(part 33) BOBBY JAMESON BECOMES CHRIS LUCEY

Original Chris Ducey album jacket 1965 Surrey Records


Chris Lucey album jacket 1965 Surrey Records

A couple of key things occurred before I ever stepped foot into Mira/Surrey Records or even met Randy Wood for the first time. The Rolling Stones had come to America and had been in LA. The reason this is relevant, is because the cover of Chris Ducey/Chris Lucey's album, "Songs Of Protest And Anti Protest" is a photograph of Brian Jones of The Stones.

They had gone to a club in West Hollywood called the "Action" for an afternoon jam session. I'd heard about it, but couldn't get in. I was outside the club in an alleyway and saw Mick Jagger with two girls, one on each arm, and had yelled to him. He'd turned and looked at me and I said "Hey Mick, it's me Bobby Jameson."

He barely acknowledged me and turned and walked away up the alley with the girls. I stood there for a moment feeling like I'd been slapped across the face and then moved on. As I said, the reason this event stands out and I mention it, is because Brian was inside the club getting his picture taken, which ended up being the cover of the Chris Lucey album. I didn't know this at the time it was happening, it's just another one of the weird details of this story that became known after the fact.

I'd also run into to Lois Johnston somewhere during that time, and she was making nice and wanted me to move back into her house in Benedict Canyon, where I'd lived before I went to England. I was surprised by this, in light of what had occurred in London, when she visited me there, but none the less, I eventually moved back in with her, something I would repeat a number of times in the future.

Randy Wood had acquired, or thought he had, an artist named Chris Ducey. They, (Mira/Surrey), had an entire album with 10 songs of Ducey's ready to go. The cover was printed, and there were thousands of them, with the titles of Ducey's songs printed on the album jackets. The album was already scheduled for a European release and part of the deal's success was strictly based on that particular album's cover, the one with Brian Jones's picture on it.

All of a sudden, they'd run into contract problems with Ducey, and he'd bowed out of the deal completely. There they were! An album cover, with no album, and 10 song titles printed on the covers, and no songs. They had to use that cover or the deal was dead and there was all the cost already involved, so they were stuck with that cover. They couldn't use Ducey's name, but it was printed on the cover.

The printer, who had done the original artwork on the jackets, figured out that he could run the already printed covers back through the presses and cancel out part of the letter D from Ducey's name and make it into an L. This is how Chris Lucey was created. Now all Randy Wood needed was someone to write 10 new songs to the existing titles, and record them all, as a brand new album. He needed that accomplished yesterday.

Randy Wood was a demanding human being, but also a resourceful one. He'd lined up Marshall Lieb, ex Teddy Bear and cohort of Phil Spector, to produce the thing, but they hadn't yet found anyone to write the songs to existing titles and record them.

Randy was also a cheap son of a bitch, which is probably why he hadn't had any success finding anyone to do the dirty work. Pam Burns, Randy's personal secretary, had repeatedly pushed Randy to give me a chance at doing it. He had been reluctant to even meet me, but was now running up against a deadline that he could no longer ignore, so he told Pam to bring me around.

I didn't know any of the details about this, until I met with Randy for the first time. I was flat broke and it was an opportunity, as far as I knew, to make a few bucks by writing songs. I said to Pam, "Let's go meet him." Randy was a black guy that looked almost white. He was well dressed all the time, and you could tell instantly that he was in charge of the entire universe, and if you questioned it, even slightly, he would straighten you out immediately. I on the other hand, was a 20 year old washed up pop star, who believed he could do anything, if given the chance.

We were a match made in hell, which I was intimately used to. He launched into the story of the Chris Ducey album and songs, and drug me over to where the album covers were. As soon as I saw the cover I said, "Hey, that looks like Brian Jones." "It is," said Randy, "We got that shot at "The Action Club" when they were here in LA. Great picture isn't it?" "Yeah," I said, "It's a real good picture. Why are you using that? I thought this guy's name was Ducey or something?" "It is," said Randy.

He showed me the two different covers, identical except for the "L" and the "D". He explained in detail what they had done and why, and what they needed now to keep the whole deal from going down the tubes and losing a lot of money. He said that I was there only because Pam Burns was relentless at promoting me to him. I said I knew that, and turned and smiled at Pam, who was quietly listening to how all this progressed.

Randy asked me again if I understood what he needed, and said that he needed it now. I told him I was clear on it, and asked him how much money I'd make for doing it. That seemed to piss him off a bit, because I'd changed the subject slightly and had assumed that I had the job, which he quickly straightened me out on. "I didn't say you could do it yet man, I don't even know if you're the right guy." "Yeah, sorry," I said, "I just wanted to know if you did let me do it, how much would I get?"

He looked at me, kind of disgusted, and then looked over at Pam, like, "Who is this guy?" We ended that particular meeting on somewhat of a sour note and I figured I blew it. As I left with Pam I told her I was sorry for screwing it up and thanked her for trying so hard. "What, are you kidding? You'll get it, don't worry." "Yeah, but..." "Don't worry," said Pam. "You got it, at least you got the opportunity. Just write him a couple of songs and if you do that the way I know you can, you got it." "How do you know?" I asked. "Because I know Randy, and because you're all he's got, and he's running out of time."


Early demo 1965 World War 3

(part 32) PAUSE TO THINK IT OVER IN 2008

Bobby Jameson 2007

In the last few days I have begun to question why I am bothering to write this story at all. I keep telling myself that it's because I want the facts known for the first time. But as I write the facts and prepare to write more facts, I am thinking that perhaps I am just fooling myself and that this story would be better off left to history and the collective opinion regarding Bobby Jameson and Chris Lucey, which has been, and I guess still is, pretty low.

There is nothing important about my story except that it happened to me. There are no offers to make right any of the wrongs done in the past and I cannot change one thing about what happened, or the mind of even one person, who may have been involved. Probably all that I can hope to accomplish is that a few people will be a bit uncomfortable over some of the things I may say.

All in all this is probably a waste of time. I had hoped, initially, that the telling of a true story, my story, might have an effect on those who I name as persons involved in the story. But if I'm honest with myself, I pretty much already know that will not happen. As I said, my story is probably only important to me, because I lived through it.

To think that anyone else but me will take this seriously, is most likely wishful thinking on my part. I know what I'm in for emotionally, because I know where this story's going. So far the details haven't had much to do with the compound and hardcore events that will eventually become central to the whole story, should I continue. I doubt that anyone reading what I write will ever understand.

(part 31) CHRIS DUCEY BECOMES CHRIS LUCEY ?

Sunset Blvd. and Clark 1965

There was a new feeling in the air. It was different from when I had been in LA in 64. It was partly due to the wave of British bands sweeping across America, but there was something else, something completely new about the atmosphere around the Sunset Strip and West Hollywood.

I began to notice that people were more open and friendly than they had been in 64. There seemed to be a genuine interest and level of acceptance between people on the street who were strangers. Instead of just ignoring each other, they actually were taking time to stop and communicate. Petty differences seemed obsolete, while curiosity in and about others, seemed to be taking the lead.

You could quite literally walk outside, not knowing anyone, walk from Sunset and La Cienega to Sunset and Clark, where the Whiskey A Go Go was, and have a whole new set of friends. Really! It was a trip! And words like trip, groovy, right on, it's boss, far out, etc., were all being born out of this new sense of community. It was happening in a lot of places all over the country, but it would be a while before everyone knew how powerful and wide spread this social movement really was.

The world was being changed, right before my eyes. LSD was something I started hearing about as soon as I got out on the streets. Rumor was that you could find God on this stuff and alter your consciousness for the better. Almost immediately, I forgot about my losses and began to assemble a new personality, mixing the British pop scene, where I had just been, with newer elements of the psychedelic world springing up around me.

Color and design began popping up everywhere. Peace signs were a new and powerful reminder to people, that a war was going on, and the country was taking sides for and against it. "Make Love Not War" was one of the best slogans I have ever heard in my life, and was something 10's of thousands of young and not so young people practiced religiously, myself included.

A new phenomenon called "Hippies" began appearing everywhere. Young people, who thought dancing to good music, smoking weed, and making love, far out classed the typical get a haircut, a job, and join the army generation. These two factors would eventually clash violently, on Sunset Blvd., in and around Pandora's Box and The Fifth Estate, which were roughly located at Sunset and Crescent Heights Blvd., about a year or so later.

Everywhere I went, people were talking about music and new groups that sprung up like flowers out of the pavement. You could get some people together and just make a tape and walk in to countless record labels in Hollywood and get the damn thing released as a record. It was fantastic! Up at the Whiskey A Go Go, Johnny Rivers was doing live afternoon shows and killing em.

This would soon give way to bands like The Byrds. But I don't want to lose sight of my own story here, because just before this new wave of bands came ploughing through LA, there was a transition period. In between Johnny Rivers and The Byrds, I had begun to meet a lot of people, and one of those was a girl named Pam Burns. I don't recall how exactly we met, we just met. That was the way of it then, you just ran into people everywhere and got to know each other, it happened all the time.

Pam worked at Mira Records, a company that was started by Randy Wood, who at one time had been president of Vee Jay Records. He had offices on Sunset Blvd, west of the Whiskey and Pam was one of his personal secretaries. Pam liked me a lot and learned about my past quickly. She remembered the Billboard ads and asked me where I'd disappeared to. I told her the story and she couldn't understand how someone like me had just come along and then just vanished more or less.

I told her that I didn't know either, but that's what had happened and here I was with not a goddamn thing to show for it and no work. I played a lot of songs for her, so she knew I could write and sing and wasn't just some over hyped no talent ass hole. She said she wanted to talk to Randy Wood about me and see if she could get him to give me a shot at working on this project of his, that had run into contractual problems with an artist he'd recorded an album with named Chris Ducey. I told her thanks and to let me know if anything came up.

(part 30) THE WOMEN AND THE STREETS OF HOLLYWOOD

Community.livejournal.com/ photo

I still remember that moment like it was yesterday. Staring at my suit case and guitar case, wishing I didn't have to lug them around, but having no place to leave them. So there we were, me and the 2 cases. I stared at the blacktop, covering Ben Franks parking lot, thinking about how warm it was compared to London. I was over dressed for Southern California, but couldn't do anything about that either.

If I took off my suit coat, I still had to carry it, or keep and eye on it, so it just seemed easier to leave it on. For the last year and a half I had stood on stages in front of thousands of people, been on television in two different countries, hobnobbed with the rich and famous, been written about, photographed, and recorded. Now, I was just alone, standing in a parking lot with nowhere to go.

It was a moment that froze in time, when you realize clearly, that there are, and will be, no guarantees about anything. I was yanked out of my dreamworld, literally, by the sound of a girl's voice asking, "Bobby?" I turned in the direction of her voice and tried to figure out who it was. To this day I cannot remember her name. I am sorry, she may have saved my life, at the least, she certainly made it easier.

I didn't recognize her, but she knew me. "Yeah," I said, "it's me." "Wow you look great," she announced. "Like one of the damn Beatles," she said. "Thanks, I just got back from London." I replied. "What were you doing there?" she asked. "Making records with Mick Jagger." I said. She stared at me like I was from mars, trying to incorporate what I had just dropped into the conversation. "Really," she responded, not too sure I was telling the truth, "What was that like?"

"It was OK I guess, but it didn't really work out too well." She had no idea of what I was talking about. "So what are you doing here in the parking lot? Why didn't you go inside?" She asked. "I just got here, just a little while ago." I said, "I was trying to figure out what to do." "Well where are you staying, are you here in town?" she asked. "I don't know." I said. "I don't have any place to stay." She looked straight at me and said, "My girlfriend and I have an apartment just a couple of blocks from here, you can stay on our couch if you want?" I still remember the relief I felt when she said that, like a boulder had been lifted off me. One problem solved! "Yeah, I answered, that would be great if, are you sure it's ok?" "Sure it's ok, my room mate will love you."

This moment in my life proved to be the beginning of how I would live in Hollywood and the surrounding area for the next 20 years. It was the women of Southern California that saved my ass, literally, over and over again. I lived with them, I loved them, I fought with them, I got loaded with them, and every other "with them" you can think of. If it were not for them, I would be dead, period.

I bonded with so many different women in those 20 years, that it would be close to impossible to recall or remember each one of them. But as far as I can tell, not one of them ever hated me and there are none that I ever remember hating. To the contrary. I am still coming across many of them, because I am writing this, and because of the internet in general. Some of them, from 30 and 40 years ago. They tell me stories, send pictures they still have, and all kinds of wonderful things. For this, I am extremely grateful and happy. I'm sure the possibility still looms large, that I have yet to encounter some, who may not hold me in high regard. This too, I will accept willingly.

After settling in on the couch for a day and having a place to stash my stuff, I hit the streets. I had to get out and get something going. I was used to having a plan and then acting on it. If no one was looking for me, then I'd go look for them. If no one knew who I was, and they didn't, then I'd tell them. It was like what I used to do, before Tony Alamo found me. Just get out and circulate, like me and Danny Whitten, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina used to do. Find out where the action was and go there and stay there.

(part 29) NO ONE TO SAY GOODBYE TO, NO ONE TO SAY HELLO.

Ben Franks coffee shop on Sunset Blvd.

I boarded the plane at London's Heathrow Airport and looked out the window at England for the last time. There wasn't anyone to see me off, and no one was waiting for me back in America. Other than looking like a "pop star" I was again the boy from Tucson, Arizona via Geneva, Illinois, who played songs he wrote on a guitar in his bedroom.

I was leaving with nothing more than 2 failed records and 2 dismal British TV appearances. I was the has been that never was. The big hype! Mr. publicity and not much else. It was a strange feeling to have done what I had for the past year and a half and to now be leaving as if nothing had ever happened.

I had no idea at 20 years old what this all meant. I had no money, other than about $20, and no plan for what to do when I got back to the U.S. No one on earth knew where I was at that moment, and most likely didn't care, with the exception of my own family who didn't know either. I hadn't called anyone and asked for help, because I was too ashamed to.

I believed they thought I was doing great so I couldn't tell them I was coming back a failure. The use of the word failure has caused some people to scold me after having read what I have written. But "failure" is what I was. I hadn't succeeded at getting anywhere. I had just made a lot of noise, and got my picture taken, and my name printed. There was no hit record, no money, and no anything else.

Hell I couldn't even find someone to take me to the airport. So if the word "failure" is out of place I'd like to know what else to put in as it's replacement? I had not succeeded. Where I come from that is known as failing. I also learned "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." I had every intention of trying again.

I didn't exactly know how at that moment, but I believed that Bobby Jameson would come up with something just like he always had. It was like some sort of magic with me. Something I couldn't explain, but something that I relied on no matter what the conditions around me looked like.

I landed in New York City many hours later and got off the plane. I had a layover until my flight to LA so I was put up for the night in The Americana Hotel. After getting my room straight, I went down to the bar to try and get a drink. People stared at me because I looked the way I did and they thought, well you get it, they thought what they thought. I was dressed in a suit so I looked pretty good and had no trouble getting a drink at the bar. I was 20 years old but no one asked me for any ID.

I was standing at the bar by myself when two couples started watching me and whispering to each other. They'd look over at me and then laugh. I guessed at what they were saying, and eventually they came over to where I was and one of the guys said, "You're one of them aren't You?" "One of who?" I asked, "Oh come on now," said the guy, "we know who you are."

I started to correct him and say he'd made a mistake, but stopped because he wanted to buy me a drink. Hell, I didn't have any money and I wanted to drink, so I said "OK!" I'd been speaking with more of an accent than I'd realized from living in England for nearly a year, and coupled with the way I looked, they'd mistaken me for one of The Beatles.

We were all getting along famously, but as I drank my southwestern accent began to emerge. All of a sudden this guy starts accusing me of being a liar and tricking all of them into believing that I was somebody that I wasn't. It didn't do any good for me to explain. They were just pissed off and insulted that I'd duped them into believing something that wasn't true.

The following day my plane landed in Los Angeles. I arrived at LAX with zero fan fare. Nothing! No one to pick me up and no one to say hello. I will never forget it. Just the sense of aloneness, like I didn't exist. Just another body pushing along through the nameless crowd to I didn't know where.

I took a bus transport to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for $3, it was all I could afford. I wasn't going to stay at the hotel, it was just the closest place to Sunset Blvd. where the bus stopped. Once there I got a taxi cab, another 3 bucks, to Ben Franks on the Sunset Strip near La Cienega Blvd.

I got out of the cab and told the guy driving I was broke and couldn't tip him while I paid the fare. He was a black guy and told me not to worry about it, that he understood. I watched him pull away and then turned to look at Ben Franks. I had no money and no where to go. I had no one I could call and no plans. I was just there, standing like a statue, in the parking lot of that coffee shop. I didn't know what I was going to do or where I was going to sleep that night. I just stood there and didn't move for a long time.....

(part 28) BOBBY JAMESON Fab Magazine 1964

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