cheers
BERT the guitaraholic

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Originally posted by Knucklehead:
Interesting if it's the real thing. So last count there were five pictures of the man...

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What? I thought there were only two authentic photos - we all know the two I'm talking about.

Could you please post or link to the others?

What I've always found amusing is the PC job that is often done on the second photo. "To smoke, or not to smoke?" If you do a google search you'll find versions of the photo both shot with and without the cigarette. Then to make matters more complicated, Elijah Wald's book used a composite of the two shots for the illustration. Combining the natty suit of the first and the hands and cigarette of the second. Hmmm?

http://www.guitarseminars.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/016561.html

The head seems too big for the body - but tight suits were the style. The shadow from the hat brim doesn't look quite right either, but certainly a flashbulb would have been used, so that might explain the weird lighting.

It could be him, a little younger than the photos we've already seen. The left eyelid isn't as droopy as we'd like it to be, but the arched eyebrows indicate that he was raising them - perhaps because he was self-conscious about the droopy lid? The ears look right also - it really does look like him.

I'm certain that three photos of me taken over a five year span would look as dissimilar.

BTW, I find the conjecture about RJ being illiterate and the pen thus unnecessary to be ridiculous, and bordering on racism. The man was a musical genius, and very ambitious. He was smarter than me, and most of us here, I'd wager. He could read and write just fine, I'd bet.

I also get sick of hearing people say that he couldn't have afforded a Gibson guitar - and that the photographer loaned him one for the picture. How stupid is that? The man was a professional, touring musician. Wouldn't he spend every dime he had for the best guitar he could afford? And the guitar was possibly used when he bought it - look how scratched up it was. And wouldn't he pose with his favorite axe? Would you pose with a borrowed guitar - or your own?

Finally, why would the photographer have a high quality, yet thrashed guitar in his possession? It's absurd to assume that the photographer would have owned this guitar, but not RJ. If the photographer kept a guitar for use as a prop, it would have been a looked new, and been cheap, something like a Stella.

[This message has been edited by Waspman (edited 01-04-2008).]

He carried a little black book around with him, a diary, which he wrote in religiously. Mention has been made of it in a couple of the articles; his sister had it along with the pictures she gave to Stephen Lavere

[This message has been edited by Knucklehead (edited 01-07-2008).]

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There are only two photos of Robert Johnson known to exist, the so-called Dimes Store photo and Studio Portrait.

The small Photo Booth photo is no larger than a commemorative postage stamp. Young Johnson carefully posed for his own portrait, placing his cigarette artfully dangling from his lips. When it was asked of Johnny Shines what chord Johnson was making, he replied it isn't really a chord, as far as he could tell, but just Robert showing off.

(NOTE: We have been informed by a fan that "the chord he's playing is the equivalent of 'A' but he's capoed up to f so it would be 'B.' Johnson would play the baseline with his thumb and forefinger while playing intricate lead lines with other fingers and with his left hand's pinky." Thanks for the info.)

The Studio Portrait, taken in Memphis by the Hooks Bothers and kept by Johnson's half-sister Carrie Spencer in her Bible. The dark three-piece suit Johnson wears really belonged to his nephew Louis, Carrie's son. Louis was about to go into the Navy and was having his picture taken in his uniform. He asked his favorite uncle Robert to pose with him. According to Carrie, "Louis loved his Uncle Robert and Robert loved Louis's suit." There is a third photo known to exist. It was taken at the same time as the Studio Portrait -- it shows Johnson posing in his new suit along with his nephew Louis in his Navy uniform..

These two photos were discovered by researcher and music historian Stephen C. LaVere in 1973 in the possession of Johnson's half-sister Carrie.

It wasn't until February 1986 that the world finally saw what Robert Johnson looked like when the "photo booth" photo was first published in Rolling Stone Magazine's article announcing his induction into the newly formed Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Robert Johnson's traveling companion, blues legend Johnny Shines claimed there was a photo taken of himself and Johnson by a woman named Johnnie Mae Crowder in Hughes, Arkansas, in 1937 and later published in a local newspaper. However, the photo has never surfaced.

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WHAT GUITAR DID HE PLAY?
Robert Johnson played more than one guitar during his short life. According to Johnny Shines, he primarily favored the Kalamazoo, a budget line Gibson, and the Stella which sold for about $12. Considering these inexpensive instruments, the sound Johnson created is even more amazing.

In the "Dime Store" photo, Johnson is holding a 14-fret flattop Kalamazoo with a capo across the second fret. It was this guitar he probably used during his recording sessions. In the "Studio Portrait," Johnson holds a Gibson L-1.

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If Waterman is on board this new upcoming pic, I'd tend to believe as he is pretty vicious about anything or anyone
making dough off blues related history if he doesn't agree it's legit.

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Originally posted by jmiles:
The chord in the second pic looks like an E flat 9th chord, but with no root.
index on 3rd string, 3rd fret
middle on 5th string, 4th fret
ring on 4th string, 5th fret
pinky on 2nd, and possibly 1st, string(s) on 6th fret
Looks like the same chord formation in a different position in the 1st pic.
Is that correct?

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Hah! I was trying to figure that out just last night. The problem, of course, is that we don't know what tuning he was in. RJ played in at least five while recording. I tried a few before I got tired and went to bed.

quote:

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Originally posted by Knucklehead:
"BTW, I find the conjecture about RJ being illiterate and the pen thus unnecessary to be ridiculous, and bordering on racism"

He carried a little black book around with him, a diary, which he wrote in religiously. Mention has been made of it in a couple of the articles; his sister had it along with the pictures she gave to Stephen Lavere

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That would be cool.

I assume she kept it, and didn't allow Lavere to read it, copy it, quote it, or otherwise? And was not recovered after she died? Because it would certainly have been published...

To me the new photo looks a lot like the other two. The jaw line in the top and bottom pics looks very similar, it's just that his mouth is different (smiling in the top one). It also shows the very slight cleft in the chin. Lighting always makes a difference.

On another forum there's a similar discussion about this awaited RJ photo. There are also comments about one of Johnson's relatives showing up at a Robert Lockwood Blues show in Boston during the '70s, who had other pictures of RJ aside from the ones, which have already turned up. If this one that Vanity Fair is holding is actually another RJ photo, then the count will be up to four.