I'm sorry to say that another of the interviewees I was able to talk to and record during the research for the book has died. Annie Jackson, who was born in 1925, died last week in the hospital in Thomson, Georgia, and her funeral took place yesterday at Mount Aldred Church, Happy Valley. She was a valuable witness to the daily life of the Happy Valley community over a long period, including Willie's end days - and she gave especially strong and interesting information about racial discrimination and about the bootlegging of whisky in the area. She leaves a son, Teddy Jackson, who also contributed to the interview with Annie.
Her death follows that of Ernest Bernard McTell Seabrooks, whom I interviewed in the Phinizy Road jail in Augusta, and who was the adopted son of Willie's first wife, Kate. He died suddenly (cause still unknown to me) in June, aged 43.
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Interesting article about Robert Johnson here, along with possible new photo of him:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/11/johnson200811
The looting of the Johnson legacy/estate is truly shocking!
Thank you for this. I'd been alerted to it by an e-mail discussion group. I read it yesterday and though it was interesting, especially about the legal squabbles - which I had naively thought were over, with Claud Johnson the rightful victor - I thought the photo at best hard to judge and at worst pretty unconvincing. But Johnson has an entry in my book THE BOB DYLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, so I am posting the URL on that blog today.
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