(part 217) ME, JOHN YORK, AND NICKY HOPKINS

Bobby Jameson


John York


Nicky Hopkins

In 1981 I felt as if I were back in the 70's. The only difference was that I was clean and sober. It was a big difference. Without that I would have surely gone on a bone chilling rampage following another complete collapse of my world.

I didn't know back then whether I was going to be able to stay sober through it all. I was faced with the prospect of homelessness and no job. So finding somewhere to put myself was a top priority in my daily thinking.

There always seemed to be a temporary fix, but it was pure drudgery having to constantly look for the next bed or couch. I can't even begin to remember all the places I ended up.

I recall clearly staying with Georgiana Steele at her aunt's house in Glendale for around a month, and I will always be grateful to her for the time I was given there. But in all honesty I was too depressed to stay anywhere for very long.

I felt like an unfixable loser, and lived in my own dark world of isolation a lot of the time. Having to communicate with people for more than an hour or two was damn near impossible.

I'd become reacquainted with Georgiana through John York, who had been a member of the second Byrds band, as well as being one of the musicians who'd played on Outlaw, Ten Cent Call, and Barrooms during the Dennis Poulsen deal.

I'd become good friends with John and his wife Nadia, and stopped by their apartment a lot when I was out searching for a way to restart my ever crumbling life.

One afternoon I showed up there and John introduced me to Nicky Hopkins, who had played keyboards and piano on about a hundred number one records over the the years.

We sat around talking for awhile, and at some point I picked up John's old acoustic guitar from the couch and started messing with some chords I'd come up with.

Hopkins asked what I was playing and I said, "It's just a four chord blues riff I made up."

"Well I thought I'd heard every chord there was," he said, "but I haven't ever seen or heard what you're playing."

"It's just a B-7th configuration, finger wise, played in four different fret locations up and down the neck," I said,

"Never seen it done like that," said Hopkins,

"Yeah, well you don't change the fingering, just the fret position," I said, simulating what I was talking about on the neck of the guitar.

Nicky walked over and sat down at a keyboard in the middle of John's living room and asked, "Would you play that again Bobby?"

I went over to where Hopkins was seated and John picked up a bass guitar. I launched into playing the chords again and started singing the lyrics to the song I had written.

Nicky kept watching my fingers sliding up and down the neck of the guitar and shook his head.

"What's wrong?" I asked,

"Nothing," he said, "I've just never seen this progression before in my life, and the way it sounds. It's just totally different than anything I've ever heard."

I looked at John, who was smiling like a Cheshire Cat and shrugged my shoulders.

"Play it again," said Hopkins, "I have to learn this. I have to hear it again and again so I can get the right notes. Play it again Bobby, keep playing it until I get it. I can't believe I haven't ever heard this before."

For about three hours that afternoon my life made sense again. Me, John York, and Nicky Hopkins playing music together in John's living room, and loving every second of it.

Three creative souls surrounded by John's family with the sun pouring in the windows, picking, plunking, and thumping in an upstairs apartment in Hollywood, California.

(part 216) THE WALL OF TIME

click

AFTERNOON
GALAXY
OF GREY...
CONTEMPLATING
HESITATING
WITH EACH
WORD...
THOUGHT...

FEELINGS OF
REMORSE
CARVED INTO
THE ROCKS OF
MY SOUL...
BLOWN THERE
BY THE WIND
LEFT THERE
BY CIRCUMSTANCE...

NOW I CAN
BREATHE
THE RUSTY AIR...
DRINK IN
THE SOLIITUDE
OF LONELY
HOURS...

A WATCHFUL EYE
A WAVING
HAND
A SHADOW
ON THE WALL
OF TIME
STRANDED
ON A
ROADSIDE CALLED
INFINITY...

Bobby Jameson Nov 19, 2010

(part 215) THE BURNING LADDER

So in the end I was just standing there with a few dollars and nowhere to go. I was glad I had the money, but was pissed off that I had to sell everything to get it.

One more time I was to become a professional house guest of someone. One more time I was staring into the black regret of wondering why I didn't just go along to get along.

I could have done it. Hell probably no one would have known or cared except me, and that was the problem... being me, and knowing and caring.

On this go round the songs never even made it to a label. In the long run I never signed a contract with Dennis and George.

I said I would sign what we'd agreed to initially, but not the nearly one inch thick piece of shit Dennis had worked months on creating, with the help of so-called music lawyers. I told him he was a fool for listening to them, because all he'd done was create a stalemate in the end, in which we all lost out.

The one thing that had come from it was the music. The recordings in the end were further proof of where'd I'd been in this long voyage known as the music business.

From Tucson, Arizona in the 50's, Glendale, Ca, Hollywood, and London in the 60's, I had blazed, crashed, and sputtered my way through the 70's, and into the 80's. The fact that I was even alive was remarkable, not to mention the fact that I was clean and sober as well.

All in all there were things to herald as successful about the whole crusade, but it would take a long time to really understand that reality. I was packed full of experience that literally no one was interested in at that point. They wanted what I had, but they didn't want me with it.

They wanted me to be the way I was before I learned all that I had. They wanted a pliable, gullible kid who was moved by promises and the flashing of some green. But as desperate as I was, I was no longer that person.

I had grown up in many ways in spite of it all. I had gotten sober and watched my dreams get trashed again, but stayed clean anyway.

I had felt the friendly pats, only to have them turn into the hand that plunged a knife into my back. I had made promises and kept them, even though they caused the ultimate destruction of what I wanted.

I stayed with principle, and it had handed me two decisive defeats in a row. I was confused and angry and unsure of what to do next, other than merely survive as best I could. I wandered through AA meetings like a zombie in search of his life, putting one foot in front of the other a day at a time.

I would count those days like a prisoner in a cell, one after another just so I'd know that I had accomplished something, anything, anything at all.

Staying sober no matter what became my shield against the many who found nothing but fault with everything I did or said. I took on all comers and stood my ground telling them I was sober even though there seemed little reason to be.

I endured the endless criticism of "If you're not happy, what good is sobriety?" I told them to, "fuck off" on each occasion only to acquire a worse reputation than I already had.

I knew what they did not. That the likes of Bobby Jameson loaded was a far worse thing than they could imagine. Many of them were light weight users and abusers who had come to the program far less damaged than I.

They hadn't ever imagined or experienced the depths of rock bottom insanity that some had plunged to. Their voices were like the feathers of a Peacock, strutting around successful and proud, arrogant and unaware...

I would talk to them as if they were bratty children with too many toys. But when the shit hit the fan there would always be those who sought me out, knowing that I had hung on to the burning ladder and not let go.

They liked me around for that, but they wanted me out of the spotlight and in the wings, where they could call on me if I was needed... and the call always came....

(part 214) THE VOW

I was determined to stay sober no matter what. I remember sitting in my house and being afraid to move. I was having visions of getting up and going to the bathroom and cutting my wrists.

I sat for hours and cried. I wanted out! I didn't want to try anymore. Trying had become the blueprint for another round of well almost, but not quite, so now what?

I cursed God, Science Of Mind, and AA. I had had my belly full of make believe recovery. I was not in recovery. I was in rock bottom survival mode.

Death seemed a reasonable solution at the time, but part of me was unwilling to travel that path, sheerly on the outside chance
I would fail, and feel like a bigger fool. I didn't want to die as much as I wanted to live in a life that didn't hurt so much.

I tried to reason that the previous year had been worthwhile, and that what I had really wanted, was for it, or something like it, to continue moving forward.

It was the juggernaut of constant collapse that was making me crazy. It was the end of the thing, not the thing itself. Too many, whom I knew, were situated in a way as to not have to deal with the issues of such basic survival day to day.

They were well above that line in their ongoing pursuit of a happy, joyous, and free life of sobriety. I, on the other hand was seemingly condemned to scrambling for my daily bread over and over again.

This was the cavernous separation between myself and those around me. I thought I might be better off on skid row rather than where I was. If I were around others, I thought, who were constantly up against it, I might not feel so worthless and out of place.

As I sat alone, grinding through my misery, I stumbled on a process of psychology that may have literally saved my life at the time.

Rather than entertaining thoughts of my own death, I proposed to entertain the demise of others. I'm sure this sounds completely irrational to most, but back then, it had the power to flip the coin, as it were, in my favor.

"Fuck em!" I thought, I was tired of killing myself because I'd tried to do the right thing. I had not been so wrong about my choices as to deserve punishment for making them.

OK! I was going down the tubes again, but not because I hadn't done my job, but because I'd refused to play the Goddamned game. I'd honored my word and fulfilled my obligation to write songs and get them recorded. I was paid to do that, and did it.

The real problem was the God forsaken music business mentality of little pricks in offices, trying to control what others created. I'd pissed off the controllers again, the money men.

I had always pissed them off, because they were ruthless little tyrants with no talent. They bought and sold people's work and dreams, and I had pissed them off again. I figured my wrath ought to be directed at them rather than at myself.

I looked back over my own history. I'd always come up with the goods. No matter what was going on, I'd always done my job. There was a laundry list of records to prove that point. But in every case I'd trusted someone who wasn't trustworthy.

It had been the basis for each successive failure in my life. Whether it was Tony Alamo, Andrew Oldham, Randy Wood, Steve Clark, or Dennis and George, there had always been that moment of trust, and the final realization that they were not trustworthy.

The problem was, that by the time I came to that realization, I was already standing in the ruins of another bad decision. They, the collective they had my work, while I was sent packing.

Without exception that had been the repetitive reality of my life from 1963 to 1981. I had nothing to show for my work other than the work itself, and the rights to that work had been claimed by others, or was involved in the process of being claimed by others.

This recognition, on that dismal day in 1981 was the beginning of my fight for ownership of, and payment for my work from 1964 forward. I had kept the rights to the RCA songs, and the songs and masters of the Dennis and George deal... so there was the beginning.

I vowed that I would not die until I made good on that promise. I vowed that one way or another I would own what I created, and that every penny owed to me would be paid.

I was going to clean up the wreckage of my past. Somehow... Someday... No matter how long it took, or how hard it was to accomplish.

(part 213) LOST IN LOSS... THE SECRET SONGS OF BOBBY JAMESON

Blues So Bad 1980-81 demo


So once again I was faced with dealing with the negative outcome of what had started out as a positive venture. Namely, I had to again make a decision that would negatively affect my life for positive reasons.

Principle! I was hung up on principle. It had happened with the RCA deal, and it was happening again in 1981 with Dennis.

He'd spent far too much time talking to other lawyers, who'd convinced him that controlling my copyrights was the name of the game.

He had missed out on the part about find a label and make a record deal, or production deal, so you have an outlet for those copyrighted songs.

Without someplace to put the songs, they didn't amount to much of anything except in theory. Theory was just that. A bad case of the what ifs.

Music had to be worked. It had to be played, recorded by someone, and made public to one degree or another. Otherwise it was a secret, the last thing you wanted to have happen.

Well that is where we were. The secret songs of Bobby Jameson, of which there were already too many. I'd been writing songs for decades, but no one had heard most of them, so the songs were unknown and not in play.

It was the same problem over and over again. I hadn't gotten the songs out there. Other artists hadn't recorded them. We needed a record deal. We needed to release something. The songs needed play, needed to get known.

There was always that battle going on over owning and controlling the copyrights, instead of getting the songs worked. If I had had any brains, I would have spent more of my time playing them in public so the songs could get heard.

I too had made mistakes. I should have canned the idea of only writing songs instead of playing them in public. Because of that, I take some of the responsibility for what didn't get accomplished.

None the less, I was facing the loss of everything once again. My house would go, and everything I owned would end up being sold for survival money. Tape recorders, guitars, furniture, etc.

I knew too well what this would be like. I resented my life for never getting past go. It was always, "Things look good! Oh shit, it just turned to crap again." I was addicted to the process of endless loss and recovery, just to find myself lost in loss again.

I had tried diligently to break the trend, but found myself exasperated over the same carbon-copy outcome. My positive thoughts of the future had degenerated into to fear of the the future. Fear of being homeless for the umpteenth time.

I had a yard sale in my front yard, on Westmount Drive in West Hollywood. The little old frame house had been my home for nearly a year, and I had flourished there. Now it was to be the scene of my latest catastrophe.

People began arriving almost immediately. I was surprised at how quickly they came, and how many there were. They seemed willing to buy everything in the place.

My equipment disappeared instantly. Some lucky guy bought my 60's Telecaster for $250, and I still think about it to this day. My bed, towels, clothes, appliances, and furniture, gone within hours. By the end of the day I had $1800 and a used car.

I had five years of sobriety, and felt like a complete loser as I sat alone eyeballing the money I'd made from the sale. This is what it had come to. Less than two thousand dollars for a year's work.

One more time in my life, I was faced with the loss of everything I'd worked for. There was no one from AA or any place else, for that matter, who had offered to help.

No support, no nothing, just me. Just me, staring at the floor and wondering, "Now what do I do?" A question I'd asked myself far too many times before. "Put one foot in front of the other, Bobby... one day at a time... survive... no matter what... don't get loaded... don't kill yourself!"

(part 212) NEVER SAY NEVER..

1981 demo...You Oughtta Be Ashamed

I was never quite sure, as I have said, why Dennis did not spend more time trying to get a label to release the songs or do an album, instead of talking to other lawyers about manipulating me into giving him all my copyrights.

He ended up blowing the whole deal and secured nothing. His thinking had been squeezed through that music industry shit by lawyers, and he had become a different person than the one I set out to work with months before.

By this time I was more protective of the newly recorded masters than I had ever been. I did not leave them in the care of anyone. I kept them in my care, and as a result I have all the 24 track masters in my possession today.

As our relationship ground downward toward it's ultimate demise, I started readying myself for the dismal reality of facing once again being homeless and broke.

The bet was that Dennis and George could afford to wait me out, and that I would succumb to their demands eventually, because of money.

What they did not know, was that I was determined to go down with the ship and retain ownership of my work. That was the primary dispute: the songs I had written that had been part of the RCA deal.

In legal reality I owned all the songs and masters from that deal and was determined to keep them, which I did.

At one point Dennis showed me a type written page with the titles of 52 songs which he claimed to own in part. I told him "You can't copyright a title, Dennis, so you own a piece of paper with songs titles on it, not the songs."

He disagreed with me emphatically, but I explained that he had done nothing about the copyrights except write down the titles.

"They are listed in a contract you had drawn up by some asshole, Dennis, but I will not sign that contract, because it is different than our original agreement. The songs were written and copyrighted by me, and unless I sign your contract, and give you a percentage, you have nothing."

"You can't do that," he said, "we have a deal."

"Yeah," I said, "a deal where you and George try to get more out of me than was part of our original coversation."

Dennis looked at me as if someone had cut his legs out from under him. "Well wait a second," he stammered, "we have a..." I cut him off!

"We had an agreement that you and George would get a percentage of the publishing and masters, if I put up the music and the talent, and you and George put up the money. I will honor that agreement, but you won't. You want more than that, and I will not give it to you."

"Well I have legal rights in this matter," he said, "and I will..."

"What sue me? Go ahead, Dennis. You and George can sue me for the rights to my songs. That is something I'd love to see. You put up the money and I wrote and recorded the songs. What are you going to sue me over? It is you and George that are violating the basis of our original agreement, not me."