Court says son of bluesman to get royalties

JACKSON, Miss. -- The Mississippi Supreme Court has ended a legal battle over the photographs and songs of bluesman Robert Johnson, saying his son is the sole heir to the royalties.

Johnson, a traveling musician who recorded "Crossroad Blues," "Rambling on My Mind" and "Hellhound on My Trail," is considered the first modern bluesman, linking the country blues of the Mississippi Delta with the city blues of post-World War II. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

Johnson died in Leflore County in 1938 at age 27 without leaving a will. He died nearly penniless, but his music now enjoys international acclaim and has stacked up royalties.

Accounts of his death include that he was poisoned by a jealous husband or that he was stabbed. He's buried in Greenwood's Three-Forks Cemetery.

The musician's illegitimate son, 71-year-old retired gravel truck driver Claud Johnson, said he was unsure what the latest court ruling will mean to him.

"I really don't want to say too much about all of this because we've had such a hell of a time," said Johnson, contacted at his home by The Associated Press.

Johnson said he had benefited from royalties, but declined to give specific amounts.

At the time of Robert Johnson's death, Carrie Harris Thompson, his half-sister, said she was his sole living heir and took possession of his photographs. (Only two photographs are known to exist.)

In 1974, she signed a contract with a promoter to assign all of her purported rights to copyrights of Johnson's work, photographs and any other material concerning Johnson she might have. In return, the promoter was to pay her 50 percent of all royalties collected by him.

Annye C. Anderson and Robert M. Harris laid claim to the royalties through Thompson. Anderson is Thompson's half-sister, but is not related to Robert Johnson. Harris is Thompson's grandson.

Claud Johnson found out about his father's estate in the early 1990s and went to court. He was declared the sole heir in 2000, and in 2001, another judge ruled that royalties provided in the 1974 contract were to go to him.

Anderson and Harris claimed they were willed Thompson's royalties when she died in 1983.

The state Supreme Court said the contractual obligation to pay the Johnson estate royalties earned from licensing of the photographs created a relationship that carried over to Claud Johnson when he was declared to be Johnson's lawful heir.

"Anderson and Harris are barred ... from now relitigating the 1974 contract ... and the ownership of the photographs of Johnson and his music," Justice Chuck Easley wrote last week.

Lawyers for Anderson and Harris were still reviewing their options.

The two photographs of Robert Johnson known to exist are a studio portrait made by Hooks Brothers Studios in Memphis, Tenn., and another referred to as "the dime store portrait" or "the photo booth self-portrait" taken by Johnson himself.

Claud Johnson's birth certificate names R.L. Johnson as his father, and Johnson, who lives in Copiah County south of Jackson, had always been told he was Johnson's son.

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