Sweet home chicago8/19/2023 ![]() ![]() Yet LaVere, who says he doesn't pursue every case through the courts because "it's not cost-effective," says he has no personal doubts about who penned the song. But while LaVere aggressively pursues royalties for all of Johnson's songs, and has gone to court over the use of Johnson's music, he has never actually filed suit over "Sweet Home Chicago." The entrepreneur's critics speculate the songwriting ambiguity over the versions by Johnson, Sykes, Blackwell and Arnold may contribute to a lack of confidence on LaVere's part about prevailing in litigation. Naturally, LaVere holds to the position that the song belongs to Johnson - which is to say, it belongs to LaVere's company, Delta Haze Corp. Gussow, a visiting Vassar College professor of English, says LaVere should receive no royalties for this version. In fact, the Blues Brothers' 1980 recording follows Sykes' version, substituting "back to the same old place" for the more confusing "back to the land of California." Adam Gussow, harpist for the blues duo Satan & Adam, argues that it's clear that the original version is the one that makes no reference to California, and must have been written by Sykes. Some blues historians note that those "California" lines never appear in yet another version, by the late Chicago pianist Roosevelt Sykes. But his "Sweet Home Chicago" is a vague sort of travelogue, in which he even makes repeated references to "the land of California." He occasionally traveled, loosely following the African-American exodus from Mississippi to cities such as St. There is no evidence, it should be noted, that Johnson ever visited Chicago during his 27 years of life. Chicago's Convention and Tourism Bureau recently bought it for a promotional video Pizza Hut has licensed it for a radio ad campaign rock bands Fleetwood Mac and Foghat and bluesman Freddie King, among at least 500 others, have recorded versions of the song. The most popular title in Johnson's catalog, according to LaVere's song-licensing people, is probably "Cross Road Blues," which Cream turned into the rock hit "Crossroads" in the '60s. LaVere entered the picture in 1973, persuading the singer's elderly half-sister Carrie Thompson to sign a contract ceding him 50 percent of the profits from Johnson's music.Īlthough Thompson has passed away, LaVere continues to earn his 50 percent (another Johnson relative earns the other half). Johnson died in 1938, after someone apparently slipped strychnine into his whiskey, leaving a murky legacy of heirs and relatives. What few people know is that whenever "Sweet Home Chicago" makes money - usually from movies, commercials and big-selling recorded versions - half goes to LaVere, a Glendale, Calif., businessman. ![]()
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