Wild Times for Jim and Jimi, and Leonard Cohen

Drugs involved in all three cases....

A couple of wild 1960s-era Rock God stories, plus Mr. Cool, Leonard Cohen, on Miami Vice, plus the usual political cartoons. What more could you want? So subscribe, if you have not, it’s still free.

Jimbo Busted

Tim Page, a Brit, was one of the most gonzo, and greatest, photographers of the Vietnam War. I met him a few years later when he wrote a piece for us at Crawdaddy along with taking the pictures. But he also tells this story about the infamous December 9, 1967, episode:

“Taking a break from the war in Vietnam, I arrived in New York just as the anti-war movement surged across the nation. An assignment for LIFE found me heading for New Haven, Connecticut with a writer called Fred Powledge who was ‘in-sighting’ the current psychedelically edged music thorough the eyes of his teen daughter for the magazine. On arrival we saw a squad of New Haven's finest sentries posted to prevent their daughters from groping the man in taut black. Pre-concert Jim was supposedly caught receiving oral sex in his dressing room, the police over reacted and maced Morrison back stage just before he went on. When he came out on stage he was charged with what the Vietnamese would call 'revolutionary zeal'.

“The police surged on stage as the power was cut. Morrison had enough power left to parry the mike at Lt. Kelly’s face with a ‘say your thing man’ before the whole hot moment was stunned briefly into ill-lit silence.

“As the cops dragged the protesting performer off stage, a riot erupted. Five thousand erstwhile peaceful fans went ballistic.

“I danced about with my camera shooting the punch out. An officer grabbed me and began beating me and told me to move on. I protested to the Lieutenant in charge. Instant arrest. I was shoved into a squad car back seat. An hour of cruising and collecting knife-flicking drunks, we arrived at the new Haven central tank in time to share central holding with the star himself. We presented a motley spectrum for the nights catch. It was only then that they wanted my cameras, shoelaces and all the other good stuff to prevent me from suiciding.”

Jim Morrison was later exonerated for his crime in New Haven. “As for me,” Page revealed, “I am still a wanted man in Connecticut, having skipped the $350 bail LIFE deducted from my fees. Though the magazine ran the story with five pages of black and white photos, then promptly lost the negatives.”

UPDATE: Longtime subscriber (and well-known music exec) Dick Wingate sends along this comment and his (copyrighted) photo.

I was sitting next to Tim Page in the 3rd row at the New Haven Arena, at age 15, along with my high school pal Aaron Lipstadt. I have color closeups of the band (chromes) and Aaron shot the only footage of the arrest, which I helped him sell to the Doors in the early 80's. There are lots of grainy bootlegs of it online. And yes, it was chaos after they arrested him.

Hendrix Conjures “Voodoo Child”

This reflects on another historic day (in case you think Led Zeppelin invented “heavy metal”), this time in 1968, from Rolling Stone:

Jimi Hendrix returned to the studio with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell to be filmed for a possible ABC-TV documentary. Though the musicians were supposed to only pretend that they were recording, Hendrix seized the moment to teach his bandmates a new song — and three takes later, with the tapes rolling, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” was born.

“We learned that song in the studio,” Redding told author John McDermott. “They had the cameras rolling on us while we played it.” “We did that about three times because they wanted to film us in the studio, to make us [imitates a pompous voice] ‘Make it look like you’re recording boys,’ ” Hendrix told John Burks. “One of them scenes, you know, so ‘OK, let’s play this in E; now a-one and-a-two and-a-three,’ and then we went into ‘Voodoo Child.’ ”

Though the studio footage was never used by ABC, and has since been sadly lost, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” remains one of the heaviest and most potent tracks ever recorded by Hendrix.

He’s Your (French)man on “Miami Vice”

When Leonard Cohen played a French drug kingpin on primetime TV….

R.I.P. Gary Brooker

Sad to report death of Procol Harum singer and writer Gary Brooker. Everyone remembers "Whiter Shade of Pale" but the band had a great run for a few years after that. Saw them live in Toronto 1969. Story goes that som’eone once asked him what the famously opaque lyrics of “Whiter Shade of Pale actually meant. He thought for a second and said, “They mean I’ll never have to work for a living again."