(part 100) FROM OHIO TO LONDON FROM LONDON TO OHIO

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You may wonder why I am posting this particular picture, which is from London in 1964. This is what I looked like then, but it is also what I looked like in Cleveland in 64 when I was there with a number 1 record. As you may recall, I said I had shaved my head before I left Los Angeles in 1970.

When I got to Ohio my hair was growing out. As I came out of my fog, I thought back to the past when I had been a successful artist, but in 1970 I was nobody but a has been. As my hair grew back I tried to recapture how I had been six years earlier.

I called it the Bobby Sherman look. I thought if I could appear as I was when I'd had a hit record, it would imply something other than what I feared, which was it was over. I had come to Cleveland with a lot of scar tissue from the previous six years, and the most recent of catastrophes, the three suicides.

I can't tell my story unless I convey to you what was happening below the surface to me during this time in Cleveland with the band Rastus. I didn't stay in Ohio, so there must have been a reason I left eventually, and that is what I'm working toward, as I continue to write.

I had no plan. I was the same Bobby Jameson who didn't know where to go, or where I belonged. I'd gone to Ohio by the same means as I had gone to London in 1964. I was trying to get away from Tony Alamo in L.A., so I went to London. I was trying to get away from the tragedy in L.A. in 1970, so I went to Ohio.

In both cases, I was offered an opportunity to leave a place by another person, without really knowing what I would encounter when I got to the new place. In the case of London, in 64, it was a letter from Andrew Loog Oldham. In the case of Cleveland, it was an invitation from John Rhys in 1970.

Because I wanted to get away from where I was, I went to other places. I had no real idea, or knowledge, at the time, about what would, or wouldn't transpire once I got to the new place. This was true in spades regarding Cleveland. I was there for nearly a year, and went from fellow musician/songwriter, to Jim Cantale's helper, carrying and setting up the band equipment, before and after their gigs.

There was nothing wrong with the job, except it wasn't my job. It became my job, as a result of time spent with Rastus in Ohio. The part of me who was a musician, singer, and songwriter was beginning to resent where and what I'd become, from where and what I was when I'd started some six years earlier.

I was no longer pursuing my own destiny, but that of others, who had similar dreams and ambitions to mine. Over time, this began to weigh on my heart and mind deep down inside me. I had rejected this reality for as long as I could, but it was only a matter of time before Bobby Jameson would come blasting out of his sleep and begin to assert himself on the world.

I lived in 3 different houses in Cleveland when I was there. I posted a picture of the first house. The second was Angelo Crimi's mother's house in Cleveland, and the third was the new band house back in Chardon. Getting punched in the mouth by the lead singer of the band happened at the third house, and is where the old/new Bobby Jameson began to fully reemerge.

It was in the kitchen of that house, where I'd been up all night on uppers, that I wrote the lyrics to "Junkie Jesus." It was my way of saying "Hey Man, look what I can do." I always wrote, when I didn't know how to accept my lot in life, whatever it may have been at the time.

("JUNKIE JESUS" lyrics)

JESUS SAID TO MARY MY CONNECTION GOT LOST
I BEEN HANGIN ROUND HERE WAITIN FOR A FIX ON THE CROSS
MARRY COULD YOU GET ME JUST A LINE OF COCAINE
ANYTHING TO GET ME OFF CAUSE HONEY I'M GOING INSANE
DADDY DIG THE NAILS IN MY HANDS AND MY FEET
JUDAS WAS A NARC AND TURNED ME IN TO THE HEAT

WELL MARY SAID TO JESUS YOU'RE A MAIN LININ FOOL
I'M TRYIN TO SCORE YOU SOMETHIN HONEY BUT PEOPLE AIN'T COOL
EVER SINCE YOU GOT BUSTED EVERYBODY'S TERRIFIED
THEY SAY THEY DON'T KNOW THE JUNKIE WHO GOT CRUCIFIED
DADDY DIG THE NAILS IN MY HANDS AND MY FEET
JUDAS WAS A NARC AND TURNED ME IN TO THE HEAT

WELL JESUS SAID TO MARRY MY CONNECTION IS HERE
IT'S BETTER LATE THAN NEVER WITH A FIX FOR ME DEAR
I'M TIRED OF THESE NAILS I HOPE THAT DEATH WILL COME SOON
BUT TILL IT DOES BE AN ANGEL MARY AND HEAT UP THE SPOON
DADDY DIG THE NAILS IN MY HANDS AND MY FEET
JUDAS WAS A NARC AND TURNED ME INTO THE HEAT

WELL MARY SMILED AT JESUS WHILE SHE OPENED HIS VEIN
WITH A NEEDLE WHILE HE MURMURED FATHER AM I INSANE
IS THIS HEAVEN IS IT HELL OR AM I JUST LOST
FOREVER AS THE JUNKIE SON OF GOD ON A CROSS
DADDY DIG THE NAILS IN MY HANDS AND MY FEET
JUDAS WAS A NARC AND TURNED ME INTO THE HEAT
Bobby Jameson 1970

"Junkie Jesus" was one of those signature moments for me, when I created something I didn't think anyone but me could have created. It was my way of saying, "This is me Goddamn it. Can't you see what I can do?" As important a moment as this was for me, at the time it was also a wedge driven between me and everybody else in Ohio.

It was an angry, frustrated writing of power and independence, asserted by me, as a marker that I was turning away from Rastus and Ohio, and back to Bobby Jameson and L.A. The picture I posted here is my beginning in 1964. The lyrics to "Junkie Jesus" was where I was headed in 1970-71.

The fact that I cannot post a single picture of myself, because there are none, with anyone in Ohio, in 1970, is another telling point about this episode of my life. There may be a picture of me with Rastus, or with John, or Jim Cantale somewhere, but I don't have it, and no one else has come up with one yet.

I have pictures of the band, of John, and Jim, and even the house, but strangely absent is a single picture of me in Ohio for almost a year of my life. If you think about it, that says a whole lot about me in Ohio. I don't say this to make anyone feel bad, I just noticed it myself. There aren't any pictures of me being there, even though I was there......

Although there are no pictures of me in Ohio, there are songs that I wrote and recorded there, and in Wisconsin in 1970. "Junkie Jesus" was written in Ohio, but recorded in Los Angeles sometime later. "Mary Please Forgive Me," the first of three songs similar in subject to "Junkie Jesus," was recorded in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin in 1970, along with two other songs written in Ohio.



This recording is a live piece featuring myself and Hummingbird in 1970. John engineered it and played piano. I wrote it and John and I arranged and produced it. Until a short time ago I didn't even know this existed.

This is pre "Junkie Jesus" and one of my many lost masters until now. I am extremely grateful to John Rhys Eddins for making this available to me after all these years.

"Mary Please Forgive Me" was recorded live at the closing of Sonad Studios in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, in 1970, along with two other songs I will post.

Hummingbird consisted of myself vocals and guitar, John Rhys piano, vocals, and recording engineer, Gerald Smith on lead guitar, vocals, and slide guitar overdub. Percussion was a microphone inside John's guitar case.

(part 99) RASTUS IN OHIO

This is the cover of the second Rastus album which contains 2 songs that I helped write, Lucey Bluebird, B. Jameson, V.Walkus and G. Sopuch. The second is Big City Let Down Blues, J. Rhys and B. Jameson. They were arranged by Rastus, and engineered by John Rhys. This band, if you are not familiar with them is similar to Chicago and Blood Sweat And Tears.

The members of the band are Dave Miles keyboard and vocals, Marc Spirou trumpet/ valve trombone/ conga and vocals, Don Nagy bass, Mike "the frist" Geraci tenor and baritone sax, and background vocals, Vic Waukus tenor and alto sax, George Sopuch guitar, John Taylor trombone, Dave "Smokey" Smelko drums and background vocals. Manager Angelo Crimi, and the main roadie "Dude" James Cantale supported by Tony and Robin. Collectively all these people saved my life in 1970, and I have the deepest feelings for all of them.



Angelo Crimi Manager


Rastus, John Rhys, and James Cantale at Sonad Studios

In the beginning I was glad to be out of L.A. and to be anywhere but where I'd been. But being Bobby Jameson still left me with all the problems I'd become used to. I was me. There was no getting around it, and that had become my main problem in life, being me.

I had strong opinions, and was not smart enough to keep my mouth shut at times when it would have made sense to do so. Because I had been on GRT Records, as was Rastus, I had negative opinions about the label, and would express them around the guys in the band. Sometimes being right is not the best way to approach others whose dreams are still in tact.

I was not sensitive enough about the feelings of those around me, who still believed that they were on their way to fulfilling their dreams, which meant GRT Records would treat them right. I knew that was not to be the case. At one point I was mouthing off after one of their gigs, while getting off the band bus, and Marc Spirou, who was a very decent guy, got fed up with my never ending trashing of GRT and punched me in the mouth out of frustration.

He knocked me to the ground and I was stunned, and then angry that he had hit me. Looking back on it now, knowing how important his belief in GRT was at the time, I don't blame him a bit for nailing me, I had pushed it too far. This of course at the time, set me in motion like a mad man, and I grabbed a kitchen knife and went out to the barn, telling anyone who could hear me, that I would be waiting for Marc to meet me. He was smart enough to just let me chill out.


John Rhys Eddins


This is a song I wrote for Rastus in 1970 while I was in Ohio. This song is unfinished and never made the second Rastus album, I thought it might be interesting to post it so you could get an idea of what I was doing there, at least in part.

(part 98) SOMEWHERE IN OHIO 1970

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Rastus house in Chardon, Ohio

The fact that I was so screwed up at the time I saw John at GRT, in 1970, is the reason I ended up in Ohio with Rastus. I think if I had stayed in L.A. a little while longer back then, I would have died for sure. I'd lost my will to go on, and I was looking for a way out of my dilemma, when by sheer chance I ran into John in Ron Cramer's office at GRT Records.

After putting my mother into a mental health facility in Palo Alto and returning to L.A., I had no plans or strength to continue breathing. The death of my father, Diane Linkletter, and my friend Geno Danello, had pretty much done a job on my sanity. When you combined it with all the other bullshit I'd been going through since 1964, I was pretty much done

So when I talk about meeting John Rhys in some office in 1970, you can see why this particular event has such meaning in the overall story I have been attempting to relate here. John Rhys came out of nowhere and reached out to me with just a tiny bit of hope and I took it willingly.

When I got to Cleveland, or Chardon, Ohio to be more exact, this house, which is now remodeled, is where I ended up with the band Rastus. It's about 20 miles outside of Cleveland, and was a good place for a rowdy band to live in and practice, because they could make all the noise they wanted and nobody ever complained.

I arrived there with John, and was pretty much accepted from the beginning by everybody there. It helped that I had had a big hit in Cleveland, "I'm So Lonely" in 1964, because some of them still remembered it. I didn't have to explain myself as a result. I was looked upon as a fellow musician, as opposed to a total outsider.

I was pretty lost because of all the suicides that had taken place, and I was still trying to come out of the haze from a long pill addiction I was kicking. As soon as I arrived, somebody stuck a bottle of beer in my hand, so I knew I was in the right place.

Rastus was mostly made up of neighborhood guys from Cleveland, who related to the Italian mob from birth. Some were Italian, some were Polish, everyone was a bad ass in their own mind, and funny as hell. It was a constant competition of wits, and some of the funniest shit I ever heard. For my part, it was exactly what the doctor ordered for the condition I was in.

Things seemed to be in a state of constant movement, so it was either sink or swim, I opted to swim, and go along with what was happening. There wasn't a lot of time to feel sorry for myself, because these guys were so animated. It was summertime, and I got there in the middle of a barbecue, a volleyball free for all, and keg party.

You either jumped into the mix, or turned around and left within the first five minutes, I stayed for almost a year. James Cantale was the roadie for the band, and was also everything else as well. Whenever somebody wanted something, or something didn't work, it was, "Where's Jimmy?" or "Hey Jimmy!"

Anyway, I quickly figured out that Jimmy knew where everything was, and where everything went, and that included where all the dead bodies were buried, and which skeleton was in what closet.


Jim Cantale

(part 97) LIKE FATHER LIKE SON

I stood in the Mayfair Market parking lot staring at the telephone receiver in my hand, unable to move. My dream of finally reuniting with my father was gone forever in the twinkling of an eye. Again, the tyranny of reality crushed all hope of a better life for me with the news of my father's suicide only months after Diane's death.

I'd convinced Nancy to leave me for fear she would have followed me down into hell and died. I cared about her in a way that I have never cared for another human being. I was unwilling to stand by and watch her accompany me into the abyss. To this day I know I did the right thing even though it left me completely alone.

Another friend of mine from "The Strip," Geno Danello, cut his wrists and bled to death in an abandoned building on Sunset Blvd. during this same period. I was surrounded by death, and had decided it was just a matter of time for me as well. I started telling people "like father like son" in a grim determination to accept my own fate.

As far as I was concerned, it was inevitable that I would commit suicide, and end what had become my life of repeated failures and shortcomings. I stopped eating, and drank all the time, except when I passed out. I consumed about a half a gallon of cheap scotch a day, which cost about ten dollars.

I kept doing enough to stay in the apartment and buy the booze. It was one of the darkest periods of my life, but it didn't kill me. I learned just how hard it is to starve and drink yourself to death, during that period, and I chalked it up to another one of my failures.

At one point I went up to Palo Alto on a bus to see my mother, who was in a state of deep depression because of Bill Jameson's suicide. As well, a cousin of hers had a son who'd been murdered. The shape I was in didn't help matters. While I was there, I had to check her in to a mental health facility, because she was in such a bad way.

No matter where I turned, I could not find any help for myself, which just pushed me further into darkness. After doing some crystal meth with my younger brother Quentin, I went back to L. A. and the apartment on Sweetzer, and continued on with my black journey downward.

Some time in 1970 I went up to the 9000 building, where GRT Records had an office, and got Ron Cramer to see me. I went there in a desperate attempt to beg for money for my album "Working." I was pretty well gone, and had a hard time making myself go there to begin with.

During an all night bout of drinking, I'd shaved my head after reading a science fiction novel called "Stranger In A Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. I didn't remember doing it when I woke up the next day, so when I went to the bathroom I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I walked in.

"Jesus Christ!" I exclaimed, as I stood there looking at my completely bald head in the mirror. I could not believe how bad I looked as I stood there in near shock. I was so thin anyway, that with my hair gone, I looked like a pencil with eyes standing on it's tip.

Anyway, when I went to GRT Records, I was completely self conscious about the way I looked, and kept waiting for someone to say, "Man what did you do to yourself?" It was during that visit to GRT that I met John Rhys, who was producing an album with a group from Cleveland called Rastus, whose album would eventually be released on GRT.

For some reason John took a liking to me and invited me out to a studio in the valley where he was mixing part of the Rastus album. He said he was going back to Cleveland in a couple of weeks to finish work on the album and told me I was welcome to go back with him if I was interested.

I jumped at the chance to get out of L.A. and said, "Yeah, I'll go, I'll go anywhere at this point." That statement was true as true could be. The vibes in Hollywood sucked and I wanted away from the whole stinking mess, so I said "Yeah John, I'll go, I'd like to go."

(part 96) THE DAY MY WORLD ENDED

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This is my brother Bill. In 1969, following Diane Linkletter's suicide, he was living in Radnor, Pennsylvania with our father Bill, senior, and his wife Louise. I was in L.A. with Nancy on Sweetzer Ave. in West Hollywood. My entire life was sinking into some dark forbidden place and I was unable to stop the emotional and psychological demise.

I began drinking enormous amounts of alcohol, because I could not get hold of any drugs. The death of Diane had gotten into me on a level I had no prior experience with, and I was unable to deal with the aftermath rationally. The Manson Murders, Diane's suicide, and the loss of everything in my career, combined in a destructive atmosphere that enveloped me.

Nancy was there, but was powerless to help pull me out of the destructive state, and at some point I knew she was going to be dragged down with me. I began telling her she had to get away from me, because I was worthless, but she would not go. She'd decided somewhere in herself that where I went, good or bad, she would go with me, even if that meant dying.

I was doing just enough yard work at the building on Sweetzer, to maintain the right to the apartment Nancy and I lived in. We didn't eat much, and any extra money, of which there was little, was spent on alcohol and small amounts of food. My hope was, and I mean this in a most desperate way, that I be allowed to join my brother Bill and my father in Penn., and get the hell away from L. A.

That did not happen. To the contrary. I was given a message by the Stecks, from my mother, I think, and told that the message from my father was, "Don't send Bob." This single act felt like a hammer being bashed into my head. "Don't send Bob!" Once again I felt as though the forces of the world were stacked against me, and that I was no match for them.

What had once been a proud person, who was able to overcome any obstacle in his path, I was quickly becoming a person crushed by each new challenge that arose. 1969 turned into 1970, and the darkness of the times came right along with it.

Nancy and I wandered through the haze together with little help from anyone, other than Joe Steck and his wife Judy, who continued to allow me to work at the building where we lived. Fortunately, during those times, Joe saw me in a light that was not as negative as the view most others had of me. He was more philosophical about it, and was glad I was in the building.

He understood the pain and misery I was engulfed in from a different vantage point. To him it was a massive learning experience for me, rather than the ultimate end to Bobby Jameson. Conversely, both Joe and Judy, were concerned, as was I, for the welfare of Nancy, who was determined not to leave me.

I am a bit foggy on a fact here regarding Nancy, and that is, that at some point I got her to leave. It was one of the most unselfish things I have ever done. I was more concerned with her well being than my own. The fact that I am having trouble remembering, is whether I managed to get her to leave before, or after, the next God awful event that came crashing into my life.

On a sunny California day in 1970, I was told by Joe Steck, that my mother was trying to reach me. I walked south on Sweetzer, down to Santa Monica Blvd., where there was a Mayfair market and a telephone booth. I called my Mother and asked her what the trouble was and this is what I heard her say. A remark that I will never forget as long as I live. "I don't know how important this is to you,- Bob, but your father Bill committed suicide."

(part 95) ME, JIMMY GEORGE, ED DURSTON, AND DIANE

Corner of Sunset Blvd. and Horn Avenue in West Hollywood with Shoreham Towers in background

My friend Terri reminded me to tell the reader how old I was when this happened, and I agreed that was something I needed to do. It was 1969, and I'd started making records in 1963 with "Let's Surf/Please Little Girl Take This Lollipop." It's only about a six year period I have covered so far.

I was 19 years old when I recorded "I'm So Lonely/I Wanna Love You" for Tony Alamo, so I was just a kid. Five years later I felt a hundred years old, and was still only 24, and a full bore addict alcoholic.

I went up to the apartment on Horn Ave. to talk to Ed Durston after Timmy Rooney told me Ed was in the apartment when Diane jumped from her 6th floor kitchen window. I also wanted to see Jimmy George, who lived below the apartment where Nancy and I had lived with Ed.

From what I'd learned, Jimmy had actually been outside his apartment, and seen Diane falling to the pavement below. At first he'd thought someone was playing a practical joke and had thrown something out the window, but then realized it was a person.

He didn't know at first it was Diane, and he'd seen her hit the ground. He was in shock, but ran over to where the person hit the pavement, and that is when he realized it was Diane. He told me he could not do anything for her, and it made him feel like an asshole.

He said she was still alive when he reached her, and that she looked up at him but couldn't speak. He said she was bleeding a lot from her head, and he wanted to help her, but didn't know what to do. I knew Jimmy, and he was a happy go lucky guy, but on this day he was broken in a way that is hard to describe, just broken.

I tried to tell him there wasn't anything he could have done, but how do you tell somebody that, after what he'd seen. He was the only one on the planet who had seen it; how the hell did I know how he felt, or what it was doing to him? It was the last time I ever saw him, and to this day I still don't really know how that may have altered his life.

When I got to Ed, he was doing better than Jimmy, but he still looked like he'd been through the ringer. I asked him, "What the fuck happened Ed, what the fuck was going on?" He looked up at me from where he was sitting and said, " I don't know man, I really don't know. We were just there, the two of us," he said, "talking a long time about life. You know, like half the night, and everything was OK. Then she just started acting crazy."

"Whatta ya mean Ed, crazy how?" I asked. "Well, we were sitting on the couch, and she got up and went out on the balcony, and just started climbing up on the railing like she was gonna jump off. I ran out there and drug her off, and pulled her back into the living room, and pinned her down on the floor and said "What the fuck are you doing Diane? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Ed was ringing his hands as he told me the story. He was having a lot of trouble going over that night. "So did she tell you what was wrong?" I pleaded. "No," said Ed, "She told me she was just screwing around and everything was OK and to let her up because it was just a joke." Ed kept rubbing his hands together like he couldn't get them clean. He just kept rubbing them together.

He continued on, "I made her promise me that if I let her up she wasn't gonna do anything crazy, and she said, "I promise." "I let her up, and she said she was going to go in the kitchen and get a glass of water, and I said OK." Ed looked like he might start crying at any second, and I didn't blame him, because it was too awful to comprehend.

"She walked into the kitchen and I turned around to watch her and she just climbed up on the countertop by the window over the sink. I ran in the kitchen and tried to grab her, but she just went out the window before I could get there." He paused for a moment, as if to get his courage up and said, "I had a hold of her ankle man, I had her by the ankle, but I couldn't hold her, I just couldn't hold her man."

I stood there in front of Ed with this crystal clear picture of Diane's kitchen in my head, with her going out the window, and Ed trying to hold her by the ankle. I just broke down and cried like a little boy. I just couldn't believe that it had happened. I stood there in front of Ed crying, for I don't know how long. I just sobbed, because there wasn't anything I could do about it either.