Melbourne Age July 25 2006





ROCKMAN



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-08-01 00:59 by Rockman.

It's definitely a piece for Keith. He's studied his technique. There's a video in youtube where KR demonstrates Johnson's way of playing, explaining really well, too! A great find for the guitarists among us. Now, who's gonna call Keith and say his "new" guitar's up for sale...?

since he sold his soul to the devil, i wonder if this guitar even plays the blooze anymore....

StonesTod Wrote:
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> since he sold his soul to the devil, i wonder if
> this guitar even plays the blooze anymore....


Tod! The only thing this guitar plays is the BLOOOOZE. That's the beauty of it.

I dare say Keith would be on the trail....





ROCKMAN

you have to sell your soul,to play that blues.Nice ROCKMAN. of course keith goona get it

shidoobee Wrote:
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> StonesTod Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > since he sold his soul to the devil, i wonder
> if
> > this guitar even plays the blooze anymore....
>
>
> Tod! The only thing this guitar plays is the
> BLOOOOZE. That's the beauty of it.

How can you be certain that Satan didn't remove all its bloozability?

shidoobee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's definitely a piece for Keith. He's studied
> his technique. There's a video in youtube where KR
> demonstrates Johnson's way of playing, explaining
> really well, too! A great find for the guitarists
> among us. Now, who's gonna call Keith and say his
> "new" guitar's up for sale...?

Link??

Has anybody bothered to ask Robert how he feels about the whole thing?...Thought so........

pass it on i think

Keith Richards 1986



ROCKMAN

From liner notes of Robert Johnson Columbia box-set



ROCKMAN

Provenance please....I may buy it...ain't thrown down on some crazy assed shit latley..

JR

There is no way anyone has provenance on this one. This has to be complete BS, or a major con job.

If this is real, I'll eat my vinyl copy of Dirty Work piece by piece. I'm not very worried about having to do so, however.

Here's the actual website for the guitar...

[www.rjguitar.com]

Ain't any substantive provenance that I can see, but somebody's clearly wishing and hoping they have the real thing. Only a sucker would shell out big bucks for this with such flimsy documentation.

Major scam alert.

Now wouldn't Keith have the right people to sort that out?

...I need the expertise

Hi Rockman baby! Have you missed me?

Now, about this guitar...
Where do you find all this really cool information and stuff?

I guess that's why you are Rockman.

Hey! I saw the full sized picture of the head shot that goes on all of your posts. Keith is looking pretty good in all that leopard print in that picture and it made me think of you.

Do you have your leopard print knickers on right now or did your mum take them away from you?

Ahhhhhhhhh babe where ya been....missed ya Yeah!!!
There is some Puerto Rican girls that are just dyin'
to meet me but I said no...I gotta stay pure...but it's hard...real hard!!!

Ya found my head shot....mmmm glad it moved ya babe..

Knickers what are they?....actually I'm half naked right
now.....wild dingo ripped all the clothes off the left
hand side of me...left teeth marks through my Rock Angel
arm tat and scarred me deep across the skin above my ole heart....

But dont worry babeeee I'm still ah crawlin' King Snake and I rule my den....



ROCKMAN

Where was your mum to fight off the dingo?

Where have I been? Hmmmmmmm....Well, I got held hostage at Rock'N Roll Fantasy Camp by a bunch of young buck male musicians who all want to be rockstars, but we all know those boys think they know what to do with a woman, but it's always first out of the gate in a big hurry to finish the race without enjoying the run, so to speak.

It was hard to stay true to you too, but I kept thinking of you in those little leopard skin knickers, which would be the same as panties for women, or manties for men, and your seduction by all that good music you know about and have in your possession. It really helped me stay focused and avoid temptation of the poison apple.

I really know that scar is on your heart 'cause you thought I wasn't coming back and I'm really sorry about the dingo, but hopefully, it's your good half that's exposed!

Mum was wrestlin' a killer kangaroo....

Hey what's this good Half stuff???...I'm all good...
Full bore donk slung on a low slung chassic...rockin' machine..



ROCKMAN

ANY Gibson L-1 from the same area that has been heavilly played will look like the one Johnson is holding. All the wear and tear on these kind of acoustic guitars will be roughly in the same place, all fading of lacquer will be in the same place. As long as you do't have a written statement by any of Johnsons' family that "they owned the guitar since his death, and here's a second picture" this is all pure speculation.

In fact, experts mostly agree that Johnson most likely only used the L-1 for the picture. The guitar on the recordings does not sound like a L-1 at all, but has all the sound qualities of the guitar all blues men used, the Stella. A Gibson L-1 would have been far too expensive for a 1930's bluesman. Most likely Johnson borrowed a fancy suit and fancy guitar especially for this press picture.

Mathijs

Mathijs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ANY Gibson L-1 from the same area that has been
> heavilly played will look like the one Johnson is
> holding. All the wear and tear on these kind of
> acoustic guitars will be roughly in the same
> place, all fading of lacquer will be in the same
> place. As long as you do't have a written
> statement by any of Johnsons' family that "they
> owned the guitar since his death, and here's a
> second picture" this is all pure speculation.


Totally agree. There's no way to know for sure. It would be more safe if it was Christie's or Sotheby's that put it up for auction. When it's a website it's way more unsafe.

JumpingKentFlash

Hell, nobody is even certain where Johnson was buried, let alone if this was his guitar.

All...My Love is in Vain!!!!

Melbourne Age 30 July 2006



ROCKMAN

could they do a dna test on the guitar?

Peter Guralnick wrote a book in 1989 called "Searching for Robert Johnson". He is a highly respected blues expert. On p. 63-64, he tells a story about Robert Jr. Lockwood, the son in law of Robert Johnson and blues guitarist in his own right...Guralnick writes, "Robert Jr. Lockwood had one last flash of Johnson after his death. He was playing in Handy Park in Memphis one day probably a couple of years after Johnson had died, and a man walked up to him "and stood there and just looked at me play and just stood there, and I knew he must have been doing that, you know, from some sort of concern. So finally I stopped playing and he said "You're Robert Jr., aren't you? I said "Yes". He said, I live right around the corner. Would you go home with me? I got something I want to show you." Well, I told him "Yeah", and I walked around there, and he reached in the closet and got out a guitar. It was a Kalamazoo, big round hole, made by Gibson. He said, "You know this guitar? I said "Yeah. It look like Robert's. He said "It is". And he told me he was one of Robert's brothers. I took the guitar and set down and played it, and handed it back to him. I ain't seen him since."

cool story, Roundnround, but i find the site selling the guitar just ... weird.
they seem to be saying that it's the photo on the cover of the box set that convinced whoever owns it that this is Robert Johnson's guitar -
which implies pretty strongly that they have no other evidence of its history.
besides, if they do have evidence, wouldn't they state that they do, for the price they're asking? [scratchin head]


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

They should at least have a letter of provenance from Johnson's brother, or from Robert Jr. Lockwood... Or better yet, another picture of RJ playing the guitar.. Do you know if the Kalamazoo guitar is different from the L-1 they are selling... Most accounts say he played a Stella guitar... Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top is said to have a guitar made from the wood from Johnson's old house... There are some cool pix of it somewhere...