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Topic: Robert Johnson's son living quietly in Miss. Return to archive
9th March 2008 07:38 PM
Ten Thousand Motels Noted bluesman Robert Johnson's son living quietly in Miss.
Bill Minor / • Political columnist • February 29, 2008
Clarion Ledger.com

This is a rags-to-riches story with a happy ending for a shy, frugal 76-year-old Crystal Springs man.

Claud Johnson looks wistfully at his old Mack gravel truck outside his pink brick home near Crystal Springs, still awed by the wealth that has come his way in 10 years since being legally declared the biological son and sole heir of legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson.

Claud's longtime friend, attorney Jim Kitchens, after a decade-long court battle, established the gravel hauler's claim that Robert Johnson, whom he never met, was his father.

You would think that a man who drove a gravel truck for a living when suddenly handed thousands of dollars would head for the casinos and buy flashy cars. Not Claud. It took six months to get him to stop his dangerous gravel-hauling job. He "splurged" to build his new pink brick house on a 47-acre tract and launched the Robert Johnson Blues Foundation.

Blues aficionados worldwide acclaim Robert Johnson's musical genius, preserved in 29 of his compositions recorded in 1936. Two years after the recording was made, Johnson, at age 27 was dead, believed to have been poisoned by a jealous Greenwood husband. Seventy years later, nobody knows for sure where Johnson is buried, although several places in Leflore County lay claim to being the site.

The brooding, mystical songs and remarkable guitar style of the one-time field-hand continue to fascinate. British guitarist Eric Clapton found it impossible to duplicate Johnson's work on one guitar. It would take two or three guitars to match Robert Johnson's picking. Clapton's CD Me and Mr. Johnson, devoted entirely to Johnson's blues, was featured recently in a Mississippi Public Broadcasting documentary.

Apart from the celebrity surrounding his legendary father, Claud Johnson quietly goes about his life in the home he built six years ago after Kitchens handed him $1.5 million from Robert Johnson royalties accumulated before the estate was probated. Royalties continue to come.

Amazingly, Claud was unknown when the estate was first opened in 1990 after the Robert Johnson CD was put out by Columbia Records. When it won a Grammy and became popular worldwide, people began popping up claiming to be a blood relative of the artist.

Claud knew he was the son of the legendary bluesman, but did not broadcast it because the grandparents who raised him regarded Johnson's music as a devil's brew. (One of his songs is Me and the Devil Blues.)

Born in Hazlehurst in 1911, Robert grew up in the Delta but quit being a field hand to pick his guitar for parties. On a visit to Lincoln County in 1931 he sired Claud out of wedlock in a woodland frolic with 17-year-old Virgie Jane Smith, while another lovemaking couple looked on. (That became a key legal point in establishing Claud's birthright.)

Virgie Jane later married a man named Marshall Cain and made Claud use that name, though she let him know the noted bluesman was his father. As he grew older, Claud lived with his Smith grandparents and put "Johnson" on his Social Security card.

When Kitchens was hired by Claud to push his claim in the estate case a distant cousin had started, Kitchens wisely took video depositions with the aging Virgie Jane, as well as the still-sharp Eula Mae Williams, her companion in the 1931 two-couple tryst. Eula Mae gave an account of the lovemaking, which Virgie Jane confirmed.

A Leflore County Chancery Judge in 1998 declared Claud Johnson's biological son and the estate's sole heir. It was upheld in 2000 by the state Supreme Court (with a hilarious opinion by then-Justice Mike Mills) and even the U.S. Supreme Court.

As they say, this should be made into a movie. Well, it will be: HBO is producing one and Claud and Jim Kitchens will be in it.
9th March 2008 09:01 PM
Fiji Joe So can this guy play guitar?
9th March 2008 10:31 PM
sirmoonie
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
British guitarist Eric Clapton found it impossible to duplicate Johnson's work on one guitar. It would take two or three guitars to match Robert Johnson's picking.


Keith said roughly the same thing. Maybe there was another guitar player there.

Where did he get that sharp suit anyways?

10th March 2008 10:38 AM
Ten Thousand Motels >he sired Claud out of wedlock in a woodland frolic with 17-year-old Virgie Jane Smith, while another lovemaking couple looked on.<

Why that little devil!



10th March 2008 12:49 PM
Factory Girl I've always liked to be watched.

Motsie, this is a great find!!! Thank you very kindly!
10th March 2008 01:45 PM
guitarman53 He died at 27, also Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin & Jim Morrison, there's a omen about that age.
10th March 2008 03:01 PM
Factory Girl
quote:
guitarman53 wrote:
He died at 27, also Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin & Jim Morrison, there's a omen about that age.



Yes, there is.
I think RJ was pure genius ahead of his time. He invented rock & roll.
10th March 2008 03:04 PM
andrews27 Quietly? I'd be suing Clapton.
10th March 2008 04:33 PM
Steel Wheels Factory Girl likes to be watched! That's what I'm taking away from this article.

10th March 2008 05:42 PM
Brainbell Jangler
quote:
Steel Wheels wrote:
Factory Girl likes to be watched! That's what I'm taking away from this article.




News you can use.
10th March 2008 07:36 PM
Sioux I guess that, technically, Robert Johnson could be deemed to be the first member of that terrible "27 Club". Then it was Brian, Jimi, Janis, and Jim....and then Kurt Cobain decided he wanted to join the club as well.....
10th March 2008 09:42 PM
Fiji Joe For years there were rumors of a Robert Johnson movie starring Prince...thankfully, that never transpired

But this did happen...loosely based...but horrific nonethless

11th March 2008 02:02 PM
Mr Jurkka That movie is a masterpiece.
11th March 2008 03:56 PM
Fiji Joe
quote:
Mr Jurkka wrote:
That movie is a masterpiece.



The Robert Johnson based character in O' Brother Where Art Thou was far more compelling

"We ain't one at a timin' here...we's mass communicatin'"
11th March 2008 04:04 PM
Joey
quote:
Fiji Joe wrote:


The Robert Johnson based character in O' Brother Where Art Thou was far more compelling

"We ain't one at a timin' here...we's mass communicatin'"



Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
"Lil Fiji..I just got a feeling that in 15 or 20 years, you're gonna be somebody...maybe like a writer or something"
11th March 2008 04:16 PM
Fiji Joe
quote:
Joey wrote:

"Lil Fiji..I just got a feeling that in 15 or 20 years, you're gonna be somebody...maybe like a writer or something"




Pass the rock ball hog...


[Edited by Fiji Joe]
11th March 2008 04:49 PM
pdog
quote:
Fiji Joe wrote:
So can this guy play guitar?



If he can, he is doing it quietly.
11th March 2008 05:15 PM
Joey " If he can, he is doing it quietly. "
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket


11th March 2008 08:59 PM
Brainbell Jangler
quote:
Sioux wrote:
I guess that, technically, Robert Johnson could be deemed to be the first member of that terrible "27 Club". Then it was Brian, Jimi, Janis, and Jim....and then Kurt Cobain decided he wanted to join the club as well.....


Another all-too-often-forgotten member was Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, rhythm guitarist, harp player, backing vocalist and songwriter for Canned Heat. He died September 3, 1970; two weeks before Jimi and a month before Janis.

http://www.blindowl.net/

11th March 2008 09:05 PM
Riffhard Gram Parsons missed it by one year. He was 26 when he popped his last balloon.


Riffy
11th March 2008 09:16 PM
Brainbell Jangler And, of course, the Grateful Dead's "Pig Pen" was a member; he only seemed to be 50 when he died.
12th March 2008 12:29 AM
Sioux Ahhh yes, Alan Wilson and "Pig Pen"...I know there are more too. And one of my other favorites, Nick Drake, also missed it by a year. He was 26 when he died.
12th March 2008 12:51 AM
Sioux Of course, Otis Redding was only 26 when he died....

Ok, here are a few more members of the "27 Club"....Johnny Kidd {of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, a good, rockin' mid-60's Brit band--I like their stuff}---car accident. Also Jimmy McCulloch {Wings}---heart attack. Gary Thain {Uriah Heep}---drug overdose. And Pete Ham {Badfinger}---hanged himself. There are a few others I found too. There is a sobering site with every know rock star who died early listed. There are like 371 of them. Unbelievable.
13th March 2008 10:26 PM
guitarman53 A site with drug/alcohol related deaths of artists.
http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-drug-related-deaths
List of drug-related deaths: Information and Much More from Answers.com

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