Chris,

We are in an interim apartment right now while our place is being renovated by HUD for handicapped accessibility. BUT there is a box in storage now with a framed doodle by Don Wilson waiting to eventually be placed on the wall of our new pad. Don was trying to show me his early ideas for the Robert Johnson cover. (It was nothing like the eventual final cover.) We were having coffee in Googies coffee shop on State and Division in Chicago. Don was drawing with an ink pen on a very absorbent paper napkin---a quite surreal rendering--a line drawing of the supposed Johnson with his guitar. Somewhere in the mix is a bare light bulb that morphs into a busted whisky bottle---a naked gal with a dollar sign for a navel--and more. I grabbed that napkin after Don balled it up to throw away. The next day I took it to a frame shop near Rose Records on S. Wabash Ave. where I was working back then.--That was about '62 or '63. The ketchup stain from Don wiping his mouth with his drawing is still on it.

Don was a good guitar picker on his HUGE August Larsen guitar with the exagerated and ultra-narrow Hedy Lamar-type waist and the built-in metal rods device through the body for extra support of some kind. ----- In the summer of '64 I looked up Larsen and his guitar innovations at the Patent Office in Washington D.C. for Don. But I can't recall any of the details I found there...

Last I heard, Don had disappeared into Central America. I do sometimes wonder about him---whether he's still out there somewhere and what he's doing!?

Art Thieme