(part 107) JESSE ED DAVIS AND BOBBY JAMESON SESSION

Jesse Ed Davis is a Native American genius. He was Kiowa on his mother's side, and Kiowa and Cherokee on his father's side. In an autobiographical song, "Washita Love Child," Jesse sang that he was born in a Kiowa-Comanche tepee, (reference wikipedia).

In 1970-71, after I got out of the nut house, a friend of mine, Gavin Murrell, was working as the music director on a movie called "Clay Pigeon," for MGM. Gavin knew that I had written songs like "Junkie Jesus" and "Jesus Was An Outlaw Too," and believed they were important enough works to be captured for all time as recordings.

I had no record deal or anything else going at the time, so he came up with a way to get those songs recorded. He needed background music for a couple of club scenes in the film, and he asked me to record my songs for that purpose.

He told me that they would be barely noticeable in the film, but that it was a way to get them recorded. I agreed to do it, because I wanted to take the songs into the studio, with some good musicians and see how they'd turn out. All I had at the time were the lyrics and a vague idea of how they ought to sound.

Gavin and Kirby Johnson, who also worked on the music with Murrell for the film, discussed with me the possibility of getting certain players to play on the session. We came up with Jesse Ed Davis on guitar and Randy Newman on piano.

The bass player, Bob Glaub, and drummer, Jimmy Karstein, were brought to the session by Jesse. I had little knowledge, personally, about Jesse, other than I knew his name and reputation to some degree. It was Gavin Murrell who convinced me that the combination of Jesse Ed Davis, Randy Newman, and myself would be a "something to behold," as he put it.

Because Gavin had to account for every penny he spent to MGM, we had one chance, and no more, to get these songs recorded. We had no opportunity to rehearse, arrange, or anything else until the day of the session. Kirby Johnson had written basic lead sheets for the players to use, but really there were no arrangements whatsoever.

Gavin had surmised that coupling Jesse and Randy's musical ability with my lyrics and vocals was a sure thing, as far as recordings go. He was convinced that if the session came off well we'd have a recording that was as special as it would be timeless.

Whether it would ever be regarded as commercially viable was not an issue, but the concept and construction was central to getting the songs recorded. He knew that Jesse and I would either love or hate each other within five minutes of our meeting for the first time in the studio.

Jesse's reputation for being outspoken, as well as completely competent musically, and being loaded most of the time, was matched by my own reputation as a crazy man who wouldn't settle for second best in the studio, and who was also loaded most of the time.

Because I had been on the news a lot, as a result of the Hyatt House drama, Jesse knew who I was and seemed a bit amused by me and my crazy shit. When he heard the lyrics to "Junkie Jesus," and "Jesus Was An Outlaw Too," we became immediate friends, period.

I played him the songs in the rough, and he seemed to get the idea right off and began arranging the music on the spot. He told me, for instance, not to make the change from the basic E chord to the A 7th, like a white guy would, but to extend the use of the E chord vocal all the way to the B 7th turn around.

At first this was difficult for me, because I naturally wanted to go into the A 7th like a white guy, but I soon figured out what he was getting at, and began to hear exactly what he was getting me to do with my song "Jesus Was An Outlaw Too." If you hear the song you will understand what I just described.

The bass player and drummer were used to working with Jesse, and had no difficulty following his lead as to what they should play, or how and when they should play it. He'd tell them what to do and they'd do it. It was like a well oiled machine from the beginning and stayed that way until we were done.

I myself stood by in amazement, as Jesse, Glaub, and Karstein constructed the basic tracks for the songs. Every now and then Jesse would say to me, "Come over here and sing the vocal, so I can hear what you're doing." I'd jump in and start singing and he'd stop me and say, "Try it this way," which I'd do.

As I said, at first it was difficult to sing the song the way it is on the recording, but once I got the hang of it, it was totally natural. It went from white to soulful, because Jesse Ed Davis taught me how to sing my own song.

Once Jesse knew I could, and would, do what he asked of me, and that I was there to make the songs as good as they could be, he began smiling broadly at me as I hammered out his vision of my song.

We connected at that point on some other level, that I find hard to describe in average terms. We were like two arrows shot from different places that crashed into each other at the tip and burned together in mid air.



* * *

I received information for this post from Jason Odd in Australia, regarding the names of the bass player and drummer that Jesse regularly used on the road during the time period of 1970 to 1974. Those names are Bob Glaub on bass, and Jimmy Karstein on drums. I would like to thank my friend Jason Odd for his knowledge and time regarding this information.

(part 106) EDGEMONT HOSPITAL AND BIG SPOKE WHEEL

Gib Guilbeau

Red Rhodes

"The Rockets" aka "Crazy Horse"

I ended up in the locked ward of Edgemont Hospital, on suicide watch, after my Continental Hotel experience. Edgemont Hospital was located right around Vermont Ave. and Hollywood Blvd., in the east end of Hollywood.

I stayed in the locked ward long enough for the staff to decide I was no longer a threat to myself. In time I was moved to the west wing, and allowed the freedom of the hospital hallways and outdoor patio, where I could get some fresh air and sunshine.

I was on medication to help keep me calm, but in my way of thinking the crisis was over for the time being. It was the combination of booze and cocaine that had gotten me so crazy, but after a week or so I'd cleared my head and body of those effects.

While I was in Edgemont "drying out" as they say, three members of "The Rockets," Danny Whitten, Ralph Molina, and Billy Talbot came to see me. By that time "The Rockets" had morphed into "Crazy Horse." Somehow they had been able to convince the staff to let me out of the hospital on a three or four hour day pass.

They took me to a recording studio where they announced, "We're going to make a record!" They'd all decided that this would be the best therapy possible for me at that time, and I was ecstatic at the prospect of cutting a record with my old friends.

Armed with a fifth of J and B scotch, purchased at a liquor store on the way, we headed for the recording studio, which I can't remember the name of. When we got there Danny pointed to Red Rhodes who was there to play steel guitar, something I'd used once before while doing the album Working in 1968. I met Gib Guilbeau, who played bluegrass fiddle on the session, a first for me.

The songs we cut were Big Spoke Wheel and My Body Doesn't Care. Big Spoke Wheel was written by me on a rooftop in West Hollywood, in 1969, during an eclipse of the sun. I have no memory of how they even knew about the song, or who was gonna pay for the session. Possibly Gavin Murrel produced it, and I don't know who engineered it.

It was a remarkable gift they gave to me that day, and what came out of it is captured for all time in the finished recordings. Both Danny Whitten and Red Rhodes are gone now, but they will live forever in my memory and through their music. I was lucky enough to have been a small part of it. These recordings are more important for their sakes than mine.

It is another part of the historical record of music from that time, created by chance and circumstance, and the friendship of those who lived and died playing the music they created and loved. To me, "Big Spoke Wheel" and "My Body Doesn't Care" are recordings created out of love and respect by those who participated in the making of it.

(part 105) THE SUITCASE

SUITCASE FILLED WITH BROKEN DREAMS
UNATTENDED NOW IT SEEMS
BROKEN HEARTS RESIDE THERE TOO
WITH ALL THE THINGS WE DID NOT DO

JARS OF TEARS WE NEVER CRIED
LAUGHTER THAT HAS LONG SINCE DIED
PROMISES WE NEVER KEPT
COUNTLESS NIGHTS WE NEVER SLEPT

FADED PHOTOS FROM THE PAST
COMMITMENTS MADE THAT DID NOT LAST
OLD RECORDING OF A SONG
SILENCED NOW BY WHAT WENT WRONG

PAPER BAGS OF FOOLISH PRIDE
NOTEBOOKS OF EACH TIME WE LIED
A FADED BUNDLE OF OUR FEARS
CALENDARS OF WASTED YEARS

THE SUITCASE STANDS ALONE UNCLAIMED
IT'S OWNER ABSENT AND UNNAMED
THE CONTENTS NEATLY PACKED AWAY
ARE ADDED TO WITH EACH NEW DAY


Robert Parker Jameson Dec 12, 2008

(part 104) FINAL CHOICE

Click To Enlarge

The sheriff's department was concerned because I was now highly agitated. They decided they had to do something before I jumped, or fell by accident, because I was moving around so much on the ledge.

One officer was talking to me from behind the retaining wall at my back, assuring me they had taken care of the asshole in the window, with the camera, who'd gotten me so fired up.

I was trying to answer him, and look over my left shoulder at his face, which I saw was filled with fear and concern. He kept trying to get me to give up and reconsider my options.

I told him there were none. "That's why I'm out here," I said. He asked me, "Why, exactly are you out there?" I told him, "I been ripped off too many times by the record business. I've had enough of lying assholes."

He said, "There's gotta be a better way of dealing with the problem than the one you've chosen here." I said, "I chose this way as a last resort after 7 years of getting fucked over. I don't want to keep getting ripped off, so I made up my mind to kill myself."

He asked, "Don't you have friends who will help you?" "I don't have any friends," I said, "I don't know if I ever had a real friend in my whole life." The back and forth conversation continued between the officer and me.

Two other officers had made their way up to the retaining wall behind me, but stayed out of sight on the other side, where the officer talking to me was. I didn't see these two officers. They crawled up to the wall on their stomachs.

As I continued focusing my attention on the first officer, the other two popped up in back of me, and reached out over the wall and grabbed hold of me in a split second. They were not going to let go, and I felt myself being drug up over the wall to the concrete landing where they all were.

It happened so fast that there was no way for me to escape from their grip. I never knew, and still don't, if I would have jumped in the end, because the intervention was completed before that final choice was made.

I can't remember a lot after that, except I ended up in a psychiatric ward at a place called Edgemont Hospital, way out on the eastern end of Hollywood Blvd., out toward Glendale, where I'd once gone to high school in 1962 and 63.

I spent nearly 3 hours on the ledge of the Continental Hyatt House, and still remember to this day what it looked like and felt like. I wonder at times, like now, as I write this, if I would have ended it all?

(part 103) JUST ANOTHER CRAPPY DAY

I wasn't writing songs on the 11th story ledge of the Continental Hotel in 1971, I was writing my obituary. I gazed out over the concrete below. There was no stardom. No clever words left in me on that day. Just a sickening need to kill off the memories of what had gone wrong. The smiley faced kid with a guitar and a song for every occasion had been transformed into a full fledged addict alcoholic with a death wish.

Looking out from the ledge I began noticing people on the decks of their homes dotting the hills behind the hotel. This small part of the world now had it's gaze fixed on me hovering there above the Sunset Strip. I was the freak show of the day for those who lived in the area.

Don't get me wrong. I was was the one who decided to do what I was doing, but there was something odd about watching them watching me as I sat perched like a bird on the hotel ledge. I wondered if they wanted me to jump? I expect it was a combination of both. You know, wanting to see it, but not wanting to see it at the same time.

Hell, I didn't fully understand it myself. Part of me wanted to just quit fucking around and do it, and another part of me was saying, "Now wait a second." I was pushed back and forth between these two conflicting forces. I wanted to stop feeling what I was feeling alright, but I was also sitting 11 stories up looking down at the pavement below.

By this time, the L.A. Sheriff's Department had taken control of the hotel and Sunset Blvd., and shut off public access to me. The news media surrounded the hotel, and a helicopter circled above me, moving in lazy turns, looking for the best shot I guess.

One story below me, the L.A. Fire Rescue Team contemplated throwing a rope around my dangling legs, on the theory they could pull me down to the floor they were on. They decided it was too risky, contemplating they might lose me in such an attempt. This discussion had been captured on television news footage from inside the hotel room with the Fire Department and later shown on TV.

The incredible level of psychic pain and confusion I was in kept me doggedly clinging to the ledge for safety, while at the same time I was ham strung by my own determination to end my life. It is one thing to think you've decided to jump off a building: it is a whole other thing to actually be there looking down, and do it.

I cried as I thought about Diane and how she had thrown herself from the 6th story window of her apartment. I cried for my father, who had gassed himself to death in his own car in his garage. I was amazed at the level of their conviction to carry out those acts as they had, and that I was now facing on that day in 1971.

Right about then I was startled by a voice of someone yelling at me from my right. I turned and saw a guy hanging halfway out his hotel room window, with a camera in his hand. "Go ahead man," he yelled, "I got you covered all the way down. Go ahead," he shouted again, with a big smile waving his camera.

This guy was about 15 or 20 feet from me with half his body out the window. I stared at him dazed, realizing he wanted me to jump so he could take my picture. He was egging me on. All of a sudden a force behind him, pulled his ass out of the window and back into his room.

I could hear loud yelling coming from the window. It was the L.A. Sheriff's Department. They had kicked in his door and arrested him. I began yelling and crying hysterically at the window where he had been, and screamed, "Yeah, fuck you you asshole. Go fuck yourself." I became highly agitated, and moved my body to the very edge. "You wanna see me jump you asshole? You wanna see me die? Ok man, you fuckin' asshole I'll jump, fuck it."

(part 102) "ROCK N ROLL HOTEL"

Gene Autry's Continental Hotel


Continental Hotel 1965

I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the light to change. I was on Sunset Blvd. in front of the Park Sunset Hotel, directly across the street from the Continental Hotel. The Continental was nicked named the "Rock N Roll Hotel" because so many 60's and 70's bands had stayed there. It would later become known as the Continental Riot House.

As I waited for the light, rapid fire thoughts of Diane Linkletter's and my father's suicides raced through my head. I looked over at the old Ciro's nightclub, to the left of the Continental's west side, where I'd once performed to a packed house in 1964.

I have little or no recollection of leaving Cleveland and arriving back in L.A. in 1970, or how it was that I ended up at the Park Sunset Hotel, where I snorted coke and drank myself into a suicidal stupor of depression and rage. I saw my life as a series of unending failures and disasters by 1971, and had convinced myself of the hopelessness of my situation.

I'd spent way too many days going over each record deal I'd been involved in since 1964, starting with Tony Alamo, and progressing on to my last deal with GRT and the "Working" album, in 1969-70. I had made and released 8 singles and 3 albums, writing most of the songs.

I calculated that by 1971 I'd managed to make next to nothing for all of those records and seven years of my life. As I drank and snorted myself into oblivion, I'd decided somewhere in that darkness to throw myself off the ledge of the Continental Hotel.

The light turned green and I walked across Sunset to the Continental's front door and lobby. I remember watching my feet as I walked, with machine-like precision, toward the hotel. I entered through the front door, crossed the lobby, and headed for the elevators. I got on and pushed the button, acting as if I were a guest going to my room.

I did not hesitate or have second thoughts. I was like a mechanical man, built to do one thing and one thing only. The elevator stopped at the 11th floor and the doors opened. I walked out into the hall and saw a door saying "exit." I opened it and stepped out onto a concrete landing.

There was a short wall with a pipe railing around the top. That was all that separated the landing from the 11th story ledge at the back of the hotel. I looked north from the landing up into the hills dotted with houses and trees. I stood there for a moment, then swung one leg across the railing followed by the other.

I was standing 11 floors up on a concrete ledge that was 10 to 12 inches from the wall to the outer edge. In front of me was nothing but air, behind me the 3 foot stucco wall with the pipe rail around the top. All of a sudden, the door I'd come through swung open, and a guy with a uniform shirt appeared. He looked at me as if confused by what he saw, and said, "Hey, you're not supposed to be out...."

He stopped in mid-sentence. I stared at him, glassy eyed and desperate. Then he disappeared, and I knew it was just a matter of time- before the whole place would be crawling with cops. I sat down on the edge of the ledge, with my legs dangling over, and stared at the concrete driveway 11 floors below.

My thoughts raced, and my emotions blew up like a bomb inside my head, as tears raced out of my eyes like a river. I watched them fall to the ground below. I listened to the sounds I made, as I sat there totally alone and in absolute pain, sobbing like a broken child. "If only somebody had paid me, if only I'd met one honest person in the music business, if only, if only," I thought, "If only."