wasn?t ready to give up. The bluesmen hadn?t said it wasn?t Johnson, and there was another man who might be able to help. "
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Excuse my earlier comment. The article came out in 2008. Schein "found" the photo in 2005.
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Some more:
https://www.academia.edu/14629581/The_Death_of_Robert_Johnsons_Wife (https://www.academia.edu/14629581/The_Death_of_Robert_Johnsons_Wife)
https://www.academia.edu/14628879/Report_Analyzing_Robert_Johnsons_1928_Gibson_L-1_and_Another_Guitar_Purprted_to_be_the_Same (https://www.academia.edu/14628879/Report_Analyzing_Robert_Johnsons_1928_Gibson_L-1_and_Another_Guitar_Purprted_to_be_the_Same)
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https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/is-this-really-the-bluesman-robert-johnson/
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That picture needs to have a deep conversation with the "Long Island Medium". Over a bagel. No disrespect to the bagel intended.
Forgive me!!!
Harriet
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No need to beg for forgiveness, Harriet. I think we should change the subject title to "The Easiest Person To Fool Is Yourself," one of Richard Feynman's favorite sayings.
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Thanks Stuart :)
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I STILL think it looks like B.B. King and Willie Nix... or none of the above!!
pbl
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Money talks - It IS RJ OK!!!!!!!
Don't care if it's been forensically dismissed, if Trump can get elected, this can be RJ.
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Hey Phil - its 2017.
If theu believe it, it can be true for them. And their opinion is equally valid (and worthy of equal respect) to everyone else's, regardless of whether its right or not...
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Yes, yes, yes. What do the experts know?
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The thing that impresses me is that of all of the people in the world who were not Robert Johnson, this guy happened to find a picture of Robert Johnson. Wow, what were the odds?
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Or it could be the stuff of a Twilight Zone episode: He wants to see RJ so badly that now everyone everywhere looks and sounds like RJ. And the only music is RJ's...He walks into a record store and flips through the bins...You get the picture... But for everyone else, nothing has changed and things are as they've always been. "You are about to enter a world..."
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Googling the name of the self-described "world's most successful forensic artist" from the NYT article brings up some (literally) incredible stuff. Alleged Billy the Kid photos have gotten the same treatment.
Poor old Robert. He was a brilliant musician, but trainloads of rubbish have been written about him over the years.
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. . . .
Poor old Robert. He was a brilliant musician, but trainloads of rubbish have been written about him over the years.
And we're busy adding to it, Eric! Seriously, there has been more utter b.s. around photos than around any other topic in Country Blues. I dread posts about photos. Yecch!
All best,
Johnm
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I Agree, John. Sometimes I can be a bit on the dry side, so just to be clear, I meant incredible in the sense of ludicrous.
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I do not know how they got as far with this - I guess it has alot to do with Schein and Matt Umanoff's in the west village, New York which was where he worked as a National salesman, maybe still does. if you haven't been there its an upscale guitar shop -BUT they are distinguished by having a long standing celebrity clientelle,
When I went there to look at Nationals, I met Schein - he's a personable guy and Richie Havens and Steve Earle stopped by for strings I think. I guess stuff like that accounts for the connection to--Vanity FAir - Jake IMHO is kind of a hipster with a day job, you know the type, with the porkpie hat, and he was verrrrrrrrrrrry mysterious in talking about his find and we also talked about Patti Smith and her guitarist whom he was still friends with and I had known Lenny from my days at Max's Kansas City, so that was a connection between us and we both love slide guitar. I am sorry that I didn't push to see the back of the stupid thing, as far as I know NOBODY has seen more that the Vanity Fair touched up photo.
In any case I hope it gives forum members a better sense and feeling for the environment that bore fruit to this scam.
And here he is in a recent video - the cool guy dressed in black on the left:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoUiaI4EkbQ&t=128s
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I do not doubt Zeke's sincerity when it comes to the photo, what he believes, etc. There was a lot of chatter at the old IGS board right after Zeke bought the photo. Given the incomplete info we have about the photo, we'll never really know one way or another with 100% certainty. And naturally it's fun to speculate without taking things to excess. Whoever these two men were, it looks like they were enjoying posing for the camera.
It's interesting that many of the comments (both over the years and in the recent NY Times piece) mention that the guitar was surely a prop, but it's also possible that the clothes were props as well. And of course there are the hands of the fellow holding the guitar, with his long fingers like those of RJ in the two attested photographs. But the guys in the photos are not the only ones with long fingers. A friend I used to play ball with in college was only about 6' tall, but he had hands that enveloped a basketball. He could stop dribbling and hold the ball with one hand like the rest of us could hold a much smaller ball.
For arguments sake, suppose information surfaced that confirmed that the person holding the guitar was RJ. What would this tell us about RJ in addition to the fact that on one day in his life, he and a friend dressed up, had their photo taken and appear to have had a good time doing it?
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For arguments sake, suppose information surfaced that confirmed that the person holding the guitar was RJ. What would this tell us in addition to the fact that on one day in his life, he and a friend dressed up, had their photo taken and appear to have had a good time doing it?
To stay tuned, Zeke might be elligible for a guest appearance on a popular talk show?
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To stay tuned, Zeke might be elligible for a guest appearance on a popular talk show?
I was referring to RJ, but I know where you're coming from. (Ambiguity noted and correction made.)
Yeah, who is this all about after all? RJ or _____?
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Please admin shut this down. Bruce Cornforth et al have completely demolished this as being anything other than a photo of unknown two guys with a guitar.
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... Bruce Cornforth et al have completely demolished this as being anything other than a photo of unknown two guys with a guitar.
Please revisit the first link of my initial post. My other posts are just follow-ups on a ongoing story that won't go away in spite of the solid counter arguments against it. For lack of a better description, it's a strange phenomenon.