In November of 2012, Vanity Fair published a fascinating and well written piece by Frank DiGiacomo. It is an essay surrounding the recent discovery of a third photograph of Robert Johnson. The article is entitled, “Portrait of a Phantom: Searching for Robert Johnson.” DiGiacomo updates the ongoing story that relates to the legacy of Robert Johnson.

The story of Robert Johnson falls into three general categories, his life, his music and his legacy. That legacy has taken a number of twists and turns through the years, as people continue to try to wrap their arms around a ghost. From his birth to the circumstances surrounding his death there isn’t a single aspect of Robert Johnson’s short life that seemingly isn’t shrouded in some sort of mystery. Every part of the Robert Johnson story has been the subject of historical analysis and conjecture as well as some pretty shoddy revisionism. Even his recordings have evoked widespread disagreement as to how his haunting sound came to be made.  The ongoing wrangling as it relates to his estate and the use of his likeness continue to be the subject of controversy.

This apparent discovery of a third photograph, where Johnson is holding a guitar standing next to Johnny Shines, is like everything else related to Robert Johnson, anything but a cut and dry situation. This latest chapter in the saga of this blues musician’s legacy is the jumping off point for the DiGiacomo treatise on a subject which should be of interest to anybody who takes the time to read this ezine. It is a piece I highly recommend.

Additionally last month one of our readers here at BLUES JUNCTION sent me a news story from the Chicago Sun Times. It told of the city of Chicago’s plans to demolish the home of Muddy Waters. By now many of you have read this, as the story has been kicking around Facebook and other social media for several weeks. A place with as much history as Muddy’s home hopefully will not suffer the same fate as much of blues history itself which has been demolished.   

What these two stories have in common is that they both appeared in the pages of America’s mainstream media. Blues music seems to be drifting farther and farther away from the mainstream press. I used to take it for granted that big city newspapers and national monthly magazines would, from time to time, if not on a regular basis, have room on their pages for blues music. This seems to be happening with a lesser degree of frequency which is why these two stories caught my attention and stimulated some reflection on my part.

At the back end of the last millennium the coverage of blues music in mainstream, general interest news papers and magazines gave this music a sense of belonging and connectivity to other forms of entertainment. It made it seem that blues music was just as important as classical music or opera, for instance. I truly believe that it is. A few years ago, blues music would stand on the page right alongside its close relatives in the music world, jazz, country and even rock music. The fact that the music was presented in small venues like bars and nightclubs had no bearing on the import the writers would give to this music. 

This coverage made blues music much more accessible to the general public.  The blues world was wide open and didn’t have the sometimes cliquish feel to it that it has today. These writers from across the country had to be versatile enough to take other assignments to get steady work for their city’s newspapers, but blues was still part of their vernacular and they could speak the language in a way that was informative, educational and entertaining to both aficionados and laymen. Even though blues music might have been a sideline to many of these great writers they, in many cases, had a better background in the music than journalists today who specialize in the blues field. I am reminded of one such writer and his story is, believe it or not, more elusive than that of Robert Johnson’s.

A quarter of a century ago I was having breakfast in my home in Houston, Texas. I was immersed in the sports page of the Houston Post while my wife at the time had her head in the entertainment section. It was the morning of October 15^th 1988. The Post was one of two daily papers that, along with the Houston Chronicle, served the city. In Houston both newspapers enjoyed a healthy and, at times, a heated rivalry for readership. Just before sunrise both rags would come crashing down on our driveway within a few minutes of one another. This Saturday morning was no different.

What was different about this day was that my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers were about to play in game one of the World Series that evening against the heavily favored Oakland Athletics. What was also different was that my wife asked me to go out on a date to hear a blues band. She handed me an article from the entertainment section of the paper. It was a feature about a band from Providence Rhode Island who was playing in Houston that night, Roomful of Blues. She had read the article and found the story of this band compelling enough to suggest we rustle up a baby sitter and drive some twenty miles from our suburban home to the corner of Washington Avenue and Heights Boulevard near downtown Houston to a nightclub called Rockefellers.

Now at this point, it might be helpful to point out that my wife enjoyed a variety of musical genres but I think it would be fair to say she did not count blues amongst her favorites. She recommended we go out based on two factors. One being her thoughtful nature as it relates to my interests and two, the great writing of the Post’s music critic Bob Claypool.

Bob Claypool was the champion of all things cool as it related to music. He covered country music as well as blues in the Bayou City. He was famous for knowing the difference between the real deal and the dilettante.  Even though I was way outside the loop in geographic terms as it relates to Houston, Bob Claypool made me feel like I was inside the loop musically speaking.

The cities other daily also had a terrific writer, Marty Racine. Both Bob and Marty introduced me to many famous blues musicians though their writing. As it turns out within a year I got to know both writers who personally introduced me to many of the musicians they championed in the pages of the Post and Chronicle.

Back to that wonderful October evening... shortly after Kirk Gibson deposited a Dennis Eckersly slider into the right field pavilion of Dodger Stadium, Roomful of Blues hit the downbeat to the instrumental tune, Gator’s Groove. The nine piece band concluded their first set with an absolutely stunning version of the Memphis classic, Last Night. By this time the sold out crowd, that was nearly as diverse as the city of Houston itself, was having a blast. The audience listened, danced and responded to everything from an eight minute version of the Johnny “Guitar” Watson slow blues classic, Three Hours Past Midnight to the swinging Joe Liggins number, Pink Champagne. It was a glorious evening indeed.  

Directly across the street from Rockefellers was Club Hey Hey. It was a blues only joint that on this Saturday night was also full of people enjoying the great Fort Worth based ensemble The Juke Jumpers. Within two square miles of Rockefellers and Club Hey Hey were at least a half dozen blues bands playing in clubs all packed with fans every Saturday night.

In the heart of this city, that had been hit hard by the Reagan revolution (recession), was a thriving blues scene. I think much of that success blues enjoyed in Houston and in other cities in those days lies at the feet of the mainstream media who weren’t afraid to publish articles about it. In an interview I did with Dallas based blues guitarist Anson Funderburgh a couple of years ago, he credits both Bob Claypool and Marty Racine for the success that his band the Rockets enjoyed in Houston back in the day. We regaled ourselves in stories, on and off the record, that involved Bob. For those who knew Bob, he didn’t suffer fools lightly and his personality wasn’t always for the faint of heart, or liver for that matter. He was however, a guy who knew what the hell he was talking about and knew how to say it.

To what extent your daily newspaper in your hometown covers blues music, if it gets a mention at all, obviously varies to some degree. It is fair to say blues music isn’t written about in the mainstream media to the extent it was twenty five years ago.

There are many reasons of course, but for starters there is less competition in the newspaper business. Corporate consolidation and media conglomerates are now a ubiquitous presence in the media world. There are fewer pages, fewer writers and fewer stories as it relates to any of the arts. Many big city newspapers have folded. There is no more Houston Post, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Dallas Times Herald or Rocky Mountain News. If a well informed electorate, and therefore a healthy democracy, can become a thing of the past, what chance does this ever increasingly misunderstood art form have?  

The wholesale destruction of the middle class that has been going on since the 1980’s is partly to blame.  Let’s face it, celebrating one of the things that make our country great, our musical heritage, is not something you have much time for when you are trying to find work, downsize or just survive. Newspapers naturally are also a victim of this unprecedented redistribution of wealth.

The world has changed in many ways and how information is disseminated might be at the forefront of these changes. The internet also has as much to do with the demise of these newspapers as any other single factor. Yet in an age when we have so much access to so much information, the general public is less informed about a great many things, good blues music is just one of them.

If the Saturday morning breakfast and a newspaper scenario were to take place today, it would be more likely that we would both be behind our lap tops. I could, as I do now, read bits and pieces of several big city newspapers on line. We would learn about gigs by the bands themselves on Facebook and other social media. This is all fine by me. I have embraced change.  

There is however something missing and that something is the value placed on the word. Bob Claypool’s words could make a star out of a virtual unknown, as he did when Dwight Yoakum rode into town in 1986. He could also be brutally honest, as he was ten years earlier when one of his heroes, Elvis Presley gave a performance in Houston that was marred by his own drug related excesses. He would also inform the general public about great, yet lesser known performers and recording artists that would make frequent appearances on Houston stages. He wrote eloquently about the likes of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Albert Collins, Grady Gaines and the Texas Upsetters as well as Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets featuring Sam Myers. Bob would then turn around and do the same thing for country music, and even rock if that’s what the assignment called for. His counterpart at the Chronicle, Marty Racine could do the same and was perhaps better versed in the world of jazz.

Bob Claypool could smell bull shit a mile away and let you know if he caught a whiff of anything foul long before the stench reached your nostrils or in this case eardrums. He had what I like to call ‘well informed, highly opinionated objectivity’.  His words were as they should be, honest, yet discriminating. He enlightened his readers who hadn’t heard a record yet, or who weren’t in the nightclub to hear that particular aural presentation. In a world full of talented musicians, Bob didn’t feel the need to pander to mediocrity. Bob Claypool was not being paid to be a de facto publicist for a hack. He was paid to tell people how he felt about a recording or a performance. He was paid to be honest. Therefore Bob’s appraisals had value. Let’s be honest. How often do any of us read a blues music review that has any value whatsoever?

Many of the great writers, who even if it was only occasionally could entertain us with their insight, perspective and prose as it related to blues music, have moved on. Some have taken their skills and applied their talent to other more profitable endeavors. The blues world has been left with a bunch of lemmings.

As for Bob Claypool in November of 1988 he left the Post and started writing for the Chronicle. He died less than a year later of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 43.

The Post published its last edition on February 27, 1995. The paper was absorbed by the Hearst owned Houston Chronicle. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled on a complicated case that resulted in the Houston Chronicle having to cease publishing any archival stories from their vast Houston Post archives.  

Now it is harder to find any information about Bob Claypool than it is about Robert Johnson. It is extremely difficult, if not practically impossible, to find much of his writing as all of his work for the Houston Post is on microfiche in a library in Houston. His specific writings are extremely difficult to reference even if you live in Houston and had the time and inclination to do so.

It strikes me as being a very sad irony that a man, who had a Masters degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and who was in the communications business in the nation’s fourth largest city, has a legacy that is much more elusive than Robert Johnson’s. It is a legacy that has received about as much care as Muddy Waters’ home. Maybe the city of Chicago will put a historical marker in front of place where Muddy used to live. This is my historical marker to Bob Claypool.

- David Mac

Postscript: The Dodgers went on to beat the Oakland Athletics in five games. They have not played in a World Series since. Rockefeller’s is now longer a live music venue and is now called Rockefeller Hall. Is it used for private functions. Roomful of Blues is still around as well. Only one player from the band that played that night is still in the ensemble. He is the alto sax player, Rich Latialle. Club Hey Hey is long gone. Condominiums stand where that nightclub once stood. The last I heard, Marty Racine was an editor for a daily newspaper in Riagosa, New Mexico. The Houston Chronicle still publishes a daily print edition. It has of course an on-line edition as well. It is called believe it or not, the Chron.