(part 82) MY LAST DITCH EFFORT

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Trying to make "Working" work was my last ditch effort as a recording artist in 1968. Parts of the album are in a way desperate. When I listen to it, I remember how hard I was trying to make things work. Some of my vocals are exactly what I wanted, and some are attempts at it.

As the alcohol and drugs continued to play a bigger and badder roll in my life during the recording of this album, I would reach higher and fall lower than I had at any time previously. On some days I was completely OK, on others, I was prone to violent outbursts, depending on what I had in my system, and how much of it I'd had.

By 1968, the previous years of using now began taking a serious toll on my ability to guage how loaded I was, or how loaded I was getting. Trying to record in that self imposed prison was at best hit and miss. I was not only addicted to the drugs and alcohol, but to fame as well.

I lived at times, in a world constructed of unreasonable demands and bitter resentment, regarding my past dreams and failures, and my then current fears about the future. My need for attention, and demands for it, continued wreaking havoc with my personality throughout the making of "Working."

Unfortunately, I again put all my eggs in one basket. I hoped against hope that this time would be the time, and that this record would be the record, but neither of those things were true. I always seemed to do the same thing. Over and over, just as I'd done before, expecting a better result than the ones in the past. It seemed to be the only way I could do things.

I lived in a rut. I never learned to deal with things. I just learned how to make records and write songs, and then do it again and again. My skills at being a person were limited to that in many ways, being a recording artist and a song writer, in search of myself, fame, and fortune.

To be honest, I didn't understand enough about the world I lived in. There it was, and here I was, and my job was to get the world to accept me, rather than me finding a constructive way to fit into the world. In essence I was always at war with everything and everybody around me, unless it went my way.

The drugs and alcohol just tended to magnify it all, and that's why "Working" is so important to me, then and now. It was my last cohesive attempt at getting the world to accept Bobby Jameson, which it never did.

I will attempt to make clear the ins and outs of constructing "Working," and the time I spent with some extremely generous and talented musicians, who helped me create the last album I released.

The record is shot through with my then growing interest in suicide as an answer to my life, should I have to face yet another failure. This is the source of the desperation, power, and tiredness in these vocals.

"Ain't That Lovin You Baby"