Greenwich Village

Eric talked a lot about Greenwich Village.  He said it had a small European city feeling and was dotted with small pizza shops.  There were lofts for rent and the artists had moved in. 

Washington Square was a large park inside Greenwich Village.  It was surrounded by coffee houses and hotels.  There was the Bitter End, Gerde’s Folk City, the Dragon’s Den, Café Figaro, Art Ford’s Night Owl, The Hotel Earle and the Greenwich Hotel. 

Washington Square Park is where a convergence of every kind of musician took place.  Every Sunday tons and tons of people who picked a guitar or a banjo would be playing their music around the huge fountain that had no water.  Folk, bluegrass, jazz, and cultural music filled the air.  There was a steel band from the Islands and Armenian music.  Folk music was at its height and Washington Square Park was the place to be.  Eric said, “You could run in twelve different directions and find something new and exciting.  A good time was had by all.”

Eric spent his time maintaining a profile of picking, always picking - scales, arpeggio’s, chords, and always listening.  The more he listened, the better he got.  He said, “I copied a particular style and stuck it into a frame of reference for later on with the intent or will to improvise with it.”  If he wanted to improve his chops he could hang out with guys like Roger Sprung, Eric Weissberg (The Tarriers), and Marshall Brickman.

On a record player Eric would listen to and play along with his idols . . . Big Bill Broonzy;, Tampa Red, Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller and especially Lightning Hopkins.  Eric spoke of an “infection” he got from the black rhythms and the complicated finger picking styles or the complicated originally African rhythms brought down through a “four-four mood or other meters.”

Having enough money to survive was always a concern.  There was enough money for food but never enough for rent.  He slept on couches in the lofts.  Other fellow musicians would take him in basically.  He used to stay at Teddy Fitzgerald’s place a lot.   Teddy ran the In and Out Club on MacDougal Street.  Peter, Paul and Mary and Albert Grossman would eat dinner there.

 

Or if Eric earned a little extra money he rented a room at the Hotel Earle or the Greenwich Hotel.  There was also the University Place Hotel.  The Hotel Earle was a place where a person would live if they were only in New York for three months or so on business.

Eric said that the Earle Hotel was a real flew bag.  In the olden days it must have been a beautiful hotel.  It cost $150.00 a month to stay there.  The smoke on some of the five floors was like pea soup – hashish smoke.

If Eric didn’t have enough money and didn’t connect with someone’s couch, then he stayed up all night in a coffee house on “speed.”  But most of the time he went to parties, dope parties where he stayed and crashed.  It was party time.  Eric also house-sat for a month here or two weeks there.

Eric was in the Village and part of a group, The Highland Three.  He was playing on stage and sharpening his skill.  He started with smaller audiences and built his way up to larger ones (where they had very good sound systems and he felt competent to be there.)

When Eric first arrived in New York he contacted Bobby Gibson who had a talent agency along with his brother Jimmy.  They were working out of the Bitter End and looking around for a little storefront.  Gibson was booking acts for himself and others.  He booked The Highland Three into the Dragon’s Den, Gerdy’s Folk City and Art Ford’s Night Owl. 

They were actually playing around town as was another group called the Halifax Three, formed by a soon-to-be Mama and Papa member, Dennis Doherty.  There was another group called the Big Three with (Mama) Cass Elliot, Jim Hendrix and Tim Rose.

The Dragon’s Den was very small, like a cubicle.  They passed a basket through the crowd that sat in small chairs and ordered espresso while watching the acts.   Dino Valenti had a regular act there that was like a freight train.

At Art Ford’s Night Owl Eric played along with the Modern Folk Quartet comprised of Eddie Ho, Cyrus Faryar, Jerry Easter, Tad Diltz and Chip Douglas.

Gerdy’s Folk City was a club that managers would break their acts from.  Albert Grossman broke Bob Dylan there.  Sunday night was hootenanny night.  Hoot night.  Audition night.  Arrange to be put on the schedule and anyone who wanted to sing could get up and perform.

Eric would go to Washington Square Sunday morning, then to a club to sit in with an act, and then to Gerdy’s on Sunday night.  On Monday night it was the Bitter End.

The Bitter End on Bleeker Street was the final breaking point for an act.  The act was polished and ready to record and go on tour.  The club was formerly called the Cock N’Bull until Freddie Weintraub and his friends took it over.  They changed it from a coffee house atmosphere to a nice stage, nice background of red brick, nice lights and a good sound system.  They featured acts like Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, the Tarriers, Odetta, the Kinston Trio, the Journeymen, Freddie Neil, Leon Bib, July Collins and Peter, Paul and Mary.

Eric would also go to the Bitter End on Sunday afternoon and play with the best guys who were picking in the United States: Freddie Neil, Bobby Gibson, Dave Van Ronk, Henry Bradley, Buzzy Linhart, Hugh Romney, David Crosby, and Jim (Roger) McGuinn.

Here’s a typical stage situation Eric described:  “I’d be on the stage and Freddie Neil would be on a barstool playing “hunchback” guitar.  Lance Wakely would be there as well as Bill Lee, the bass player.  Things would be getting hot, then Gibson would come out of the back room and as soon as he would get on stage and started singing the vocal duets with Freddie, the place would start to go nuts.  Not only the young adolescent girls would go nuts, but that the spirit was moving the whole crowd.  The whole house.  And then maybe Cass would come up on stage, or maybe Odetta.  “Hey, come on up.”  Five or six people were on stage all blowing fast and hard country blues and singing gospel numbers.  A combination of anglo-saxon white gospel against country negro blues.  Everything really worked.”

On Monday night at the bitter End you could see three groups as well as a comic and a star solo signer.  Comics fit in excellently.  Mort Saul, Lenny Bruce, Wood Allen, Bill Cosby and Hugh Romney would entertain.

Hugh Romney used to be a sharp comedian who did Lord Buckley type material.   Eric played with him at the Land of Odin.  Hugh Romney went out to San Francisco with the Be-ins, acid trip and flower-people.  Then he bought a bus and become the Wavy Gravy of the Merry Pranksters. 

Lord Buckley influenced all of the comedians.  He was a comedian from the 50’s and performed and did a lot of albums that were essays in a comic style .  For example: “and Moses was making his trip through the desert and he was leading the people, and the people were rebelling against Moses and Moses says to  God . . . What shall I do?  Bham.  Wham.  A voice came out of the sky with thunder and rockets and Moses said, Who art that:  and the voice said, I am the Nazzzzz.  Follow me to the mountains of eternal bliss . . . “  He was doing satirical, poetic, comedic, monologue in a very hip style.  On a lot of occasions when he would play the clubs, Harry the Hipster would accompany him (Harry Gibson).  He would play a musical interlude during the monologue.

When Wavy Gravy would do his skits at the Land of Odin he would do a couple of pieces in the style of Lord Buckley and Eric created guitar sound effects behind his routine.

Freddy Neil had an apartment over by Sheridan Square where Eric and he would practice.  They wrote a couple of songs together, one of which was called Nashville Twist.  Then twelve other tunes that remain unrecorded.  They were just hanging out, practicing lyrics and creating new tunes.  They’d play “”Blue’s On the Ceiling,” “Cocaine,”   Eric said that some of the changes in “Cocaine” were nice, like C to the E to the F and so on.  Good songs to sing, melodic.  They’d do rhythm things with Juan Serrano and Tim Hardin .  “Heavy shit”. 

 Eric described being on a rooftop in Manhattan with  Dino Valente and Marscellus.  Two or three ladies would go strut by like out of the West Side Story.  “Walking New York City with little pinner joints, real fast walks, and crystal meth.  They’d strut to 46^th St and then to the roof.  We’d all be together on the rooftop playing great music.  Like Freddie Neils’s tune “I Was Standing on the Corner of Bleaker and MacDougal, and “Didn’t Know Which Way to Go.”

Eric received a review in Que Magazine while playing at Art Ford’s Night Owl with Freddie Neil.  They received two standing ovations.  Outside people could see through a big glass partition.  “The air was so thick with smoke from grass that you could cut it.  The cops walked around in the blizzard.  They were always taking a little change here and a little graft there”.

The parents were all afraid to let their kids go into the Village, yet into the Village they came.  There was a Jewish girl named Shelly Kowalski who lived in Brighton Beach.  Every Monday night Shelly and her girlfriends would come in and sit around a table and look up at the acts and pick out their stars, the ones they liked.  Nothing is happening in Brighton Beach but the young Jewish girls can see their favorite star in the Village.  Eric went home with her once when he was sick and her Mothers gave him Matzah ball soup and he got well.  He hung around for awhile, then he was back at it.

The first time in the recording studio recording on a real album was with the Halifax Three which was composed of Dennis Doherty, Pat La Croix and Dick Burns.  They were recording for Epic Records.  The Halifax Three came down from Toronto looking for a banjo and guitar player.  Pat La Croix couldn’t play and Dennis and Dick could only strum.  After seeing Eric with the Highland Three, they encouraged him to come and play with them in Toronto.  They said they had work at a couple of clubs (Bohemian Embassy and the Colony Club) and they knew how to sneak him into Canada without a working visa.

There was no grass at all in Toronto, nothing but booze, booze, booze everywhere.  They had a different type of bar in Toronto that impressed Eric . . . one side for men and the other for ladies.  Now and then you could see a woman who was a guest of a man on the man’s side and vice-versa.

At the Village Corner Club Eric saw Ian Tyson and Sylvia Fricker play for the first time.  He also saw Gordon Lightfoot as a young man in a checkered suit.  Also Amos Garrett, the only other American Instrumentalist.

At the Colony Club Eric saw Ronnie (the Hawk) Hawkins and the Nighthawks which later were to be called “The Band.”

So they played the Colony, the Bohemian, and the Fifth Peg (a plush folk music club).  There was Juan Serrano, the Flamenco guitarist, and David Troy, who used to be lead singer with the Diamonds (“Little Darlin”).

A little while later Dennis Doherty joined a group called the Mugwumps, which also contained soon-to-be Mama Cass Elliot.

Ian Tyson was impressed with Eric’s five-string banjo work.  He asked him to join Ian and Sylvia.  They were handled by Albert Grossman who worked as an independent producer and was getting together with John Court from International Talent Association (ITA).  Ian and Sylvia recorded for Vanguard Records.  Maude (Sylvia) sang some blues.

The Mariposa Folk Festival was held outside of Toronto, Ontario.  It was big and beautiful farming country.  The Canadian people live exactly like the American people do.  EricI was the only American guitarist to play at a Canadian folk festival.  It meant something to him. “ I was a competent banjo player.  I played at the Topanga Canyon banjo contests against all the greats, played at the Ashgrove, played all the places that were happening.  The kids, the college kids, loved the bluegrass.  Kingston Trio was passé.  Let’s get into singing bluegrass.  I had the banjo out and was doing my thing”.

Eric did a couple of workshops there at the Mariposa Folk Festival.  He played with Ian and Sylvia on stage.  Their music was very dynamic and vocal.  “The people were very, very beautiful”.  “”Four Strong Winds” was a hit in Canada.  “Someday Soon” would be soon.  Eric said, “Sylvia was honest and meaningful.  Ian was downright serious about his country picking.  Ian always told me that there is a real big difference between the strummers and the pickers”.

After the Mariposa Folk Festival, They went on to play the Newport Folk Festival.  Joan Baez was the head of the ’63 festival.  Dylan was playing his songs, Donovan was there.  The old-timey traditionalists were there.  Actually, they all were there.  The thing to do was to head for upstate New York.  Eric said, “I felt good about it.  I was playing with Ian and Sylvia and I was playing at the festival.  I spent hours and hours of time playing arpeggios and trying to do the blues guitar like Mississippi John Hurt or John Lee Hooker . . . the things that sounded good.”

“A good time was had by all.  Protesting, civil rights, being in love – it was the place to be.  Heavy.  The expansion of your consciousness with the important  thing.  Mini-macro New York summer scene.  Like a dream of people with painted faces marching through the weeks, which turn into months, and then years, with a constant feeling of love and happiness.  The be-ins, the situation with the folk music – it was so fantastic and beautiful.  It seemed like everything had shut down . . . politically, the magnificence, the warmth, the drugs of it, all with colorful pictures."

  

“More people getting into the influence of ‘got some music to sing,  got some national heritage, Americana, in the most happening city in the world’.  And we are it.  The people are looking at us.  The people are looking at Judy Collins, Bobby Dylan, Joan Baez, the Halifax Three and the Journeymen”.

“Our music is exciting.  It contains protest, bluegrass, folk . . . our music jumped all over everyone in the world.  The Russians and Chinese picked up on it.  Their teenagers listen to our music, not their propaganda”.

Eric ‘s Early Musical Influences and Performing with Judy Henske

Eric was driving a 48 Chevy, “yellow, chopped and channeled,” to San Diego High and stopped to pick-up a hitchhiker, Bill Tollefson.  They became friends. 

Bill had the largest record collection that Eric has ever seen.  He also had a Martin 28 guitar.  Bill taught him how to play chords, melodies, and who to listen to and play along with.  There was Django Reinhardt, Sabicas and Segovia from Bill’s private record collection.  Bill had some Chicago blues . . . Big Bill Broonzy and some folk blues . . . Josh White.

On the hillbilly station he heard Earl Scruggs and Bill Monroe.  From WULA-Texas he could pick up Wolfman Jack’s program with Lightning Hopkins.  On television he saw the “Bostonia Ballroom: with Smokey Rodgers.  He saw Spade Cooley and his Western Band and the Town Hall Party with Mel Travis and Clancy Snodgrass.

Eric decided he needed his own banjo as well as a guitar.

Eric talked about nights spent in the drive-in coffee shop eating salad with blue cheese dressing and deep dish apple pie with lot’s of vanilla ice cream on top.  There he would listen to the overhead radio playing songs from the Grand Ole Opry with the Delmore Brothers.  Kitty Wells sang “It ‘Wasn’t God Who Made Honkey Tonk Angels,”  the Crows sang “Gee,”  Ella Mae Morse sang “Wheel of Fortune,” Patti Page sang “Shrimp Boats Are Coming,” Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys sang “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette,” and Earnest Tubb sand “Walking the Floor Over You.”

When Eric got home from school he went straight downstairs to the rumpus room to listen to and play along with Mel Travis, Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Laurindo Almeida.  He practiced scales, arpeggios, chords,  and suspensions.  Thumb, first finger, second finger, “boom shakalaka.”

Eric even liked to study the musicians playing on the street in Tijuana, just across the border in Mexico.

He hung out at Thearle’s Music Store near the high school.  They had listening booths where you could listen to records or you could even try playing the instruments they sold.  The clerks liked him to demonstrate either a guitar or banjo for their customers, until the day he left a lit cigarette stuck into a fret board and burned a banjo badly.

Then he moved on to Ratner’s Music Company and listened to rhythm and blues and jazz and folk music.

Eric was friends with the O’Conner family (Maureen O’Conner eventually was a council woman and then Mayor of San Diego).  There were thirteen kids in their family and they lived in the Mission Hills area.  Eric met some of Maureen’s older brothers at St. Augustine Catholic High School before he got kicked out for smoking.  They would drive around with Eric in his Chevy.  The brothers got lifeguard certificates and Eric hung out at the beach a lot then.  That is where Eric met a longtime friend, Mark Ashmore.

In college Eric played music with Mark, who played drums,  Lester MacIntosh who played bass,  and a fellow named Bob who played flute.  They performed in a play in theatre arts.  Mr. Neumann and his living theater was putting on “As You Like It.”  The whole cast went to a party at a big house out on Sunset Cliffs owned by two guys who owned a record label.  That’s where Eric met his next music partner, Judy Henske. 

Judy was a tall good looking girl from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.  Eric used to call her a young white Bessie Smith.  She was the best white girl blues singer ever.  Nobody could sing the blues the way she could.  Her voice was so powerful that she didn’t even need a microphone.  Night after night of putting it out eventually led to a vocal cord operation.

Eric would accompany her to songs like “Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer,” “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” “Empty Bed Blues,” and a North Carolina murder ballad called “Little Ronny.”

Fred Gerlach also would accompany Judy.  Eric said he was the greatest twelve string guitar player alive. Fred showed Eric a lot of finger-picking style blues licks.

Judy and Eric put an act together at Bob Stane’s Upper Cellar.  It was located on 60^th and El Cajon Boulevard and featured local acts for an audience of about forty people.  It was the typical coffee “expresso”  house to go to in the post-beatnik and poetic time of the late 50’s.  The ladies would wear black leotards, long skirts, long hair, sandals and turquoise rings.

Beside coffee, you could order good teas, hot chocolate with whipped cream or hot cider with a cinnamon stick.  Some patrons played chess and discussed the poetry of Miles Payne, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Eric “Big Daddy” Nord.  There was usually an astrologer or a Tarot card reader in the group as well.

Bob Stane eventually moved the Upper Cellar to University Avenue.  It was a larger, feature act night club with black décor.  Judy and Eric played on the same bill as the Tarriers and Ted Markland who was doing Lenny Bruce style comedy.  Eric met Nick Woods who got together with Randy Sparks to form the large “Christy Mistrel” group.  They wrote “Green, Green.”  Barry McQuire was in the group.  Eric would eventually record an album with Barry.

Eric also got to know Paul Sikes, a San Diegan artist with a beautiful voice, and Mason Williams, a sailor stationed in San Diego who sang “Classical Gas” and was featured on the Glen Campbell show.

Eric talked about hanging out with the poets until dawn, drinking wine and smoking weed that he got from Chango in T.J. for thirty-five dollars a kilo.  With the profits he bought his first Fender electric guitar.

After playing the local San Diego clubs, Eric and Judy gave Los Angeles a shot.  They played at the Troubadour, the Ashgrove, and two clubs owned by Herbie Cohen; The Unicorn and Cosmo Alley.  Herbie’s brother Martin (Mutt) Cohen managed them.

At the Unicorn there was Gat, the bartender and Freddie Engelberg singing “Ragtime Rabbit” and “Somebody Finked to the Fuzz and We All Got Busted.”  The owner of the Ashgrove, Ed Perl, wouldn’t let Judy sing at the club for awhile claiming that her music wasn’t traditional.  Finally, he did let them perform.  At the Ashgrove Eric met every performer that was in the field of traditional folk music, night and night.

They lived on Hayward Avenue, right off the Sunset Strip.  Jessie Fuller would come over and stay with them.  Harry Dean Stanton and Michael Green lived nearby in the hills.  They stayed there for awhile.

They would always eat at Barney’s Beanery . . . the watering hole for anyone with creative talent and a night time schedule.  Artists were there like Genie Riley, Freddie Engelberg, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bankston, Edward Hewitt and Tom Ewing, to mention a few.

Martin Cohen booked Judy and Eric into the Barvacquie Club in Scottsdale, Arizona and then the Gate of Horn in Chicago.  Martin drove them to the Scottsdale gig and boy did they get lost.  They arrived just in time to do the date. 

They then took the train to Chicago.  Then on to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to meet Judy’s mother who was an avid cribbage player.  They spent the winter playing cribbage and eating fresh hot sausage and drinking lots of beer.

Then back to Chicago to play the Counterpoint Club and the Old Town School of Folk Music.  Then they went back to Oklahoma City and then back to the Buddah Club in El Cajon in San Diego.

Eric and Judy “broke up,” and Judy went on to become a famous recording star.  She recorded many albums until she retired to become a homemaker.

In 1959 When Eric was all of 21 years of age, he was back in San Diego playing solo dates at many clubs:  the Upper Cellar, Mantiki, Sip and Serve where he met Fred Thompson of the Fred Thompson Duo), the Poor House and Circi’s Cup.

Eric sang and performed the blues and bluegrass.  Some songs he performed were “Lady of Spain,” “Bill Bailey,” “The Wild Goose,” “Just Because,” “Dark As a Dungeon,” and “Streamline Cannonball.”

He lived in South Mission  Beach and played congo’s many nights with David Boyle and Mark Ashmore.

Fred Thompson, who also happens to be the world’s greatest ukulele player, called Eric from St. Paul, Minnesota with a job offer.  The Fred Thompson Duo (with Bob Casto) was a San Diego based folk group a lot like the Kingston Trio.  They wore bright red cardigan sweaters and Eric wore a red one. 

The “Twin Cities” St. Paul and Minneapolis are next to each other in Minnesota.  St. Paul was dry.  You couldn’t buy liquor there, but in Minneapolis you could.  The bars were in Minneapolis but the coffee houses and the coffee house scene were in St. Paul.

That is where Eric first saw Bob Dylan.  He also saw Sonny Grover, a white blues harmonica player, who later wrote a book called “How To Play Blues Harmonica.”  Spider Koerner was another one of the better blues guitar players in St. Paul.

It was that winter when the Duo played a club called the Padded Cell that Eric met John Phillips who would eventually form the Mama’s and the Papa’s.  His group, the Journeymen,  was  booked into the act with the Duo.  After the gig Eric went to John's motel room and there was a party.  They all played music together.  John said to Eric . . . “If we ever break up, I’ll give you a call, Eric.”

After the Fred Thompson stint, Pat Garvy, Ivan Kubista and Eric joined together to become the Highland Three.  They had seen each other on stage and decided to audition for a job they had heard about in Duluth.  They set out in a small Fiat, three men, three guitars and a banjo.  Duluth sits on the southern tip of Lake Superior.  When they arrived the temperature was twelve degrees below zero, not including the strong wind chill factor.  The first thing they did was fix the heater in the Fiat and then call to find out that the auditions were called off.  So they decided to take their act to New York City.

Fort Wayne, Indiana was on the way to New York and they knew about a coffee house there.  They were hired immediately and stayed on for two months and sharpened up their act for the big city.  Their act was well polished and they had a shot at it.

Meeting Eric (The Doctor) and the Start of His Story

It’s time in my story to tell the story of “The Doctor.”  He isn’t around to tell his story anymore and so it is up to me to tell it for him.

One afternoon I got a call from one of the Hollywood gang of friends named John asking me if I could help a man named Eric get back into the music scene.  He had been the lead guitarist and band leader for the Mama’s and the Papa’s in the late sixties but had been up in Portland for quite awhile since the famous group had broken up.

I had heard about Eric from a friend who had referred to him as an “old salt.”  I said that I would help and arranged for Eric (otherwise known professionally as “the Doctor” or Doc) to perform at the Hollywood Canteen and I invited many people that I thought would like to know he is back in town.

On the night of the concert the venue was filled to capacity.  I was wearing a long southwestern type of hippy dress with long hair and put burning incense here and there.  The concert was well received and Eric decided he should move in with me.

I was not sure about that but he showed up with a mattress and what could I do? 

He continued to play at the Hollywood Canteen weekly.  The usual following act was Charlie Daniels.

Eric was born a little before his time being that there was no internet and there are very little Youtube videos to remember him by. 

We eventually got married and raised a wonderful son, Alan, together.  Eric switched between hard labor types of jobs and the music business, back and forth but did not make any major breakthroughs.  Much later, a song he co-wrote did make the charts in Europe and initially earned him some money before the song was downloaded for free on the internet.    He was extremely talented.  He entertained thousands of people, making them so happy.

But let’s go back to the beginning as he told me about his life.

Eric Glen Hord had been born in 1935 at Mercy Hospital in San Diego.  His father was in the Navy and his mother was a one-time teacher, but now a stay-at-home mother.  Eric was the third child with an older brother, Ned, and older sister, Mary Jane.   He went to Catholic school until he reached high school.  Then he went to San Diego High.

Eric loved San Diego.  He loved to fish, he loved the mild climate and how it was next to the Mexican border.  The zoo was world famous.  There were cliffs and coves and beaches.  You could watch trains, planes and boats.

Back then there weren’t so many freeways.  Pacific Coast Highway was a four lane road … two lanes on each side.  Mission Valley was a large river bed with cows and the Town and Country gold course.  Driving south and catching “the strand” up or a ferryboat took you to Coronado Island.  “BB” … before the bridge.  The Cabrillo Highway went through Balboa Park and there was no Padre Stadium, which is now called Petco Park.

Eric was a skilled tennis player who was just this short of going professional for lack of a sponsor.  He had an extreme intensity that he applied to whatever he was doing, even ping-pong, and including guitar and banjo playing.  He learned the banjo from his father, who was brought up in the South.

Eric was close to his mother as his father had been deployed quite a bit.  He was also close with a neighbor lady who was half English and half Mesquite Indian, Mrs. Harbottle.  She told him of her affairs with Billy the Kid and Black Jack Pershing.  She would name chiefs and show him pictures of her in Silver City, New Mexico on a military outpost.  She knew every dance for that period and could sing in Indian dialect. 

She went with his mother to Saint John’s Catholic church at five o’clock every morning.  Eric had been an altar boy there.  He liked the mysticism of Mrs. Harbottle’s stories and the Catholic ceremonies with incense and robes.

Eric was seven years old when his father got off a gray colored ship coming home from World War II, which ended in 1945.  His dad, Cliff, was dressed in Navy blue with medals and stripes and it seemed like he was seeing a God. 

Eric remembers his father screaming in his sleep for awhile after the war.  He had been transferred to San Diego from Guantanamo where he was serving on the Rueben James destroyer.   Three months later the destroyer was sunk by a torpedo and it sank with almost all on board.  He also had good friends on the Arizona ship that was destroyed in Pearl Harbor.

Eric’s dad only had a sixth grade education.  He went to work at the Lee Cotton Mill and Pencil Factory.  He sang country songs and played real good harp.  Sometimes he would start talking about cotton mill girls being raped or murdered by company bosses then putting the blame on some poor black laborers.  His dad would start singing a ballad about an incident but his mom didn’t want him telling the kids these stories.  She had been a school teacher from Vermont and was very strict about his dad’s drinking and storytelling.

There were many parties at Eric’s house.  Anybody with a fiddle, banjo or guitar was there.  His father’s buddies from the Navy sang and played old time music.  There was liquor and cigars and stories about buddies they would never see again.  The men let out lots of emotions.

Eric’s Dad had taken the family to North Carolina to visit his kin where he grew up.  They went to Kings Mountain, Gastonia Junction, just outside Charlotte.  Cliff was the fourteenth child born to Richard M. Hord and by his third wife, Mary Jane Towery Wilson.  The other wives had died.  It was customary for families to have a lot of children begot by different mothers.  A man needed a woman to raise the children and a woman needed a man to have a place to live.

On the trip, Eric and his family first stayed with Aunt Mary.  Eric helped her be a lookout for whoever was stealing her hogs.  He saw here take out her shotgun and yell at two figures in the moonlit distance, “get out of my field!” and then she shot two big blasts toward them.  But it was her brother, Uncle Leroy.  She told them not to use the field anymore and to warn everybody else.  Aunt Mary had a black cook named Sarah who would sing while she cooked.  Eric was very impressed with the music he heard there.

After they left Aunt Mary’s they went through Rock Hill to Carpenter’s Knob.  When they arrived at the cabin where his dad was born, he saw lots of multi-colored children running around.  There were grave markers nearby.  Some of them had dates going back a long time ago.

Uncle Luther and Aunt Kathy lived at the cabin.  Uncle Luther was out in the hills when the family arrived so Aunt Kathy fired off a couple of shots from a gun saying, “he’s on his way now.”

There were four small rooms with no lights.  A banjo was on the wall and a bible on the desk.  Uncle Luther was everything on Carpenter Knob; minister, policeman, and moonshiner.  He was a big family man. 

Aunt Sarah lived there also.  All the people there had on worn down handmade clothes.  The men wore old boots and the women and children didn’t seem to wear any shoes at all.  The children were a blend of white, Indian and Black, being a result of intermingling since early times when the white man came from Europe a came to the Piney Wood Mountains.

Later on Eric’s dad and uncle climbed up the knob to the still.  Luther took his shotgun and big knife saying, “You get fifty cents a piece for a good cottonmouth and you’ve picked the right time of year to come for that.”

Uncle Luther would be in the stream below the rocks where the snakes were sunning themselves and Cliff would scare them into the water.  Luther would slice their heads off as they glided by.  Eric saw about twenty skins frying in the sun in the back of the shack.

Uncle Luther told Eric about a young boy who jumped into a pond that had a whole family of cottonmouth moccasin snakes and when the boy came out he had snakes sticking all over him.  He’s up in the cemetery behind the shack now.

When the group got to the still, Eric saw barrels and tubes and a small stream of smoke coming from on the stacks.  Luther came out of the lean to and offered Dad and him a sip of his finest whiskey corn liquor.  Luther told Eric, “Boy, don’t drink it like pop.  Just a little bitty sip.”  After he sipped it, a burning sensation happened in his throat.  After a few sips Eric began to watch the world go round.  His dad had to get him up off the ground.  The men thought it was pretty funny.

Luther decided they could go coon hunting later that night.  On the way down the hill there were two crosses off in the trees about fifty feet from where they were at.  Luther says, “Them’s the police, son.  They said they were going to take my still and land away.  Ain’t right for the government to take away a man’s lively hood and land just because they ain’t getting rich off us folks.”  Dad said, “Ain’t gonna change none.  Never has, never will.”

The dogs were kept behind the shack.  Coon dogs waited for the night when they would be off with their masters in search of possum or coons.  On the night Eric went hunting the moon was full and hanging high up over the Knob, illuminating the forest.  Eric carried the sacks and they lit out with the dogs leading the way.  You could hear their barking far off in the misty moonlight. 

Luther said, “Ole Saul’s got something over in Indian Gully.”  Everyone spotted their flashlight up into the trees and caught a glimpse of something moving up there.  Before dawn they had gotten six possums but two of the dogs had gotten hurt, but not too bad.  Uncle Luther asked Eric if he wanted to come live with him and go coon hunting all the time.   Eric said, “I don’t know,” and Luther laughed.

Back at Aunt Mary’s again, the evening was filled with gospel singing and instrument playing including a song by Blind Willy Johnson.  Aunt Mary, cook Sarah and Eric’s dad must have sung “over a thousand” soulful songs.

The next day Aunt Mary sent the family on their way back home with three cooked chickens, potato salad, corn, biscuits and gravy, watermelon and pickles.

Eric got to see the richness of the poor and the beauty of the country on his trip to see where some of his roots came from.

In My Room

In My Room

My mother was afraid to let me have freedom and sheltered me in place.  I yearned to be free and be with my friends.  I remember singing to a Beach Boys song . . .”There’s a place where I can go and tell my troubles to . . . in my room, in my room.”  I related to that song.  It’s so hard to be a teenager really, lots of hormones and all.

I finally moved away from home and got an apartment with a friend I made at the telephone company.  Another friend of mine invited some guys over that she met at her high school prom.  They were in the band that played for it.  We partied and had fun.  The guys set me up with a blind date.  It was with their music producer named Gary.

Gary took me to Tower Records where he was producing Paul Revere and the Raiders.  He was working on re-mixing previously recorded material.  A band called “The Monkeys” was in the next door studio.  We were invited over to one of their houses in the Hollywood Hills afterwards.  When we were in the underground garage I watched as a couple of the guys from the Monkeys sped out of the garage in very fancy sports cars and made huge sparks fly when they hit the driveway.

I really didn’t even know who the Monkeys were at that point and was surprised to find out later how popular they were.

Gary also took me to the studio that the Beach Boys recorded in – Western Studios.  It was a thin and long room with the instrument panels at one end.  We stayed in the instrument room while Gary recorded someone in one of the booths.  He explained that the room's shape made for a better sound.

Then I found out that Gary had been the person who wrote “In My Room.” 

Topanga Beach and the Sunset Strip

Topanga Beach and the Sunset Strip

One of my more interesting jobs was working for the International Famous Agency (IFA) on the Sunset Strip.  All the top stars in film, television and music were handled between either the Ashley Famous Agency or IFA in 1970.

Initially I was a “floater” secretary but later settled down to be Pervis Atkin’s secretary.  He was a famous football player turned Hollywood agent.  It was my job to break down movie synopses by character and character type so that he could find the right actors for the parts.

While working there I had been asked to take Country Joe from Country Joe and the Fish to a concert in downtown Los Angeles in my 55 Chevy.  

The concert was held the day after the US invaded Cambodia and there was a lot of expectation that anti-war activists and young people would react in protest.  

When we arrived at the Los Angeles Coliseum, we noticed that there was a Red Cross station set up outside.  When we went in there was a ring of policemen entirely encircled around the seating area of the large round arena.
 

We were sitting on a blanket on the floor of the stadium and had a large box of doughnuts and coffee with us.  Little Richard began to perform on the stage in the center of the arena.  There were many huge speakers set up on stage as well as other equipment. 

As soon as the music started playing, the cops started rousting the concert attendees.  There was a huge scramble and the doughnuts and coffee went flying through the air.  One of the giant speakers fell on top of Little Richard and injured him.

We were able to get out and I remember being very shaken-up about the whole thing.  I stayed friends with Country Joe for awhile and attended other concerts that he performed in.

It was at that time that I rented a beach house with another secretary in Topanga Beach.  Topanga Beach had a small row of houses on the ocean side of the Coast Highway at the end of Topanga Canyon.

Our house was near the end of the street and had a short white picket fence around the small yard between the house and the surf.  Our “grass” was ice plant filled with dog turds, which I did clean up and put a sign on the gate.  Dogs ran freely on the beach.  There were ghostly looking white afghan dogs that would roam at night.  

The beach was one huge party with music blasting and surfers surfing and sail boats sailing.  The first weekend we moved in all these people came through the back gate into the house to party with us as we moved in.  I thought "Gee, my roommate sure has a lot of friends," and later I found out that she thought "Gee, my roommate sure has a lot of friends."  We realized that we didn't know any of these people and kept the gate nice and locked from then on.

One day someone parachuted out of a small plane and landed on the beach.  It was a rainbow colored parachute and fit right in with the tone and feel of the community.

My roommate, Kathy,  would record hours of music on large reels of tape for our highly popular parties.  We had a couch on the roof that I spent a lot of time on, watching the waves crash (which we also could hear all night long.)  

Kathy had been the president of the student body at Beverly Hills High School and her mother was friends with Lucille Ball.  Kathy took me to Lucille's house one day.  It was a square two-story adobe style house and Lucille was playing poker with her hair in rollers and smoking a cigarette.  Her house was not decorated like a museum.  She seemed to be a very down-to-earth person.

One time I went with a music agent named Rick to a John Mayall concert in San Diego.  He had a black briefcase full of decals and promo material that he was passing out to the concert goers from the front of the stage.  At one point he switched identical briefcases with me and told me to go sit back stage where I stayed for the duration of the concert with the musicians friends and significant others.  

I had been given the "cash" that was needed before the musicians would perform. That was back in the day before internet banking.  After the concert we went to a hotel room and dumped all the cash out on a bed and counted it into smaller amounts.  There was a succession of knocks on the door as various musicians would come by and get their payment.  I babysat "thousands" of dollars."

Getting to know Topanga Canyon was also special.  The Rodeo Grounds, the Corral, Will Geer's outside theatre, and various homes of actors and musicians.  Everything was so laid back, cool and artistic.  The air was thick with a free spirit feeling.

It was somehow amazing that I could arrive on time to work on the Sunset Strip in the morning.

We had to move in the Summer when the rent doubled in price.

 

New York City

New York City

Kathy and I went on a trip to New York City.  We traveled across country in her tiny Morris Mini Minor with a Canadian leaf painted on the rooftop.  It was the second time I had traveled across America by car.  This time it was in a car that felt like a giant roller skate that was shaking apart at 40 mph and we were sucking up everyone else’s exhaust.  When we reached our destination I had to sleep for a week  to recover

.

We went to visit a club called Dr. Generosity’s.  It was there that I met Bernard and wound of staying with him in Queens while Kathy traveled up to New England by herself to stay with friends there.

New York was amazing, nothing like I had ever experienced before.  It was crowded, beautiful, ugly, scary, and big.  The people were direct and intimidating.  The subway was like being in a nightmare with the weirdest people I have ever seen.

I stayed up all night and slept during the day to reduce the stimulation of so many people.  We hung out at a club called Doctor Generosity’s almost every night until it closed at 4 am.  Then we took the subway to Queens and slept in a tie-dyed parachute tent in the basement of Bernard’s parents home.

I would make money by embroidering the edges of Pierre Cardin jackets, which were all the rage in New York then.  Then I got a job as a leather crafter and would also make patchwork vests and vests with embroidered patches on them for sale.  It was fun going to the garment district to pick out leather to make the vests.  I sold them  to people at Dr. Generosity’s.

I also made a number of outfits for dancers to wear on New Year’s Eve at Joe Namath’s upper east-side club called the Bachelors III.  It was a little scary when we went to deliver the outfits at the club.  Bernie and I looked like hippies.  He had long blond hair.  I had long hair.  We were both wearing bell bottom jeans with patches and “freak flags” on our belts at the hip. 

Freak flags were strips of leather that would bounce when you walked.  Everyone walked fast in the city and the leather strips would swing back and forth. 

Anyway, the club was filled with gangster types of men and they looked at us with hostility as though we came from Mars.  Eventually, someone came and took the garments and paid us and we were out of there in one piece.

Bernard and I went to see Neil Young at Carnegie Hall.  We were great fans of his music.  After the concert we noticed people going back stage so I did too and wound up sitting next to Neil and sharing a beer with him.  We were dressed exactly alike.  He invited me to Elaine’s afterward.  Bernard and I showed up at Elaines and were seated at his table.  I remember Jack Nicholson being there and the place was filled with other famous people.  We didn’t stay long as we felt a little out of place, not being famous and all.

Winter had arrived and I was given a pair of tall, soft, black French leather boots.  I remodeled a large beaver coat that was hanging in Bernard’s basement, complete with a hood and relished being in a snowstorm, dancing under the streetlights while white snow fell all around me.

California was beckoning me back home so Bernard and I drove a car across country for a car service and rented an apartment in the Magic Castle apartments on Franklin Avenue.  I took Jin Shin Do classes by Ron and Iona Teeguarden at the old  Al Jolson  mansion down the street.  It was called the “East West” house and housed students studying Mishio Kushi’s macrobiotic food system.

I got a job as a bookkeeper for Erewhon Health Foods at their factory in Culver City.  It was the beginning of the health food rage and I had a rolodex of every health food store west of the Mississippi.  Every day we were served a freshly cooked macrobiotic lunch attended by fellow workers who may have been covered in flour because they were processing it.  We sat on pillows on the floor around a huge rectangular wooden table.  It was very yummy food, squash pies, salads, and brown rice with sesame seeds.

 I also taught people to make leather costumes for rock and roll performers at a leather store on Sunset Boulevard.  I worked for awhile at the Hollywood Wax Museum in a ticket booth located on the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard.

We used to go to "hootenannys" at Own Orr's house in Laurel Canyon.  Everyone was given an instrument of some kind, like a tambourine, and we all sang together various folk songs.

Today I am a little sorry for bringing Bernard out of his city element.  We split up after awhile and he kept our German shepherd dog with him.  I kept the cat.  He made beautiful front doors out of wood but I lost track of him after awhile.

More Hollywood Excursions

More Hollywood Excursions

At one point I dated Burt Sugarman who was the producer for a show called the “Midnight Special.”  I met him when I was working for a game show called “The Wizard of Odds.”  It was Alex Trebek’s first American job as a game show announcer before he became the host for “Jeopardy.”  Burt was one of the producers of the show.  Alex had given me a silver chalice for Christmas that year.

Burt had asked me to go with him to Hugh Heffner’s house with him but I did not want to do that.  I heard Heffner’s house was filled with mirrors and I wasn’t that confident in my appearance.  Burt had given me a beautiful bracelet that had silver and gold chains. 

I later gave the bracelet as a tip to a hotel maid when I was staying at the Hotel Tropicana with John Barrymore, Jr. after he had an altercation with Drew Barrymore’s mother, Ildikó, before Drew was born.  I was taking care of John as he was very distressed, until we had an altercation also.  Then people told me of his history.  I’m glad it wasn’t worse than it was and I did remain friends with John for a few years.

I met David Carradine through John as they were close friends.  John and I had visited David at his camper on the set of “Kung Fu” in the back lot of Universal Studios.  It was the day after an incident involving some Indians that had come to visit David the night before and had committed some crime after they left his house in Laurel Canyon. 

David was always in trouble with the law (John too!).  So we came to offer support in case the police showed up.  There were other close friends there to support him also.  Later, at a party, David introduced me as “the girl who saved him,” which I thought was cool since he was the Kung Fu master.

I met a lady friend of John’s named Ruth who taught me astrology.  I bought all the ephemerides and began doing friend’s charts.  Too bad the computer wasn’t around then because this took up a lot of time.  I also helped calculate the charts for Ruth at the Renaissance Fair.

I applied for work around the corner from Richard Rust’s house where I was crashing temporarily and went to work as a bookkeeper for Elektra Records on La Cienega Boulevard in Hollywood.  In the evenings I came home to a cute Hollywood adobe cottage on North Hillcrest Road.

I briefly dated Jim Levitt, who’s  father, William, built “Levittown” which was the first developed suburb and served as the archetype for the other suburbs that were built from then on. 

Jim had a beautiful house and told me he always knew who was going to be president because it was a manipulated situation.  The elections were just to give people the notion that they had something to do with it.  He knew this because his father was president of the board of IT&T.  Jim said he grew up in a huge mansion but was basically raised by his maid.

One night I was given a ticket to go see Elton John at the Troubadour.  I was twirling my long hair around and around during the show and couldn’t move my head for about a week after that.  Also my boss called me in and said the bookkeepers were not supposed to be out late in the clubs.

We were always given a free new release album from Elektra and Nonesuch Classical.  If we didn’t want them then they went to Michael Ochs.  He had the hugest records collection on the West Coast.  The hallways and all the walls of his house were lined with albums and he knew where each one was and could get it right away.  He liked to program music and I really loved hearing his selections.

Michael’s brother, musician Phil Ochs, had recently died and Michael was reclusive with Phil’s paperwork spread all over the house.  So, I stacked all the paper up in one place and took Michael out (to the Troubador) to help get him back functioning after his devastating blow.

I was present when “My Eyes Adored You” and “Lady Marmalade” was being written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan.  I threw out suggestions for lyrics here and there but the one they used (including the tune of the line) was:

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?  Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”

I had been a French major in high school and this was a little joke we said back when days were more innocent.

Well, they used the line and it is the all important “hook” for the song.  The line was originally written by Tennessee Williams for Blanche Debois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” but I was the one who contributed the line to the song “Lady Marmalade.”

I still hear it today on television and in stores when I’m shopping.  It can be kind of spooky, really.

I stayed in the guest house of a house off of the Sunset Strip rented by Gary Legon and his wife who were producers for a Gene Clark album called “Two Sides to Every Story.”  I traded work f or my rent and worked at a desk in the front house living room and attended all of the recording sessions and took around the finished master to various record company A&R persons to sell the album. 

While I was working there I also was typing the life story of John Paul Getty II who sat in a nearby chair and dictated his story to me while I typed. 

I met Don Williams from Shelter Records while working on Gene’s album.  Don was helping a young band named the Heartbreakers.  They had just moved from the South and Don had them staying in a furniture-less apartment in Hollywood. 

Don wanted them to have practice playing in front of large audiences and crowds and also in the recording room before they were introduced to the record company.  My yellow station wagon would get packed with all the band gear and off we’d go to a nearby park or to a recording studio.  I’ve been happy to see the success of Tom Petty and wonder if he remembers my yellow station wagon .