This is what I like to refer to as my "Mojo Bag" or my "Bag of Mojo" haha!
This is a page I put up just to share pictures & info about some of the special treasures that I keep in my bag.
Some of these items were given to me and others I bought.
If you have something that you think I may want to add to my little "Bag of Mojo" here please feel free to contact me at romeo@romeorose.com
I'm trying to get at least one special item to reprsent and symbolize each of my Blues idols. I like for each item to be something as unique and interesting as possible.
Some things I am always looking for is guitar picks and jewelry like rings & necklaces used or worn by the Bluesmen I idolize.I'm also intrested in obtaining old Blues contracts. And I have also been looking for a peice of wood that came from Muddy Waters cabin, I know several years ago the Delta Blues Museum used to sell peices of wood from his cabin as souvenirs, if anyone knows where I can get one of those please let me know!
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This first item, represents John Lee Hooker, one of my biggest influences!
It's a memorial service program that was only handed out at his funeral to the people that attended. One of John Lee Hookers close friends gave this to me as a gift so that I will always have something to remember John Lee Hooker by.
The next item was given to me by Cutter Brandenberg or Cee as many people know him, who was Stevie Ray Vaughans road manager and friend for many years.
It is a small, aroud 2 inches long or so, peice from the power cord that Stevie Ray Vaughan used to record the Texas Flood record with. Stevie was very superstitious about this particular cord.
Here is a picture of the cord displayed in Cutters old club, as well as the letter Cutter wrote to me explaining the significance of this peice of SRV's cord.
This is the guitar pick that Buddy Guy gave to me at a show I seen him at. Below is pictures of the pick as well as my receipt for the purchase of the tickets, which also shows who else performed that night.
The next item is a guitar pick that was owned and used by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Craig Hopkins (the president of the SRV fan club and author of several books on collecting SRV memorbillia) had it on consignment from Janna Lapidus (Stevie Ray Vaughans fiance before he was killed in 1990) The pick does show some wear from Stevie's use. She found the pick in the pocket of a pair of jeans Stevie had when she was going through his things a few years after he'd been killed. I paid Craig Hopkins $750.00 for it, and there's a picture of the statement of authenticity below with both Craig's and Janna's signatures.
This is a coin that was used on the Stovall plantation in Mississippi that Muddy Waters grew up on and worked on for 17 years, it was only good at the general store there and only the workers were given these so there's a good chance it passed through his hands at least once during those 17 years.
Howard Stovall actually tried to talk me into selling him the coin, to complete his familys collection, but I just couldn't part with something this special to me.
See I bought it on Ebay, and Howard was bidding against me for it, it was his neighbor (who was the manager of King and Anderson Plantation, which is next door to the Stovalls) that had it up for sale, so there is no doubt that this coin is 100% authentic.
There's a DVD documentary about Muddy Waters called Can't Be Satisfied and if you look closely you'll see some coins like this in it. That's where and how I got the idea to look for something like this to put in my bag, I checked Ebay and lucky enough there was one on there, I paid $262.00 for it. I've only seen one other coin from the Stovall plantation since then, so these are very rare. Here's a excerpt from a email Howard Stovall sent me just confirming really how rare these are:
" I am sure that he coins in the documentary were ours - my family has only a few examples of what was commonly referred to as brozeneEmoney Escrip currency issued by plantations that could only be redeemed at the company store."
This next item is a Philco Hip-Pocket Record of Otis Redding who is the best Male singer ever. He may not be "exactly" Blues, but to capture the essence of his voice & singing and put that into guitar playing is a goal I always strive for. These records are small enough to put into your hip pocket and they are pretty rare. Made by Philco Ford in 1967-1969. These unique 4" 45 RPM records were made to promote the advantages of their small size and portability. They were playable on a special small record player made just for these.
This next item is a Janis Joplin Tarot card made by Artist Chris Paradis.
I emailed him and asked him how and why he chose the Tower card to represent Janis and below is what he emailed me:
"Janis as the tower - some thoughts the tower is the card of Liberation In my new deck of circus poster tarot cards - The tower is called - the Escape Artist - the culture that Janis embodied of peace in the time of war etc - was very much about liberation - about starting over nothing left to lose... the irony of her addictions - the things that led to her death -boud her in a way So i made her body into the tower - I see her as a Godess that became the tower thru her art/music - She emBodies the archetype just as John Lennon embodies the death card for his aspirations of change and being politically vocal... just some thoughts - sorry not very articulate today"
The next two items are two original Howlin' Wolf business cards that I bought from Sandy Guy Schoenfeld who was a photographer for Howlin Wolf. HIs site is here http://www.howlingwolfphotos.com/
This next item is a actual used postcard from LA in the city where Leadbelly used to go to the street he sang about, Fannin Street, it has a picture of Fannin Street on the front, and it's postmarked 1908, the same time he lived there.
These next items are some ticket stubs from some concerts I've been to.
This is a ticket stub of when me and my girlfriend flew from West Virginia all the way to L.A. California just to see this Etta James concert. It was my Valentines Day gift for her. We we're only in L.A. that time for less than 24 hours, we went there for the sole purpose of seeing Etta James, we also had dinner in the steak & martini restaurant Windows, which was located at the top of the Trans-America building in downtown L.A. (also Guns N Roses filmed their music video Don't Cry" on that rooftop) So our plane left around 6 am in the next morning so we just slept on one of the chairs at the LAX airport, haha!
These next items are some various music cards. My favorite is the one of Stevie Ray Vaughan, it has a picture of him playing at Alpine Valley the night he was killed.
This item below is the special bag that I keep all of these items in. This bag is special because it came from a refinery that was a part of the prison that Leadbelly served time in, he sings about it in one of his songs "Sugarland Bound"
This is a special Robert Johnson greeting card, they are very rare and I have 3 or 4 of them.
This is just some motel staionary I saved from the first time I stayed in Austin.
This is one of my business cards.
This is a business card someone gave me from Ray Hennig
These are just scanned images of pictures someone sent me of this magazine addressed to SRV and also one of his contracts, I do not own these particular items, only pictures of them that were given to me.
