Blues Music Memorabilia Entertainment Memorabilia

Posters advertising blues records, the ones put out by record companies, are rare, and usually advertised several new releases rather than focusing on a single song. Posters for performances are slightly easier to find, with the first known one still in existence for a 1917 Ma Rainey show. Before to the late 1940s, they were line drawings, and the authentic blues posters are astonishingly expensive.

 

Other memorabilia is extremely rare. If someone claims to have Robert Johnson's guitar or the knife Blind Willie Johnson used as a slide, it is probably a hoax or a rip-off. Even if it did turn out to be the actual item, how would you verify it? In a live recording of a Nirvana concert for MTV, Kurt Cobain famously remarked that he had been offered Lead Belly’s guitar. He had asked Bob Geffen, the head of Geffen Records, to buy it for him because he couldn’t afford it. If Kurt Cobain couldn’t afford Lead Belly’s guitar, you probably can’t either, unless you’re a sheikh from Abu Dhabi.