Blues Rift: Snapshots Of a Music Legend Lead to Tug of War
In about 1935, Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson mounted a stool at Memphis's Hooks Brothers Photography studio, picked up his Gibson L-1 guitar, tipped his fedora and gazed into a camera lens.
Nearly four decades later, Mr. Johnson's half-sister dug the resulting photo out of a cedar chest to show to a dogged blues historian who had tracked her down. The trunk she opened that afternoon in 1973 has since turned into a Pandora's box.
That now-famous photograph and another one that was buried in the chest have become the subjects of a convoluted legal tug of war between the blues sleuth and relatives of the legendary musician, who died penniless and without a will in 1938. At stake: Who is the rightful owner of the iconic images, the only known photographs of the legendary musician, and who holds their lucrative copyrights?
The dispute is the final chapter in an epic legal struggle, now entering its 15th year, over Mr. Johnson's legacy. Earlier, a dramatic trial elevated a sole heir from a handful of contenders, entitling a once-poor truck driver to share in the lucrative rights to Mr. Johnson's music. Now the dispute over the photos is proving just as tangled, thrusting the blues historian and his business dealings into the spotlight.
"This has been an odyssey every bit as turbulent as the life of Robert Johnson himself," says Connecticut lawyer Stephen Nevas, who represents two family members.
To understand the spell that Robert Johnson casts over devotees of American music, just travel here to the Mississippi Delta, a fertile expanse of northwestern Mississippi that spawned a strain of blues that became a foundation for rock 'n' roll.
Dedicated fans have placed gravestones for Mr. Johnson in three separate rural cemeteries outside Greenwood, after puzzling over the sketchy tale of his burial in an unmarked grave. He had been poisoned, the story goes, at the age of 27 by a jealous juke-joint owner whose wife caught the singer's eye. On a recent winter afternoon, guitar picks, cigarettes and coins lay scattered around all three gravesites.
Robert Johnson Studio Portrait, Hooks Bros. Studio, Memphis, circa 1935
For decades after Mr. Johnson's death, little was publicly known about him beyond the 29 haunting country-blues songs he recorded in Texas in 1936 and 1937, including "Love in Vain" and "Hell Hound on My Trail." When CBS Records' Columbia label released a batch of them on a 1961 LP, the company apparently assumed he had left behind no likenesses of himself, and no heirs. The album was illustrated with a drawing.
Blues historian Stephen LaVere, now 61 years old, first learned about Mr. Johnson's half-sister, Carrie Thompson, as he searched for leads in Mississippi in 1973. When he reached Ms. Thompson by phone at her home in Churchton, Md., he asked whether she had any photos.
"It's funny you should ask," he recalls her saying. "I had lost it for a long time, but I found it in a Bible." An excited Mr. LaVere raced to Maryland.
When she handed him the Hooks Brothers photo, he thought "album cover." With Ms. Thompson's permission, he took the photo to a professional photographer, who produced a negative for him.
As Mr. LaVere and Ms. Thompson rummaged through the trunk during a later visit, Mr. LaVere came upon a scrap of paper, face down. Turning it over, he saw a small photo of a man staring intently, a cigarette dangling from his lips, guitar in hand. "Oh, that's little Robert," Ms. Thompson told him. Mr. LaVere copied that one, too.
What Mr. LaVere did next has made him a controversial figure in the blues world. He persuaded the elderly woman to assign him the rights to the photos and other memorabilia. Assuming her to be Mr. Johnson's only living heir, he also persuaded her to transfer her rights to Mr. Johnson's songs and recordings, which until then had been treated as in the public domain. In exchange, he promised her 50% of any royalties the material produced. He told her he would commercially promote Mr. Johnson's music.
But Mr. LaVere, it turned out, wasn't the first outsider to lay eyes on a Johnson photo. After Mr. LaVere struck a deal with CBS Records to release a new Robert Johnson collection, another sleuth, cultural historian Mack McCormick, insisted to CBS that he had secured rights to biographical information about Mr. Johnson during an earlier visit with Ms. Thompson. Mr. McCormick came away from his visit with a photo of Mr. Johnson and his nephew, a sailor. Mr. McCormick declines today to comment on where that picture is. (Although he does not have a copy, Mr. LaVere claims rights to that photo as well.)
Wary of legal problems, CBS put the record on ice, where it stayed for 15 years. Finally, in 1990, without the cooperation of Mr. McCormick, CBS Records released a boxed set of Mr. Johnson's recordings, with the Hooks Brothers portrait on the cover. It sold more than a million copies.
As the royalties rolled in, the trouble began. By then, Ms. Thompson had died, leaving her estate to her half-sister, Annye Anderson, a retired schoolteacher who is now 78, and Ms. Thompson's grandson, Robert Harris, a Chicago landscaper, now in his forties. Ms. Anderson opened court proceedings to establish her claim on Mr. Johnson's estate.
That is when gravel-truck driver Claud Johnson, now 73, materialized with a birth certificate listing as his father "R.L. Johnson, laborer." His claim on the estate was supported by a sworn statement from an elderly woman who claimed to have witnessed sexual relations between Claud's mother and the itinerant musician in the woods along a country road nine months before Claud's birth. A 1998 ruling named Claud Johnson sole heir, entitling him to $1.3 million in royalties that had accumulated in the estate, plus future royalties. Ms. Anderson got nothing, and her appeal was unsuccessful.
The ruling, which entitled Claud Johnson to split proceeds from his father's music with Mr. LaVere, threw ownership of the photos and their copyrights into limbo. Did the photos belong to Claud or to Ms. Anderson and Mr. Harris? And what about the copyrights, which Mr. LaVere said he had secured following his 1974 agreement with Ms. Thompson? Under his deal with CBS, those copyrights were yielding royalties of their own, although it remains unclear what portion of several million dollars of royalties is attributable to the photos.
"We can only guess what has been earned," said Mr. Nevas, the lawyer for Ms. Anderson. "It is certainly in the six figures and probably in the seven," a range Mr. LaVere says he wouldn't dispute. Ms. Anderson and Mr. Harris, their lawyer claims, haven't seen a penny.
Ms. Anderson and Mr. Harris filed suit in 2000 against Mr. LaVere, Claud Johnson and Sony Corp.'s music division, which had purchased CBS Records. The photographs were family mementos, they argued, not the property of the estate. Moreover, they claimed, in 1980 Ms. Anderson's half-sister Carrie had rescinded the agreement under which Mr. LaVere had obtained the rights. Mr. LaVere refused to relinquish the rights, the lawsuit said. After several years of legal maneuvering between the parties, the Mississippi Supreme Court last December ordered the dispute to trial.
The case promises to bring questions about the images to a boil. Mr. LaVere says the miniature photo he found in the trunk is a photo-booth portrait. Ms. Anderson says her sister took it herself with a Kodak, which, if true, could make it easier for her to argue that it doesn't belong to the Johnson estate.
Nonsense, responds Mr. LaVere, who is unwilling to surrender his copyrights. Photo booths render pictures as mirror images, he says, so that the original pictured the right-handed Mr. Johnson as a left-handed guitarist.
For the moment, that is impossible to verify. Mr. Nevas, Ms. Anderson's lawyer, said he is "not at liberty to say" where the photographs are. When pressed, he says only: "They're in the possession of my clients."
Claud Johnson, for his part, has yet to stake out a position on the matter, but his lawyer, James Kitchens, promises to do so soon. "I'm not ready to tell you," he says.
传奇蓝调歌手照片引发旷日持久官司
大约是1935年前后，密西西比的蓝调歌手罗伯特?约翰逊(Robert Johnson)在孟菲斯的Hooks Brothers照相馆照了一张像。他坐在凳子上，手里拿著自己的Gibson L-1吉他，头上斜戴著一顶软呢帽，双眼盯著镜头。
差不多40年后，他的同父异母姐姐从一只杉木箱子里翻出了这张照片，拿给了一路寻找到她这里的一位研究蓝调音乐史的人看。她没有想到的是，她在1973年的一个午后打开的这只箱子从此变成了一只潘多拉的盒子。
这张现在众所周知的照片和当初箱子里的另一张照片一起成了一场复杂法律官司的焦点。官司的一方是那位研究蓝调音乐史的专家，另一方则是传奇歌手约翰逊的亲属。约翰逊1938年在穷困潦倒中离开了人世，没有留下任何遗嘱。官司双方争论的焦点便是，谁是这两张具有标志性意义照片的合法所有人？此位传奇歌手这两张仅存的照片有可能带来滚滚财源，它们的版权应该归谁所有？
约翰逊的遗产官司已经打了15年，这场照片官司成了遗产官司的最后一章。早些时候，一场众所瞩目的庭审从众多遗产继承权诉请人中认定了唯一继承人，一位曾经穷困潦倒的卡车司机就此加入到分享约翰逊音乐版权的行列当中。而现在围绕照片而起的纠纷也丝毫不会轻松，把那位研究蓝调音乐历史的专家和他的所作所为被推到了聚光灯下。
“这是一条漫漫长路，纷繁杂乱毫不亚于约翰逊的一生。”代表约翰逊家族两位成员的康涅狄格律师史蒂芬?内瓦斯(Stephen Nevas)说。
想要了解约翰逊对热爱美国音乐的人们造成了怎样的影响，就到密西西比三角洲来看看吧。密西西比西北部这片富饶的土壤孕育了一系列的蓝调流派，最终为当代摇滚乐奠定了基石。
关于约翰逊葬礼的记述很简单，他的墓碑也没有任何标记。这让狂热的乐迷们无所适从，最终为他立了三处墓碑，分别在格林伍德郊外的三处乡间墓地。有人说约翰逊是被一位嫉妒心强的丈夫毒死的，因为他发现约翰逊爱上了他的妻子。约翰逊死时年仅27岁。最近的一个冬日午后，他的三处墓地都随处可见吉他碎片，香烟和硬币。
他死后数十年都很少为人所知，除了那29首令人难忘的乡村蓝调歌曲之外，这是他在1936-1937年之间在得克萨斯州灌录的，包括著名的《Love in Vain》和《Hell Hound on My Trail》。1961年，CBS Records旗下Columbia发行了一批约翰逊歌曲的唱片，显然认为他身后没有留下任何肖像，也没有继承人。这张唱片的封面用了一张素描作品。
现年61岁的蓝调音乐历史学家史蒂芬?拉维列(Stephen LaVere)首先得知约翰逊还有一个同母异父的姊妹卡丽?汤普森(Carrie Thompson)。那还是1973年，他正在密西西比搜寻蓝调音乐的历史沿革。他打电话给当时住在马里兰州的汤普森女士打电话，问她那里有没有约翰逊的照片。
“你问到这个可巧了，”拉维列回忆著她当时的回答，“我丢了好长时间了，不过刚在《圣经》里找到。”拉维列激动万分，几乎是一路跳著舞到了马里兰。
汤普森把Hooks Brothers照相馆拍的那张照片递给拉维列时，他脑海中立刻想到“唱片封面”。得到汤普森的允许后，拉维列把照片拿给一位专业摄影师，后者为他翻拍了一张负片。
后来拉维列又找到汤普森，两人一起再次翻箱倒柜，又发现一张小一些的照片，照片上的人神情专注，叼著香烟，抱著吉他。“哦，这就是小罗伯特，”汤普森告诉他。拉维列把这张照片也复制了一份。
但他接下来的所作所为在蓝调音乐界引起了极大争议，他说服已经上了年纪的汤普森签署一份文件，把处置约翰逊的照片和其他一些纪念品的权利交给他。拉维列认为汤普森就是约翰逊唯一在世的继承人了，就继续说服她把约翰逊的歌曲和唱片的版权转让给自己，在那之前，这些歌曲和唱片一直被当作公共财物。作为交换，拉维列许诺把这些材料所产生的版权费分一半给汤普森。他告诉汤普森，自己会将约翰逊的音乐作商业性推广。
但后来的事情证实，拉维列并非觊觎约翰逊照片的第一位局外人。就在拉维列同CBS Records签署协议，新发行一套约翰逊的选辑后，文化历史学家麦克?麦克考密(Mack McCormick)站了出来，向CBS坚称自己更早的时候就拜访过汤普森女士，得到了约翰逊所有传记信息的权利。麦克考密走的时候带上了一张约翰逊和外甥的合影。麦克考密至今仍拒绝透露这张照片在哪里。（虽然没有照片副本，拉维列依然声称这张照片也归他所有。）
这些法律纠纷让CBS不胜烦恼，于是把出版唱片之事束之高阁。直到15年后，CBS在1990年出版了一套约翰逊作品的简装版，这次没有同麦克考密合作，封面采用了Hooks Brothers照相馆的照片。唱片销量超过100万张。
版税随之而来，麻烦也相继而至。那时，汤普森女士已经去世了，把所有财产留给了孙子罗伯特?哈里斯(Robert Harris)和自己的同父异母妹妹安妮?安德森(Annye Anderson)。哈里斯是芝加哥一位园艺家，现在四十多岁，安德森是一位退休教师，已经78岁了。安德森带头向法院起诉，要求继承约翰逊的遗产。
然后就是73岁的卡车司机克劳德?约翰逊(Claud Johnson)，他出示了一张出生证，父亲一栏写著：“R.L. 约翰逊，劳工”。他继承遗产的要求得到了一位老妇人证词的支持，这位宣誓后的妇人宣称，在克劳德出生前9个月，她目睹了克劳德的母亲和一位巡回歌手在野外树林中发生了性关系。1998年，法庭裁定克莱德?约翰逊是唯一继承人，有权得到遗产至今积累所得的130万美元版税，以及此后的版税。安德森女士一无所获，上诉也以失败告终。
依据上述判决结果，克劳德?约翰逊(Claud Johnson)有权与拉维列平分罗伯特?约翰逊音乐创作的收入，争议焦点此后转向了上述照片和照片版权的归属问题。这些照片是属于克劳德呢？还是安德森女士？抑或哈里斯？版权呢？是不是像拉维列说的那样，根据1974年与汤普森女士签署的协议，版权归拉维列所有？根据他和CBS的协议，这些版权独立获得版税，但目前还不清楚数百万美元唱片版税中有多少是属于照片的。
安德森女士的律师内瓦斯说，“我们只能猜测（这些东西）赚了多少，肯定不低于六位数，也许是七位数。”拉维列对这个猜测范围没有表示异议。内瓦斯说，安德森和哈里斯没有得到一分钱。
2000年，安德森和哈里斯将拉维列、克劳德和收购了CBS Records的索尼公司(Sony Corp., 又名：新力公司)告上了法庭。他们说，照片是家族纪念品，不属于罗伯特?约翰逊的遗产。此外，他们还说安德森的同父异母姐姐卡丽在1980年就废除了将版权转让给拉维列的协议。法庭文件显示，拉维列拒绝放弃这份权利。在当事各方多年无法达成和解的情况下，密西西比最高法院去年12月裁定，开庭审理此案。
这桩案子无疑会让围绕著约翰逊形象的诸多问题变成焦点。拉维列说他在箱子里发现的小照片是在立等可取的照相亭里拍的，但安德森说这是她姐姐汤普森用柯达(Kodak)相机拍的。如果安德森是对的，那么她就更容易论证照片不属于约翰逊的遗产了。
拉维列却说，安德森一派胡言。他跟本不想放弃这些照片的版权。他说，在立等可取的照相亭里拍出的都是镜像照片，所以最初那张照片把本来右手弹奏吉他的约翰逊拍成了左手演奏的人。
安德森的律师内瓦斯说，这一点目前无法判断。他说自己“无权透露”照片现在在哪里，施加了一些压力后，他也只是说“它们在我的客户那里。”
克劳德?约翰逊尚未就此事表态，但他的律师詹姆斯?基钦斯(James Kitchens)说很快就会采取行动，但“我现在不会告诉你们，”他说。
