On Tour

During the Monterey Folk Festival arrangements were made with the Mamas and Papas, Jimmie Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Scott McKenzie to play a concert at the Hollywood Bowl.  It meant playing a heavyweight concert, not a festival.

Lou Adler had been handling Jan and Dean until the Mamas and Papas diverted most of his business attention.  There were bad feelings and at the beginning of the Hollywood Bowl concert, Jan jumps up on the stage, slugs somebody, knocks him down, grabs the microphone and starts bad rapping Lou and the industry.  It put a bad karma flavoring on it and three weeks later was the tragic accident that Jan got into and barely survived.

Another time the group played at the Hollywood Bowl with the Turtles, Sonny and Cher, and the Beach Boys.  It was a K.H.J. charity concert.  Sonny and Cher closed the place down.  There was a forty string orchestra with them.  “I Got You Babe.”

When you arrive at the big concerts you can see the heavy weights of the industry sitting down in the front rows with all these big gunzels standing around to protect the biggies.

All of the group’s bookings into concerts were done by the Roberts and Landers Agency formed by Bobby Roberts and Hal Landers.  They made all of the reservations for airplanes, hotels and limousines.

The Mamas and Papas performed on the weekends and recorded on the week days.  There were usually three or four engagements per weekend.  For example, they left Los Angeles via plane Friday afternoon to do a concert at the University in Berkeley Friday night.  Saturday night they would play the San Francisco Civic Auditorium.  Sunday afternoon they attended the first big acid be-in in Golden Gate Park.  All of the San Francisco groups were there:  Janis Joplin and Big Brother, the Grateful Dead, all of them.  And all of the guru’s like Tim Leary, Ken Kesey, and Wavy Gravy.  Everyone is on acid.  Sunday night they did another concert in Sacramento.  Then a plane ride home.

Another weekend they played the McCormick Place in Chicago.  Someone burned it down the following day.  Then they did a concert in Toronto and then on to Detroit to play with Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels.   Their hit was “Devil With the Blue Dress On.”

Then another weekend they’d play Boston, New York, and Chicago and then on another they’d play Houston, Dallas and Atlanta.  They spent nine days in Hawaii doing a concert with the Association.  It was a combination vacation/engagement but it rained the whole time they were there.

Eric played Carnegie Hall in New York with Ian and Sylvia and with the Mamas and Papas.  In Forrest Hills they played with Simon and Garfunkel.

There was always an entourage of various people on the planes.  There were photographers from magazines and newspapers doing interviews en route to an engagement.

At the Phoenix Amphitheater, there was an audience of 10,000 people.  The group had all taken acid . . . and played to a whole sea of waving, undulating, flower people.  Eric said, “Everything you did on the guitar was more than ever.”

If You’re Going to San Francisco

Lou Adler was getting together with Alan Pariser and Barry Feinstein to promote a festival in Monterey, California.  Lou and John Phillips planned it.  They had a jazz festival there so why not a folk festival?  A poster of a beautiful woman advertising the event was designed and posted. 

Everyone stayed at the Highland Inn.  The event would be documented in a Pennebaker film.  The group’s attorney, Abe Somer, wrote up all of the contracts.

The event in Monterey was three days of total bliss.  Leading guru’s who had come out to nearby Big Sur came to the festival.  It was the gathering of the tribes.  There were messages in the music.  Poets Timothy  Leary and Richard Alpert were there.  It was like an extension of Kerouac’s “On the Road” trip. 

Come out to California.  Hitch-hike up and down the coast.  There were a variety of impressions from various life-styles represented there from Hari-Krishnas to the blessings of Ravi Shankar’s Indian sitar.  It was the West Coast happening as compared to the East Coast Woodstock festival. 

A contributing tribe from Hollywood included John Phillip Law, Tom and Lisa Law, Victor Maymudes and his family, Severn Darden, and Vito and his dancers.

Their message was to the machine, the computers.   “You haven’t trapped anybody yet.”

Thousands of people attended.

In Eric’s words:  “It was colored roses and a beautiful effervescent candlelistic incandescent flower reunion of the mind in total eclipse of the seventh oriental-like heaven only known by the Jupiter sign upon the breath of man’s eternal existence.  Peace, energy, brilliance, and a lot of drugs.

It was a new wave of people that the old mold didn’t fit.  There were old people involved also.  No color, no age, no sexism.  If you want to realize where you came from, take some acid.  If you want to live the mundane existence of your doggerel life, then do that.  Monterey told everybody that they had a choice.  Right up front.”

For at least those three days they wanted to be beyond the mundane.

It was a beautiful setting with beautiful people.  Whether you were a star or a fan or a photographer or a set-up man, everyone was on that genuine smile trip.

With Jimmie Hendrix, the Who, the Mamas and Papas, Janis Joplin and more, it was a total happening.   Eric is behind Michelle.

Doc (Eric) and Michelle

Doc behind Michelle

Preparing for Show Time

Eric was finally able to get his bail down to one hundred dollars.  His friends in the jail helped him get the money up.  Good-bye jail.  Eric took a drive-away car back to the West Coast as his friends had already gone there.  He jumped into a Cadillac and headed west driving past a lot of cities where he had played engagements.  John Phillips asked Eric to be the lead guitar player for his group, the Mamas and Papas.  He would also be helping out with the banjo and the twelve string guitar.

Eric’s destination led him up to Lookout Mountain Drive, right off of Laurel Canyon.  “Welcome back, Eric.”  Welcome to show time and all of its accoutrements.  He couldn’t believe he was back playing music in Hollywood with one of the biggest groups going.

Eric was welcomed back in the midst of a huge argument.  There was something wrong with the group.  There was in-fighting and regrouping.  John moved in with Dennis at 1441 Woods Drive.  Eric slept in the side studio.

Eric first met the group’s producer, Lou Adler, at Woods Drive.  Lou came in all smiles, a far-out dude.  Lou came from an area in Los Angeles that produced a lot of talented people.  He went to school with them.  He grew up absorbing the music business.  It seems that there was a recording studio on every corner surrounding Fairfax High School.

Lou was one of the masters of the 45 r.p.m. record phenomena.  He could make hits by bringing out good back-up singers from the studios.  This was done with the help of Bones Howe, his recording engineer.  Lou could promote and sell those hits as well.  It was his expertise and Jay Lasker, senior member of Dunhill Records, allowed Lou full reign.

Lou wanted to fix Eric’s teeth as they were snags.  You needed to have Hollywood teeth to perform with a happening group.  Eric had an operation at the Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital performed by Dr. Sterling, orthodontist.  Eric then had a beautiful smile with the “going set” of teeth.  After being out for two or three hours, the nurse brought him a mirror and “my goodness . . . a Glen Campbell smile.”

Eric was also supplied with new clothes . . . Brioni suits and Gucci shoes.  Now it was time for Eric to get back to work.  He had a new Gibson semi-hollow sg 35 guitar.  There was a lot of rehearsing for the second album.  There was a lot of rehearsing the first album hits for the road shows.

There were three studio musicians at the rehearsals.  Hal Blaine was the best studio drummer.  He was a drummer for the big boys:  Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett and Dean Martin.  Joe Osborn played the bass.  He was a traditional picker who had all of the secret knowledge of every country and western player.  Larry Knechtel played piano.  He was a musical work-horse that helped other groups as well.  And of course, there was the Count, Peter Pilafian on electric violin.

Dolph Rempp and Ken Berry had just started Studio Instrument Rental on Santa Monica and Vine.  The group rented all of their special over-dub equipment from them.  They had the latest in electronic equipment to produce the sound effect the group needed.  The Mamas and Papas literally supported S.I.R. during their first year in business by being their best customer.

The road band consisted of Fast Eddie Ho from the Modern Folk Quartet and a friend of his from Chicago, Bobby Ray, on bass.  Stephen Sanders was the first road manager.  He messed up one time in Arizona.  He forgot his road managing duties and went off with a couple of young teenage girls into his limousine.  Someone walked off with Dennis’ bass and Eric’s guitar.  Another time in Cincinnati, Steve and the band missed the plane; and a private charter had to be brought in.  It was very expensive and Steve became on the group’s photographer after that.  Tad Diltz was the other photographer.

Lou gave Eric a small motor scooter that had belonged to actress Shelly Fabares (Lou’s wife).  Eric had never driven a motor scooter in his life.  He jumped on it with his sport clothes and Gucci boots to pick up an order from the Liquor Locker.  The brakes gave out and he went right through some hedges and into a swimming pool.  It was an actor’s pool and he was having a party.  The scooter’s oil was spilling into the water.  “Excuse me.  Here’s my phone number for repairs.  Glad I didn’t kill anybody.”

After the motor scooter incident, Lou gave Eric Bones Howe’s old white Alpha Romero.  He gave Bones a new one for bringing in the second album on time, under budget.

1441 Woods Drive was the party place.  John and Dennis rented this house from Mr. Belone, who was the maitre’d from the Hollywood L’Escala Restaurant.  Mr. Belone had to go to San Diego to open up the Half Moon Inn.  He rented out the house completely furnished down to the plastic flowers and dishes, on a three month lease.

Woods Drive was a bachelor’s pad.  John and Denny had these big Triumph motorcycles that they’d drive out to Malibu.  There were girls and drugs and a lot of macho.  They were “maintaining the trip”.  Eric’s studio was a bedroom overlooking the pool.  His duty was to mix drinks, welcome guests, and be an amusing part of the macho makeup.

He was the go-for who delivered the private invitations that John would single out for their acts at Elmer Valentine’s club, the Whiskey,  Lou was always in there.  Lou and Elmer had a partnership going on and they were buying up some units on the Strip.

There were many visitors to Woods Drive.  The pool was always maintained to a comfortable 80 degrees.  There was Cyrus Faryar, Chip Douglas, and Jerry Yester from the Modern Folk Quartet, Judy Collins, John Stewart and Nick Reynolds from the Kingston Trio, Martha Reeves from Martha and the Vandellas, and Donovan.  Donovan mortified (a good thing) the crowds at his first Los Angeles club engagement at the Whiskey.  He was backed by Sean Phillips.  They were number one on the charts at Woods Drive.

Night after night there was a music session at Woods Drive.  There would be Cyrus, Steve Mann, Peter Childs, Larry Knectel, Joe Osborn, and Larry Blaine.

One time Eric borrowed one of Mr. Belone’s suits from his closet.  He answered the door wearing it and it was Mr. Belone!

Eric's stage name was "The Doctor."