(part 61) MONDO HOLLYWOOD, VIETNAM, NO AIRPLAY

Bobby Jameson from "Mondo Hollywood" singing "Vietnam"

Mondo Hollywood was released in 1967, as was Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," a song about the riots on the Sunset Strip, which were basically anti Vietnam War demonstrations.

The L.A. PD and Sheriffs had joined forces using the tactic of anti-loitering laws in an attempt to stop, or blunt, the anti-war movement locally.

My song "Vietnam" was in Mondo Hollywood and was about as meaningful to the current situation as a song could have been. But while "For What It's Worth" was given massive airplay, which it deserved, "Vietnam" was ignored.

"Vietnam" was one of the best Goddamned anti Vietnam War songs recorded in the 60's, and other than it being in Mondo Hollywood it was never heard by the general public.

Los Angeles radio at that time was dominated by people like Reb Foster and a bunch of self appointed control freaks that decided against playing "Vietnam" or anything else I recorded. Not only did that piss me off, and still does, but it kept "Vietnam," a relevant work, out of the picture completely.

From 1965 to 1967 I had written and recorded Chris Lucey "Songs Of Protest And Anti Protest" "Vietnam/Metropolitan Man" "Reconsider Baby" "Gotta Find My Roogalator" "All Alone" and "Color Him In" and had gotten no airplay.

When "Mondo Hollywood" came out "Vietnam" still got no airplay, even though the streets were filled with thousands of anti-war demonstrators. I knew it was intentional to keep "Vietnam" and Bobby Jameson off L.A. Radio.

As you might imagine, I was beyond pissed off, and completely fed up with the clique of punks in L.A.'s radio and music scene. Once again, this fueled my attitude problems that were increasingly becoming well known in the localized community of Hollywood, West Hollywood, and Beverly Hills.

As I look back on this now, I'm not all that sure that I was wrong in taking on the personality traits of a gunslinger prophet. In my mind there was a concerted effort to thwart all of my work. To this very day Bobby Jameson and Los Angeles have never come to any understanding of each other.

For a place and a person, to have played such a key role in each other's existence in the 60's, I am still at a loss to understand or accept graciously that history.

Country Joe And The Fish, and their absolutely perfect song, "Fixin To Die," about the Vietnam War, was another of the milestone efforts of some, to put words and music to the feeling's of so many toward one of this nation's sorriest mistakes. I personally am utterly pleased that works such as this were not overlooked or unheard.

(part 60) "PARTLY FACT AND PARTLY FICTION"

Dean and Dean


Terry Melcher

After the release of "Color Him In" in 1967, I started dating Deana Martin, the daughter of Dean Martin. I used to spend a lot of time at the Martin house, and it was just another one of the many contradictions about my life. I spent so much time on the streets of Hollywood and West Hollywood that I became known as "The Mayor Of Sunset Strip," a position later given to Rodney Bingenheimer, and then Kim Fowley.

I was having trouble fitting into all the different personalities that were part of my life. I met Terry Melcher at the Martin house, and he was dating Gina Martin, the older sister of Deana. We did not like each other. Terry considered me another run of the mill singer/song writer, and I considered him the no talent son of Doris Day.

He took too much credit, in my opinion, for producing Brian Wilson's work and the same with The Byrds. Brian Wilson produced The Beach Boys, and The Byrds produced The Byrds. Terry Melcher took the credit, because he could, and I let him know that's what I thought, so he was not too fond of me.

At some point in 1967 I began to realize that "Color Him In" was not the resounding hit I had hoped for. Verve Records, it seemed, had backed off on promoting the album, and as usual L.A. radio was giving me 0 airplay. I bitterly complained about this but to no avail. I turned my frustration toward the streets again, and immersed myself in the culture of protest demonstrations against the war and police brutality.

One would have thought that as much press as I was getting on the streets, L.A. radio would have embraced me, but they did not, ever. My reputation with the inside crowd in Hollywood's music business sucked, and still does today. I didn't kiss enough ass, but I did show up at places like the Martin house, so people like Terry Melcher, and others, were irritated by me and my ability to infringe on their ranks. It was like a high school clique of special cases, and they kept asking each other, "Who the fuck is this Jameson guy?"

I was cutting some demo's one day for Screen Gems Music, something Steve Clark cooked up. Lester Sill, who was the head of Screen Gems at the time, had a son named Joel, and he was producing my demo session. The players were Jerry Scheff, Ben Benay, Jim Troxel, and people like that, really good players, but this asshole, Joel Sill, kept interrupting every take to tell us how to play.

Finally I'd had enough, and told him, "Shut the fuck up, Sill! Quit fucking with us!" Joel got on the the talk back mic from the control room and started talking shit to me, and that did it. I threw down my guitar, yanked off my ear phones, and went after him. He ran.

It was part of the personality of "quit taking shit from assholes" that I'd developed. The other musicians approved of what I did, because they couldn't do it. None of them liked Sill, but had to tolerate him so they could keep on working. I, on the other hand, didn't give a shit, and had taken more than my share of bullshit from ego maniacs. I was now willing to take them on just about anywhere. I'm sure this did not help my cause.

I was drinking all the time. I popped pills, and took too much LSD. I was volatile and mouthy. I would fight damn near anybody who gave me a reason. I looked like a cross between Jesus Christ and Wild Bill Hickok so there was always some dumb son of a bitch who would say something stupid to me like "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"



The reason for telling you these things is to keep reporting the changes in circumstance and personality that were occurring in my life, the context of what I was doing, where I was doing it, and some of the people involved. It is important to keep up with this, because each new part and person played some role in what occurred.

I was like a ping pong ball bouncing off each new situation and person I encountered. I never got settled into anything before it would change again and I would have to start over. If you look back at what I have already told you it is obvious that no set of conditions, persons, or circumstances lasted very long.

The only thing I could count on staying constant was change. I was getting arrested during street demonstrations and then getting out so I could show up at the Martin house. It didn't make any sense, my life was a pin ball machine. I was torn between the luxury of Deana's life and the hard edge of the streets.

I was torn between the Terry Melchers and the Joel Sills, and my own need to create music that stood for something. Everything always seemed to be at odds with itself. I could not get all the pieces to work at the same time, even though the pieces were there. I was barely 21 and was a total maverick amongst mavericks.

I am not blowing my own horn in making that statement. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I was an outcast amongst mavericks. Al Ruddy once said to me, "If I knew what to do with you Bobby, I'd do it, but I don't." I thought that was a pretty honest remark, Al produced "The Godfather" for 20th Century Fox in the old days. The more I defined myself the less defined I was in the eyes of those who had the power. They knew me but kept their distance, as Kris Kristofferson once wrote, "he's a walking contradiction, partly fact and partly fiction."

(part 59) "THE GENERATION GAP" 1967

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This picture is from a 1967 article in Look Magazine titled "The Generation Gap" by John Poppy. It was brought on by the ever increasing and violent street demonstrations against the Vietnam War and police crackdowns on demonstrators who felt it was their duty and right to take to the streets of Hollywood and West Hollywood and voice their disapproval.

The 60's was a mixture of contradictions and wonderment. Incredible music, drugs, social change, and a whole host of other dynamics that altered America and the rest of the world. I was not just some doped up pop singer that went around causing trouble. I was very serious about my quest to become spiritually enlightened, as were countless others.

It is far easier now to pass judgement on the use of drugs to find God than it was in 1967. All that we did at that time had purpose and meaning to us in our search for a better world. Better than the one our parents had helped to build. We clashed with every moral wall set up by older people and were determined to knock them down and erect something better and wiser.

We could not, and would not, accept the assassination of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King (1968) and Robert Kennedy (1968) at face value. We knew there was, and still is, more to those stories than we were ever told. We believed that the war in Vietnam was an example of people who had lost their way and were now dead set on forcing us to fall in line, which we did not.

The government of the United States lied to the nation about The Gulf Of Tonkin, much the same way as President Bush and Dick Cheney, lied about Iraq. This kind of course reality was what we faced in the 60's, and our decision was to take to the streets of America, and utterly refuse to permit it without a fight.

It would do some of you a lot of good today to be as committed as we were then. "He Who Will Not Question Authority Will Be It's Victim." We, as a nation, are now victims of our own weakness and self seeking. More than anything else the 60's was a time to learn. We lifted ourselves above the status quo and stayed there, willing if necessary, to be jailed, beaten, and even killed, Kent State (1970).

The fact that many of us became victims of our own enthusiasm is only clear now in hindsight. Even though, I still believe that what we did had to be done, and was done, by children from the 1960's. Make Love Not War was more that a clever slogan. We did make love and not war. We loved the world and each other with music and art and we changed it.

Our fight was with those who doggedly kept up the lie about Vietnam and their bull crap morality. We understood morality to be something more than talking about patriotism while killing people in Asia. Morality meant far more to us than discussions about out of wedlock sex. It seems clear to me, that we as a people, and a nation, have once again slid back into talking about morality while blowing up a country and it's people for the same kind of reasons that we fought in Vietnam.

The 60's in so many ways is the text book lesson against the war in Iraq. The rhetoric about what will happen if we leave is identical to what was repeated over and over from 1965 to 1974 regarding Vietnam. If I never do anything worthwhile in my life again, I will always remember and cherish the children of the 60's, and know that I was one of them.

(part 58) BEHIND THE SCENES MEDDLING

As of a year ago, these pages were found for sale on eBay. They indicate things going on behind the scenes that I knew nothing about. Mira Productions (Randy Wood, Betty Chiapetta, and Abe Somer) maneuvering the situation to their own advantage. This attempt obviously put Verve Records off.

The negative outcome was seen by me at the time in Verve's reluctance to continue promoting "Color Him In" shortly after it's release. According to these documents, made known to me by Steve Stanley, there was fear on Verve's part of having to fight over Bobby Jameson as an artist with Mira Records, Randy Wood, and Betty Chiapetta's publishing and production companies.

The fact that Mira, Wood, and Chiapetta didn't own my publishing, or have me signed as an artist, was irrelevant to the damage done by this kind of meddling by Abe Somer, Randy Wood, Chiapetta, Mira Records/Publishing/Productions.



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What is amazing about this paper (above), is that Randy Wood is telling Abe Somer an absolute lie and it is captured for all time in this document. Wood states, according to the document's signature, that Mira Productions/Publishing have me as an artist and a writer under both Bobby Jameson and as a fictitious name... Chris Lucey? Chris Ducey? Either way it is a lie.

He then goes on to say that he, Randy Wood, wants Abe Somer to get a contract, regarding me, approved by the court which is pretty interesting since I never signed one. That is a piece of paper that I would love to see.



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This document (above) is again from Mira. Look at Dear Marcel. Just under it you can clearly see Mira Productions Inc., bleeding through from the page behind. So what I have here is a written statement by Randy Wood, telling Marcel Stellman from Decca Records UK, the label I was on in England with "All I Want Is My Baby," that MGM/Verve has a deal with Steve Clark, with me as an artist and writer. He says that he, Wood and Surrey Records, own the publishing to 14 of my songs, 10 of which were released as "Songs Of Protest And Anti Protest" by Chris Ducey, not Lucey, but Chris Ducey.

This is just a flat out lie! Anyway, it would seem obvious to me that MGM/Verve was put off by this kind of back and forth between others who had worked with me in the past.

Not until recently, did I learn of how Randy Wood, Betty Chiapetta, and Abe Somer harmed the Verve deal and "Color Him In." It was Phil Turetsky who had his office at Mira, and who was friends with Wood, Chiapetta, and Abe Somer. It was Phil Turetsky who took me from Mira to Steve Clark and Our Productions. I have no way of knowing whether Phil had any knowledge of this or not. It is sad to learn, some 40 years later, that nothing was as it appeared to be in 1966 and 1967.

(part 57) FRANK ZAPPA, TOM WILSON, AND "COLOR HIM IN"

© Charles Steiner/Retna Ltd.


Bob Dylan and Tom Wilson Photo by Don Hunstein

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I have already said it was Frank Zappa who asked Tom Wilson at Verve Records to take a personal interest in the album "Color Him In." Tom pressed Verve to lease the master from Our Productions, who had produced the album, and to release it on Verve. In the original deal Tom got Verve to advance $10,000 to me personally in the form of a check. I was not aware of this at the time, because neither Tom or Frank ever told me about it.

When the contracts were sent to Steve Clark at Our Productions the check was in with the rest of the paper work. I never saw what was actually sent by Verve at the time. Steve brought the check to me and said there'd been a mistake and that Verve had accidently put my name on the check. He said it was not mine and told me it was money to pay for session costs. He asked me to endorse it so he could deposit it in the company account for use in paying studio costs.

Now get this. I believed him. I never questioned him for a moment. I trusted him. This is how I was treated from the beginning by Steve Clark. He was like a big brother to me from the first time I met him, and once again, as so many times before, I responded to how he treated me and not to what he was actually doing.

It was not until years later when I ran into Tom Wilson that he made me aware of the facts. "Oh, no, Bobby," he said, "that money was for you. I made sure that Verve sent you the check personally." This was Tom's response after hearing what I have just written here about Steve Clark and his lie to me regarding the check.

As if that were not enough Steve used the money to pay my weekly salary of a $100 a week for 2 years of writing songs for his publishing company Since Music. So, in essence, Steve ripped me off for the $10,000 and then turned around and used it to pay me to write songs for him. He got about 70 songs or so and it didn't cost him a penny to do it.

It's a little hard to get ahead when your friends are doing this sort of thing to you. Like I said, at the time I knew nothing about what had transpired between myself and my good buddy "Steve-o." I was just glad that the album was getting released and concentrated on that aspect of the Verve deal.

The fact was, that I'd brought the label deal to Steve Clark via Frank Zappa, written the songs, recorded them, and paid myself with my own money to do this for Steve Clark's companies Our Productions and Since Music.

In copyright law there is something known as the law of copyright reversion. It would seem apparent to me, in light of what I have told you here, that any publishing deal I signed in 1966 with Since Music and Steve Clark would be null and void on it's face based on these facts.

What Steve did constituted a fraud against me as well as a theft. He stole my money. It would seem that any claim by Since Music and Steve Clark of rights to my songs would be clearly and legally beyond the pale of common sense at this point.

I would be more than pleased to end up in a court of law and make my case for the rights to any and all of my songs that were, and/or are listed as property of Since Music. I, Robert Parker Jameson aka Bobby Jameson, do herein claim any and all rights to each of my works listed with Since Music and/or Our Productions. This would include any and all of "Color Him In."

As you have probably figured out by now, there was little in the way of fair play when it came to Bobby Jameson and the business of music. I was unfortunate to a fault when it came to matching up with unscrupulous persons in the music industry. These constant elements of trust and disappointment over many years were the ground work for a version of Bobby Jameson that was combative, forceful, and destructive, as well as creative. I in no way blame what I eventually did on others, but what I will do, and am doing, is to lay out the impossible nature of the task I had to contend with throughout the 60's.

(part 56) "THE CHRIST COMPLEX"

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The "Christ Complex" came about with the use of LSD. For one to have a "Christ Complex" you don't necessarily have to think you're Jesus, which I didn't, you just have to develop a sense of being something or someone special, which I did. The use of drugs, particularly LSD, has a tendency in some to do this.

If you look closely at my gaze in the original photo for the "Color Him In" cover art you can see that I am very concentrated on something. That something is the "Christ Complex." It seemed to develop out of a sense of frustration and loss.

Coupled with my drug experiences and ability to keep picking up the pieces and become another version of myself, it led me to invent new personalities. This is not an easy subject to broach, but one I feel I must to allow the reader to peer inside the person of Bobby Jameson.

I was now calling myself Jameson. The singular name and dropping Bobby was a very significant feature of the new character I was becoming. My sense, rightly or wrongly, of being connected Spiritually to the Universe, became a powerful new mechanism for me to use in the publicity of "Color Him In" and it's release.

I believed, because I needed to, that all my previous failures and trials were actually part of a bigger picture that I was then beginning to see and understand. It was a way not only to make sense out of what had happened, but to actually give it specific purpose, making it necessary as opposed to accidental in the overall scheme of things.

You can see, I hope, that in doing this I was able to redirect the past into a purposeful focus for the future of Jameson and "Color Him In." I did not have to question what had happened because I had the perfect explanation, manufactured or not. In telling you this I am hoping you will begin to understand how I became the person I became.

There has to be a basis set into this story that allows one to see, not only historical events related to the music business, but the other events more personal in nature, which have to do with emotions and thought processes. It was not just about writing songs and making records. The 60's was a supercharged Spiritual quest for many. It went far beyond the everyday things that most people attend to. I am in no way saying it was right, but conversely, I am in no way saying it was wrong.

History will delegate to the 60's, and the phenomenon of socially restructuring everything, what history itself decides over time. My job is to relay to you my story, good and bad, as best I can on these pages. I hope there will be many instances where you have a hard time with some of what I tell you, otherwise I would have failed utterly to convey truthfully what actually transpired.

My personal focus at the time of "Color Him In" was extreme. I had convinced myself to go where I decided I was to go. In an article from KRLA BEAT in 1967 the title is a dead give away, "Prophet In Leather." I leave you to decide what the intention was in calling it that.

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On the back cover of the album there's a picture of me standing on a small rock at the beach. It didn't work out, but the purpose was supposed to be that the tide would come up and cover the rock making it appear as if I was standing on water. The only trouble was the tide was not coming in fast enough so the picture you see is me waiting on the rock for the water.



Every time I got the chance to promote this view of Jameson as more than just a guy who made records I did. I was like a method actor. I was so sold on my character that I was my character. Everything I did and the way I looked was geared to the character I had become and was becoming. My continued use of LSD, downers, and alcohol fueled the motor that drove me on.

Prior to the actual release of "Color Him In" my time was spent convincing myself of my own purpose. In some ways I was a self appointed social critic. In other ways I was a self obsessed ego maniac whose intent was to enrich himself through stardom. What ever I was or wasn't, there is one thing that is clear. The making and promoting of "Color Him In" was the launching pad for the eventual disintegration into alcoholism and drug addiction of Bobby Jameson.