Heir Of Bluesman Robert Johnson Faces Challenge To His Claim On Million-Dollar Royalties

Jet, July 31, 2000

Claud Johnson, the 68-year-old retired truck driver from Lincoln County, MS, who recently was named the sole heir of the late blues artist Robert Johnson and his estimated $1.3 million in music royalties, is facing new legal challenges to his claim.

Distant relatives are suing over possession of his late father's profitable memorabilia, including several famous photographs of the performer with his guitar.

Claud Johnson's rights to the proceeds have been contested by retired schoolteacher Annye C. Anderson of Amherst, MA, and Robert M. Harris, a musician from Annapolis, MD.

They are the half-sister and grandson of Robert Johnson's late half-sister Carrie Harris Thompson. The trial could be scheduled sometime next year, according to their attorney, James Craig of Jackson, MS.

The legendary bluesman died penniless at age 27 in 1938 in Greenwood, MS, and left no will.

A Mississippi Supreme Court ruling last month upheld a Leflore County Chancery Court decision in 1998 which established that Johnson was the biological son of the famed bluesman.

In videotaped testimony, Claud's mother, Virgie Jane Smith Cain (now deceased), revealed that Johnson, who she didn't marry, was the only man with whom she was intimate at the time. Her testimony was corroborated by a childhood friend and relative.

The blues legend's 41 songs include Me and the Devil Blues, Crossroads Blues and Rambling on My Mind.

In a related copyright case, the New York Daily News reported that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled against the Rolling Stones, who recorded two Johnson songs in 1969 and 1972, Love in Vain and Stop Breakin' Down. The court ruled the group cannot claim they thought Johnson's songs were in the public domain at the time--even though Johnson never copyrighted them. The current copyright holder, Steve LaVere, had sued the Stones for royalties.