Topic: 3rd verified Robert Johnson Picture (again)

[jono_1uk]

Hot off the press folks

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/05/exclusive-first-look-at-new-photograph-of-blues-legend-robert-johnson?sfns=mo&fbclid=IwAR3YR1mxKFlvKiXboSdtH_18j7PA_I-gEcg9rcX3eoY-FP6ngAD8KCO7si4

[CF]

It's a beaut of a picture. This is the guy I hear on the recordings, not the tortured soul sold to us by fans and even scholars.

[Blues Vintage]

After studying it for 20 minutes this looks like the real McCoy. If not it's a fantastic fake.
Looks like Guralnick and Wald contributed in the project but I've never heard of the other names involved.
And why took it so long to see the light?

This is not the unpublished McCormick photo (made at the other studio) which Mack showed Guralnick.

[Stuart]

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-306-84526-0

It should be an interesting read.

[unezrider]

hello, friend
I've been looking at this thing too, for the past half hour, & I think it's the real thing. I can't quite make out the part in his hair in this photo, but notice the left pupil is slightly bigger. & the eyes in general look like him. Also those wrinkles in the backdrop are exact. Pretty amazing.

[TonyGilroy]

It looks genuine to me.

For what it's worth Preston Lauterbach has written some excellent, well researched books that impressed me. I'd be astonished if this was a scam.

[Sunflower]

Great, amazing 3rd Robert Johnson pic. According to his stepsister this pic was taken in Memphis and probably the same day as his cigarette photo. Same white shirt, same braces, hairs, long fingers , 14 fret Guitar, Kalamazoo a barre chord  this time at the 9th fret cos is more near to the camera. While in the cigarette photo he put a chord at the 5th fret.

[btasoundsradio]

His chording fingers are almost the same as the studio shot. I donated to the campaign to publish this book, I can't to read it. Especially after reading the Wardlowe book.

[Dr Pryor]

Thanks! Fantastic.
Do everybody agrees now that the Johnny Shines/Robert Johnson duet photo is a fake?

[jostber]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/49-experts-agree-that-third-photo-of-robert-johnson-is-not-authentic/

[btasoundsradio]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/49-experts-agree-that-third-photo-of-robert-johnson-is-not-authentic/

Always felt like that last one was suspect. The new one, gives me chills. The timing of the Robert Johnson timeline mysteries is a bit eerie in terms of what's going on in society right now, in my mind anyway.

[btasoundsradio]

Wow. I started reading the ebook. Annye Anderson's memory is incredible. My mind is blown.

[Dr Pryor]

Thanks for the link to Texas Monthly. I just had read there was an issue with Shines jacket backwards (or Robert's guitar if you turn the photo around).

Now, reading your different posts and links,are there two different covers to the book?

Quote: this is not the unpublished McCormick photo (Harry). Is there a chance to see this one?

[jpeters609]

Thanks for the link to Texas Monthly. I just had read there was an issue with Shines jacket backwards (or Robert's guitar if you turn the photo around).

Now, reading your different posts and links,are there two different covers to the book?

Quote: this is not the unpublished McCormick photo (Harry). Is there a chance to see this one?

The publisher of the new Johnson book, "Brother Robert," showed the book with a different cover before it was actually available, simply to have something to show. The cover with Robert Johnson's photo is the only one that was actually issued.

As for the disgraced Vanity Fair "Johnny Shines/Robert Johnson" photo, the less said the better! But the observation you make is worth noting, as it was not widely addressed. Not only was that photo NOT an image of either Johnson or Shines, it also appeared to be TWO completely different photos that were joined together in Photoshop, with one of them being reversed in the process (thus the backward coat, etc., and the very awkward intermingling of limbs). But enough of that.

The Mack McCormick photo that Harry references above has still never been released nor seen by anyone, other than the late Mr. McCormick and Guralnick. No one knows its whereabouts.

[Dr Pryor]

Thank you for these clarifications! Hope the book will be available abroad...
Have they been keeping that (McCormick) 3rd photograph hidden because identification wasn't 100% sure?

[jpeters609]

No one really knows what McCormick did with that photo. Presumably, he didn't want to have to deal with Steve LaVere's litigation and so he kept it to himself. Now that McCormick is dead, the whereabouts of the photo are even less clear.

[Blues Vintage]

Thank you for these clarifications! Hope the book will be available abroad...
Have they been keeping that (McCormick) 3rd photograph hidden because identification wasn't 100% sure?

I think it's Robert Johnson 100 %. It may have something to do with the LaVere/McCormick legal battle.
In "Searching for Robert Johnson" (the book not the documentary) Peter Guralnick explains that McCormick showed him a few pictures (1976);

The next photograph shows a young man in a sailor's uniform, obviously pleased, obviously proud, with another man, very slightly older, standing beside him, his arm draped affectionately around the sailor's shoulder. The sailor, Mack McCormick tells me, is Robert's nephew, Louis, at home in memphis, on his first leave from the navy base in Norfolk where he was stationed in 1936-37. Later he would be transferred up to Annapolis and that was how his mother and his aunt Bessie would eventually move up to the Maryland area, where McCormick found them. Louis was very close to his uncle, and in fact, when McCormick visited Carrie in 1972, was so disturbed by the conversation that he retreated into his room and refused to come out. And the other man in the picture? The man in the sharp pin-striped suit? That, of course, is Robert Johnson. I stare and stare at the picture, study it, scrutinize it, seek to memorize it, and for my very efforts am defeated...............


If I remember correctly this picture is in a safe in Mexico, where McCormick lived for a period.
This information is in the gripping New York Times article "The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie" from a few years back which I can't acces right now.
Mack passed away a year after the article. I haven't heard anything lately what happened with his enormous archive ("The Monster").

The Monster Work Of Mack McCormick
https://lonestarmusicmagazine.com/if-i-had-my-way-the-monster-work-of-mack-mccormick/

[Blues Vintage]

Note; I was writing my message the same time as Jeff.

I forgot to mention that LaVere died about 5 weeks after McCormick died. There's some kind of voodoo curse everywhere Robert goes.

[Stuart]

I forgot to mention that LaVere died about 5 weeks after McCormick died. There's some kind of voodoo curse everywhere Robert goes.

Yep, it's called "life."

[CF]

Mack's pic of RJ and his nephew has been seen in the last few years and still exists. Someone who knows someone has mentioned it at the RBF at facebook.

[btasoundsradio]

Interesting to learn that a lot of his family members relocated to near Deale MD, not far from where I grew up. His mother's grave is in Churchton MD, but flooded out and now inaccessible, according to Annye Anderson. Carrie, his half sister married an oysterman named Sanky Thompson. I wonder if any of the other graves are still accessible.
The second half of the book about the legal battles for the Johnson estate is heartbreaking.