Vanity Fair: Portrait of a Phantom

Vanity Fair.com's culture and entertainment section has a very interesting article on Robert Johnson titled Portrait of a Phantom Searching for Robert Johnson. It conicals the control for the rights of Johnson's music and even his images.

The article does a good job of reporting on the few know images of Johnson and how they were found and where they come from. Specifically the article tells the story of Zeke Schein and a photo that he bought on eBay.

The article also gives details from those who were inspired by Robert Johnson's music over the years. For example, Eric Clapton is quoted;

“At first the music almost repelled me, it was so intense and this man made no attempt to sugarcoat what he was trying to say, or play,” Clapton writes in his recently published memoir, Clapton: The Autobiography.

Thanks to Chal of Chal's Juke Joint for turning me on to this article.