Blues to Blood: Doing It the Hard Way: Music, Addiction & Recovery

Contents

Introduction

In the Beginning—Before Elvis

Dion, Buddy, Don & Phil

A Ticket to Ride

The Jesuits

Booze, Butts & Broads

Learning How to Cop

Tom Dooley

Enuff Already

Oratory Prep

For All the Wrong Reasons

Playing the Fool

Dark Days of November

Breaking In

Day Gig

Dodge City

Mescalito

Nick, Bob, John

Back in Town

Music, Love & Flowers

The Blues Project

Moving On

The Pink Castle

Al Kooper’s Blood, Sweat & Tears

Song Plugging

West 79th Street

Cardboard Cutout

Elliott

Delaware Valley

Mental Health Foundation

7654321

Nashville—The First Time

Constance

MilkShake

Westward Ho

The Farm

The Roof of Saint Regis

Living on Tulsa Time

All the Leaves Were Brown

Cocaine—

Run All ’Round the Brain

Trancas

Olive View

Time to Go

New Jersey

Parson’s Holler

Mint Julep Anyone?

The Farm Again

Center for Recovery

In Between

Fair Oaks

Here We Go Again

Fair Oaks Finale

Nashville—The Second Time

Ten-Dollar Fair

The Solution

Epilogue

For CJ Pobst, Donna H, Sandra B,

and all the souls still out there suffering

Introduction

I was sitting backstage in the dressing room of Nashville’s Exit/In with Al Kooper during the fall of 1975. We were reminiscing about our days on the road when Al mentioned he had finished his book titled Backstage Passes. I thought for a minute or two and proudly announced the name of my book would be Blues to Blood.

Sometime during the year of 2002, I was talking on the phone to a dear old friend, who by this time had written several books, and told him I wanted to write a book about my life in the music business. My friend said, Don’t be an idiot. There are a ton of books about the music business. Make the book about recovery.

Prior to recovery, there needs to be an addiction. In my case, it was alcoholism along with several other drugs ingested during the course of living and gratefully surviving. The question arises: Where does this process of addiction begin?

The obvious answer, one might assume, is when we start repetitive drinking or drugging. However, we have discovered the addictive process has telltale symptoms before the first drink or drug is consumed. Pre-addictive behavior may often be the precursor of the journey ahead. When we add genetic disposition and/or environmental factors, we have the potential map of what might follow.

I know this because I lived it, but in my case I had to live it before I knew it. My intent is to illuminate this path to enable the reader, whether alcoholic, addict, parent, friend, or the simply curious, to understand the plight of addiction and to make clear that no matter how far down the road of destruction one may have traveled—recovery is possible.

In the Beginning—Before Elvis

New York–1950

Today I was going to New York City! I have included the word city so as not to confuse it with, let’s say, Albany or Buffalo, two nice cities to be sure, but most decidedly not New York City, or better yet, Manhattan, the home of Broadway, the Russian Tea Room, and its congenial next door neighbor Carnegie Hall. We need to pause here for some background information.

December of 1950, I was five years old, having been born on March 14, 1945. I had a mother and a father, Ruth and Jack, an aunt and uncle, a grandmother and grandfather, and a great aunt Sadie, who at this time was queen of the roost. All these folks descended from my mother’s side of the family. My father’s relatives were living in Scotland. My mother’s father had died of alcoholism before I was born, and my grandmother married another alcoholic whom I considered my grandfather.

My mother had been raised Catholic and my father Protestant, although neither was religious nor went to church. They were always fighting about something. I don’t think the different religions were necessarily the issue, although I am sure it played a part due to my mother’s insistence that I attend Catholic school. It was not until I was old enough to spend time at friends’ homes that I realized parental fighting was not par for the course. My parents lived during a time when divorce was not acceptable if there were children involved. My father was an extremely talented newspaper photographer whose income fell well short of my mother’s. I would enter my dream world to avoid the conflict.

The previous year Mother Ruth had bought a record album. We had records in those days that taught through song and rhyme the proper rules of etiquette while dining out. I have been told that I would sing along with this record, much to my mother’s amusement. Early November found us on a Christmas shopping junket in Manhattan, and Mother Ruth decided that we would take lunch at Schrafft’s, a fashionable eatery at that time. After the waiter took our order, I proceeded to perform Side One of the etiquette record while strolling from table to table. By this time Mother Ruth was quite used to my antics and made no attempt to curtail my performance.

Bowing at the end of my impromptu set, I returned to our table amidst polite applause. Later, while waiting for the waiter to bring our check, the manager arrived with a big smile, informing Mother Ruth that there would be no charge for our lunch. It was at this juncture that I learned one could sing for one’s supper; but let me add, there have been many times since then that the food was more important than the money.

Age 5

I would never wish to infer that at the age of five, I knew from Carnegie Hall—I did not. I did know I had left a part of myself in Manhattan while having lunch at Schrafft’s. Carnegie Hall is located on West 57th Street. Nearby is a place called the Carnegie Delicatessen where they serve food for the body. Carnegie Hall serves food for the soul.

On this fateful day, I was going to attend a matinee performance of Peter and the Wolf. I did not know who Peter was much less the elusive wolf, and quite frankly it mattered not. I was going back to Manhattan to find what I now know was my heart. I wish I were able to render a vivid account of the trip from Jersey City to West 57th Street, but alas, I do not remember the ride. I do know it required going under the Hudson River through the Holland tunnel, and of this I am positive, for we did not own a boat. Mother Ruth had enlisted a trustworthy neighbor to shepherd me on this fateful day, a day that would turn out to be one of my mother’s biggest mistakes, other than giving birth to me in the first place. For Mother Ruth it was the beginning of the end, but for me it was the beginning of the beginning.

Carnegie Hall is not a large venue as compared to the Hollywood Bowl, which has the sky for a ceiling; however, at the age of five the place seemed unending. We were seated halfway up the orchestra level and we could see as well as hear quite clearly. A Russian, Sergei Prokofiev, wrote Peter and the Wolf. Various instruments of the orchestra join a narrator to tell the story of young Peter, who captures a wolf in the meadow near his home. Different instruments portray the characters of the drama with the French horns taking on the persona of the wolf. I have always loved the sound of the French horn and admired the often-maligned wolf. Young Peter persuasively talks the hunters out of killing the wolf, and the drama ends with them taking the wolf to a zoo. For a wolf a bullet in the head is a considerably nobler death than dying in a damn zoo.

During the intermission the narrator asked whether any children would care to come up on stage and sing a song. Let us not forget that this was the Christmas season and many children headed toward the stage. My chaperone asked whether I wished to join them, and although I had done a quick 20 minutes at Schrafft’s, I was in no mood to join this crowd. Nothing has changed in this regard. I still don’t do crowds, since there is little to be gained by becoming one of the sheep. I prefer to identify with the elusive wolf. After much banter and because I was sitting in an aisle seat, my chaperone gently pushed me up into the aisle. My resistance did prove to work to my advantage since the delay put me last on a line of about twenty children. Now every one of those little urchins, I repeat, every one, sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. To this day I shudder if I am in earshot of that song.

I needed to come up with a song. I could have copped out by doing Rudolph. I knew the tune and even if I did not, it was repeated so often I would have gleaned enough to make it work. No, Rudolph was totally unacceptable! I decided to do one of my favorite songs at that time which was Ghost Riders in the Sky. Well, you might have thought that Elvis had mysteriously appeared on stage for this charming little ditty brought down the house. At the age of five I had experienced the power of the performer, and I was doomed. After all, where does one go from here? After I returned to my seat, several people stopped by and gave my chaperone their business cards. The second act of Peter and the Wolf paled by comparison. Finally, at home my chaperone gave Mother Ruth the business cards and reported the day’s events. You know those cards mysteriously disappeared, and it really did not matter. I was hooked and knew what I wanted to do. From that day on, I started living in the dream that would never end.

Cowboy Kid

Dion, Buddy, Don & Phil

New Jersey–1955

I grew up in a hospital (no, not a mental hospital), a regular old-fashioned 100-bed hospital. During my pre-teen years, my grandfather was the chef, grandmother the dietician, Mother Ruth the director of nursing, and great-aunt Sadie the administrator. Now great-uncle Frank, who wore clean blue overalls that never got dirty and kept the bottled Coke machine full, drove Sadie to and from work. Nepotism was obviously running amuck.

I hung out in the kitchen with my grandparents, although I had access to the entire place. My favorite pastime, when not in the kitchen, was rolling around in the old high-backed wicker wheel chairs. Pop taught me how to cook, and at six years of age I could handle a full-blown breakfast including the coffee, which I consumed as well. The adult thinking at that time was drinking coffee would stunt one’s growth. At the end of my junior year of high school, I was 6 feet 6 inches. Little did I know that my coffee drinking was the beginning of my testing every rule in the book.

My grandmother was definitely from the old school. When it became apparent that I was using my left hand to attempt writing, she did everything in her power to persuade me to use my right hand. To be left-handed was to have come from the devil’s crew. She may have been right, but for all the wrong reasons. Today I am ambidextrous, which has had some advantages such as painting a house or playing basketball. However, this pressure to be right-handed ignited confusion and guilt. There was something wrong with me because I was not right! I did not fit in—so let the revolution begin. So began my role as the great pretender. I may not have been like you, but I could act like you if I chose to do so. At the age of eleven my grandmother was in the final stages of cancer. I would give her the morphine shots, always using my right thumb to push the plunger. There was no confusion about that.

My grandmother had bought a large home on Gifford Avenue, the most fashionable street in Jersey City. We had been living in a five-floor walk-up on Ocean Avenue. I realize now the reason for this purchase was so my grandmother would have unfettered access to me, which she did. My mother, father, and I lived on the third floor while my grandparents were on the first. Where I slept had to do with my behavior and my grandmother’s wishes for me to be with them. When with my grandmother, which was more often than not, we would say a rosary before bed.

The rosary is a ritual of the Catholic Church and saying one every night was a bit extreme, but then again, extremism was becoming my middle name. When my behavior merited some discipline, I would switch floors in a heartbeat. Avoiding conflict always seemed prudent, especially when I was to be on the long end of a freshly cut switch. Making a switch before the switch was always my motto. My grandmother died April 12, 1956, and I was devastated.

In those days the Irish wakes were held in-house. The casket was placed in the corner of the living room for the three days of viewing. Mother Ruth sent me to stay with her best friend during the three-day wake, and I was only allowed to view the coffin on the last day before the funeral. There were flowers everywhere, and the scents were overwhelming. To this day I associate heavy floral odor with that of death. The service was a high requiem mass, and the music was magnificent. Funerals are not my forte; however, I never hesitate to attend a high requiem Mass. The Catholics are way out in front when it comes to liturgical music.

My grandfather, the chef, was an alcoholic. He taught me how to cook, swim, paint, and drink. During the early stages of my grandmother’s cancer, she would stay at their log home at Lake Mohawk. On Friday after school, my grandfather and I would drive to the lake to spend the weekend with her. He would stop at his favorite roadside tavern on Route 46 and knock down several boilermakers. I liked these stops because I learned how to shoot pool while he drank. In those days some parents would let their children drink a little beer for the hell of it, and the children who were alcoholic from birth got exactly that, the hell of it.

After my grandmother died, my parents bought the house from my grandfather for $25,000. My grandmother had had some success controlling his drinking, but with her gone and twenty-five large in his pocket, he proceeded to drink himself to death. During this time I would occasionally find him passed out in the gutter at the bottom of our street. He was no longer living with us, so of course, I would carry him home, and my mother would put him in her hospital to detoxify. She would send him to this treatment place, and he would stay sober for a while. I know that A.A. was around then, but I don’t know whether he ever tried it. I would give him what money I had when I would find him; however, at eleven years old I just didn’t know what the deal was. All I knew—he was my grandfather, and I loved him. I must admit that there have been a few times that I wish I did not know now what I didn’t know then. Thank you, Bob Seger. We must give credit where credit is due. The bliss of ignorance is far less demanding than the responsibility of knowledge. The penalties of crass ignorance may be the greatest of all. Only God knows, and that is as it should be.

It was not too long after my grandmother’s passing that I returned home one day to find a baby grand piano in the living room where the coffin had been. I attach no significance to this other than my grandmother had wanted me to take lessons, and I thank her wherever she is.

On my twelfth birthday I received two record albums I had wanted. They were the Everly Brothers first and Buddy Holly’s as well. These two albums served to not only reinforce my dream of singing but added a new dimension of writing songs. Now I had a piano and could not play it, so lessons were in order.

I spent the rest of the year picking at the piano and discovered that if I had heard the song, I could manage to figure it out. This is called playing by ear, which enabled me to be a rather poor student when I finally took lessons the following year.

My teacher came to the house every week and would invariably yell at me for a good portion of the hour. The problem was when starting a new piece, he would play it once for me as it was written. He expected me to practice during the week and present it to him the following lesson. I was expected to read the notes and play what I was reading. The operative word here is read. Being a lazy bastard and resenting anyone in authority, I would attempt to play it by ear and always get caught because I was playing notes that were not on the page. My teacher would scream at me to the point where my mother made sure not to come home from the hospital until the lesson was over. The teacher endured me for eight months. On the last day he was still yelling and talking to himself as he left the house heading to his car. My mother later learned through one of her medical sources that he had been hospitalized for some sort of nervous condition. Oh dear, he did not seem too stable at the beginning of our relationship, and I take absolutely no credit for his condition.

It seems that I have conveniently forgotten to mention that I have a younger brother, Bruce. He was born when I was seven. I had been an only child until that time and was determined to keep it that way. Years later my mother informed me that when Bruce was about a year old, I dropped him on his head—oops! I do believe that it was an accident; however, the subconscious can be a crafty devil. My brother did survive, and today we are good brothers, and more importantly, good friends.

The Carnegie Hall dream reinforcement came when I received the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly’s first albums. As I have mentioned, they were gifts together with sowing the seeds of desire to write songs. The writers of those Everly Brothers hits were Boudleaux and Felice Bryant: Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, All I Have To Do Is Dream and Bird Dog. Little did I know that some sixteen years later, Boudleaux would become a songwriting mentor to me as well as starting me on the road of metaphysical studies. Boudleaux has since passed on, and I will be forever in his debt. These artists along with the Top Forty were having a profound influence—the dream lived on.

Jack

Ruth & Donald

A Ticket to Ride

Lake Hopatcong–1956

Every August was spent at Lake Hopatcong. Mother Ruth would rent the same lakefront house that was located on Bertrand Island. Bertrand Island was no longer an island, as the space between the shore and the island had been filled, thus creating a peninsula. It was this land that housed an amusement park of the same name. This was a small park by today’s standards; however, it had all the necessary ingredients, including a large wooden roller coaster and a legendary, hand-carved carousel. Bertrand Island is relevant to our story because it was there that I learned to bark.

Our house faced the east shore where the home of my mother’s close friend, who was our family doctor, was located. Three hundred yards south of our house is where the original island was connected to the east shore. All the amusements on the peninsula were facing north and looked out at the main body of the lake. From our dock one could swim to the park’s beach in 15 minutes or so. The closest rides to our house were the carousel, the airplanes, Fun In The Dark, and it was working with these folks that I learned how to bark. I had befriended the owners of these rides at the age of 11.

The ride where I spent the most time was Fun In The Dark. It consisted of electric cars for two people, which would go through a long, dark, winding tunnel with various scenes lighting