Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon

by Des Barres, Pamela

  As a loving observer, it appeared to me that Gram and Keith Richards were turning into each other. They huddled in corners together, getting high, dressed in each other’s clothes. One night the Burritos played the Troubadour and Gram was wearing Keith’s scarves and belts, makeup scrawled on his face and drunk as a skunk. Chris Hillman was so pissed off he turned his back just in time to miss Gram thrash his own acoustic guitar, then kick it off the stage. When the Stones were in town, Gram missed rehearsals and turned up late for gigs. The Burritos felt that Gram wanted to be a Rolling Stone, and that the Stones were ripping off Gram’s countrified soul, giving him no credit. To Rolling Stone Gram admitted, “I think they’ve done a few country-sounding things since I got to know them.” Burrito roadie Jim Seiter complained that Gram was “getting faggier by the day.” When Chris Ethridge had had enough and left the band, Chris Hillman took over on bass, adding Bernie Leadon on guitar.

  Sixteen-year-old actress Gretchen Burrell was invited to a Stones rehearsal where they were celebrating Gram’s twenty-third birthday, and sparks flew through the air. She soon took up residence with Gram at the Chateau Marmont, sliding comfortably into his chaotic, stoned-out life.

  Gram was still making occasional contact with Nancy, checking up on Polly. “One night he called me in Santa Barbara at four in the morning,” Nancy recalls, “and he was crying and hysterical like I’d never heard him before, and he said, ‘She’s shooting up in the bathroom, she’s shooting stuff in her arm with a needle, Nancy!’ I said to him, ‘You don’t have to be a lunch-box and think you have to experience it to make it okay.’ I shouldn’t have said that. He would take things like that and process them in a very odd way. He saw things from the back of the mirror, you know what I mean?”

  The first Burrito album hadn’t made a dent in the charts, selling only forty thousand copies, but they were gearing up for a second. Chris said he and Gram were “walking on different roads” and that sessions for Burrito Deluxe were strained and difficult. They couldn’t seem to get any songs together, and lucked out when Keith Richards sent Gram a tape of the Stones’ “Wild Horses” to see if Sneaky Pete might add some pedal steel. Gram asked Keith if the Burritos could record the song and he gave his permission. Mercy and I were at the “Wild Horses” session and Gram was as proud and happy as a little kid. He sang it like a fallen angel.

  Through his tight friendship with Keith, Gram landed the Burrito Brothers an important gig with the Rolling Stones at Altamont Raceway outside San Francisco on December 6, 1969. The Stones even picked up the Burritos’ travel tab. The free “thank-you” concert at Altamont was supposed to rival Woodstock, but the vibe was so shockingly bad that I left right after the Burritos’ set, hooking up with them later at the Stones’ hotel—where the vibe was even worse. The Hell’s Angels were providing “protection,” and a fellow in the audience had been stabbed to death as the Stones played. Mick was guilt-ridden, talking about quitting rock and roll forever. Gram and Keith were in each other’s pockets. Gram was wearing black leather and eye makeup, Keith had on cowboy gear. They were nodding out on the floor. It was harrowing.

  Burrito touring was always difficult, made worse due to Gram’s increasing paranoia about being up in the air. High as a kite, yes. Up in the air, no thank you. During the Burrito Deluxe tour, Gram swallowed so many downers that he usually had to be taken to the plane in a wheelchair, drooling and sobbing. In Seattle he wasn’t allowed on the plane at all. “They’d see some guy slobbering in a chair,” Chris explained, “wearing these outlandish clothes and a top hat … .” Avis had been institutionalized by Bob Parsons in New Orleans and needed her big brother’s help, but Gram was unable to provide any. After the troubled tour, back in L.A. Gram had a horrible accident on his Harley. He had been riding with friend John Phillips. In the aftermath of the accident, Phillips thought Gram was dead until Gram whispered, “John, take me for a long white ride.”

  I brought Gram flowers in the hospital and didn’t recognize him. His face was a puffy purple balloon. I worried hard that Gram was trying to keep up with his friend Keith and didn’t have the constitution. When I left I said, “Take care of yourself, Gram Richards.” He tried to laugh.

  After a disastrous Burrito gig at the Brass Ring, Chris Hillman finally boiled over, firing Gram and snapping his favorite guitar in two pieces. Though he felt bad about it, Chris said, “It was better than hitting him in the head.”

  In producer Terry Melcher, Gram found an appreciative audience and another drug buddy. Convinced that Gram was “the white, country Jimi Hendrix,” Terry got him a solo deal on A&M, but he and Gram were so wasted that the sessions amounted to nothing. Gram fell off the stool while he was singing. Terry fell asleep at the soundboard. Years later Terry said that Gram saw himself as a victim. “He thought he was too much of an artist to be understood by the industry. He was such a romantic character. He was one of these people who thought it was great to die young.”

  In March 1971 Gram took Gretchen to England, hoping for some inspiration. Instead he got hooked on heroin. An occasional user for years, Gram, along with Keith, got so strung out that they went through a couple of cures together. Aware that he is the target for Gram’s ultimate demise, Keith said he didn’t teach Gram very much about drugs. “Gram was just as knowledgeable as I was about chemical substances when I met him. And he had very good taste.” According to writer Stanley Booth, Keith once declared that “Gram gets better coke than the Mafia.”

  Gram started telling the press that he was going to record his upcoming solo album for Rolling Stone Records. Meanwhile he languished in the Stones’ villa in Nellcote, France, jamming with Keith and flying high. At first Mick Jagger accepted Gram, but he was now becoming wary of his constant presence. “Mick is very jealous of anybody that I get close to,” Keith said. “He’s an old woman like that with me … . But I have to understand from Mick’s point of view that Gram was pretty out of it and outrageous at the time … .” So outrageous that he was finally asked to leave. Gram took Gretchen to old friend Ian Dunlop’s farm in Cornwall, where he proposed marriage. In a very odd move, Gram asked his stepfather, Bob Parsons, to hold the wedding at his home in New Orleans. None of Gram’s friends came to call.

  When the married man arrived in L.A. he got together with Chris Hillman, who told him about an amazing singer he’d discovered in a little club in Washington, D.C.—Emmylou Harris. Since Chris was busy with Stephen Stills’s Manassas, he encouraged Gram to look her up—which he did. Knocked out by her lilting voice, Gram met up with Emmylou after her show and they sang together for hours. Gram vowed to work with the sweet-voiced songbird as soon as possible. It turned out to be almost a year.

  Gram had become an alcoholic. He was fifty pounds overweight and miserable. His fancy duds were tattered and didn’t fit him anymore. Back in L.A. without a plan, Gram roamed around, getting wasted, until hooking up with former Byrds manager Eddie Tickner, impressing him with news that Keith Richards wanted to produce his solo record. Even after discovering that Keith wasn’t available, Eddie convinced Warner Bros. to sign Gram, suggesting that country great Merle Haggard produce the record. Gram spent an idyllic few days in Bakersfield with Merle, calling him a “nice, sweet cat,” but Merle’s wife left him and the plans fell apart. Chris heard that Gram had been drinking too much and that Merle thought he was wild. Years later Bam magazine queried Merle about G.P. “He was a pussy,” Merle claimed. “Hell, he was just a long-haired kid. I thought he was a good writer. He was not wild, though.”

  Another recuperation in his beloved Joshua Tree desert, and Gram had decided to produce his own album. The first thing he did was to hire Elvis’s band, then he sent Emmylou a plane ticket. Opening day of the GP sessions found Gram on the floor, totally incapacitated. He was so chagrined that he abstained from booze for the rest of the recording process, even though his constant shakes confirmed the severity of his problem. Emmylou seemed to calm Gram, and his passionate, tear-stained vocals brought pe
ople to tears. Rolling Stone applauded Gram’s singing: “That amazing voice, with its warring qualities of sweetness and dissipation, makes for a stunning emotional experience.” But nobody was buying. Nobody was ready to pay for that much pain. Bernie Leadon had joined the Eagles, and their light country-rock songs were climbing the charts. Gram called the Eagles “bubble gum”: “It’s got too much sugar in it. Life is tougher than they make it out to be.” Gram found solace in heroin and became so tragic that Chris Hillman had to throw him out of his birthday party. I saw Gram one last time at the Troubadour, haggling with his dealer on the phone. He was bloated and confused, his divine hands hanging at his sides like forgotten flowers, but his smile could still give me the shivers. I loved him.

  The haphazard rehearsals for the Fallen Angels tour took place in road manager, “executive nanny” Phil Kaufman’s ramshackle place in the Valley. On the very first night of the tour, Gram’s bus was slammed by a truck, destroying his name painted on the back. It didn’t get better from there. Gram and Emmylou had some magical moments, but Poco’s Richie Furay witnessed opening night: “It was one of the most pitiful things I ever saw.” Gretchen couldn’t stand Phil Kaufman and wasn’t happy with the stage sparks between Gram and Emmylou. She constantly picked fights with Gram, and the Fallen Angel entourage thought Gretchen was schizophrenic—“a downer, a whiner.” A blazing argument in Arkansas got Gram Maced and beaten up by local police and sent off for a night in jail. Phil Kaufman describes the scene in his book Road Mangler Deluxe: “We heard screaming and yelling coming from the room next to ours. Gram and Gretchen were beating each other up once again. They couldn’t find the stash … . I was in the Blytheville police station and I could hear Gram mouthing off. Every time he’d mouth off, I heard the thud of a nightstick hitting bone. Gram just wouldn’t shut up.” As the music got better, Gretchen got worse and was finally forced to go back home. The blistering fights continued when Gram got back to L.A. Even when Emmylou’s boyfriend arrived, Gretchen continued to fly into jealous rages.

  There was an inevitable last ditch to save the ruined marriage. In the spring of 1973 Bob Parsons and his wife, Bonnie, invited Gram and Gretchen on a cruise to the West Indies. But instead of rest and relaxation, Gram was forced to listen to his drunken stepfather unload his guilt, revealing that he had made martinis for Avis in the hospital, hastening her death. Gretchen said that Gram was traumatized by the disclosure and started having seizures. Following a stay in the hospital, Gram was back in rehearsals with Emmylou. He wrote one of his finest songs, “In My Hour of Darkness,” after he lost three friends: Dear Brandon de Wilde was killed in a car accident, guitarist Clarence White was killed in a hit-and-run, and Gram’s dealer, Sid Kaiser, died of a heart attack. “Death is a warm cloak,” Gram told Crawdaddy magazine. “An old friend. I regard death as something that comes up on a roulette wheel once in a while. It’s sad to lose a close friend. I’ve lost a lot of people close to me. It makes you a little bit stronger each time. They wouldn’t want me to grieve. They would want me to go out and get drunk and have one on them.” At Clarence’s funeral Gram broke down, telling Phil Kaufman not to let anybody bury him. “You can take me to the desert and burn me. I want to go out in a cloud of smoke.” Gram’s house burned down a week later. All he saved was a handful of lyrics. He stayed briefly with Gretchen at her father’s house but soon moved in with Phil Kaufman. His marriage was over; he would soon file for divorce.

  Gram and Emmylou rehearsed hard for the second album, Grievous Angel, and it paid off well. Emmylou was thrilled. “I finally learned what I was supposed to do,” she said. “I felt like Gram was on his way to getting himself under control.” Gram was delighted with Grievous Angel, telling friends he had finally made the record he had always wanted to make. With a tour of Europe scheduled, Gram was looking forward to a few relaxing days in the desert.

  Taking along his roadie Michael Martin, Martin’s girlfriend, Dale McElroy, and an old flame, Margaret Fisher, Gram left for Joshua Tree on September 17, renting two rooms at his favorite haunt, the Joshua Tree Inn. So much pot was smoked that Michael had to go back to L.A. for more, leaving Gram with the two women. He drank and shot his meals the next day, and that evening he had a close call. According to Dale, Margaret ran into her motel room, asking for some ice cubes because Gram had OD’d. “I did what she asked and arrived at this other room to find Gram on the floor unconscious,” Dale recalled. “Margaret quickly took down his pants and pushed two or three ice cubes up his ass. To my astonishment, in a matter of seconds, he had regained consciousness, had made some joke about what we were doing with his pants down, had gotten up and was walking around the room.” A little later Margaret returned to Dale’s room, asking Dale to sit with Gram while she went to get some coffee. Gram slept while Dale read, but when his breathing “turned into a guttural rasping sound,” she gave him mouth-to-mouth for twenty minutes. Afraid that there was no one else in the hotel, Dale kept trying to revive Gram, but soon realized that she was losing him. “I found out later that there had indeed been other people in the motel at the time. Had I yelled out, somebody else might have been able to get an ambulance for him and Gram might still be alive today … . I made a mistake and the guy died.”

  When Margaret came back, she called an ambulance and Gram was taken to the Hi-Desert Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 12:15 A.M.

  Dale said she was the last to see Gram alive. Margaret insisted she had been alone with Gram and given him mouth-to-mouth but it was too late. She told the San Bernardino County coroner that she left Gram at about eight P.M. to get something to eat, stating that he “did not look well.” When she called “some friends” to check on Gram at eleven o’clock and couldn’t reach anybody, she hurried back to the Joshua Tree Inn and found that Gram wasn’t breathing. To add to the mystery, the son of the motel owners, Alan Barbary, had his own version of what happened. He and Gram drank tequila all day long, smoked some pot, and when Alan left for a swap meet, he believes Gram scored some morphine. When Alan returned at ten P.M., he says he found Gram in bed with one of the girls on her knees masturbating him, calling his name, pleading for him to wake up.

  Phil Kaufman was called and he arrived in Joshua Tree an hour and a half later, scooping up the women and taking them back to L.A. They were never questioned by the police.

  The official cause of death: “drug toxicity, days, due to multiple drug use, weeks.” Weeks, months, and years, actually. Years and years. The autopsy report described puncture wounds on the back of Gram’s left hand, along with other scars in the left elbow. Cocaine, amphetamines, and morphine were found in his system.

  Acting fast, Bob Parsons arrived in L.A. to claim Gram’s body. By burying him in New Orleans, Bob hoped to establish that Gram was a resident, and glom on to his estate. Without discussing it with Gretchen or anyone else, Bob planned the funeral, telling Gram’s friends it would be a family affair.

  Phil Kaufman, remembering his promise to Gram at Clarence White’s funeral, decided to try and help out his old buddy. After finding out which airline was shipping Gram’s body to New Orleans, Phil and roadie Michael Martin borrowed Dale’s funky old hearse, claiming they were to collect “the Parsons remains” because the family had decided to use a private plane. They loaded Gram’s coffin into the hearse and took off for Joshua Tree. When the two bombed-out thieves reached Cap Rock, they somehow got the coffin out of the hearse and lifted the lid. “It squeaked open and there was Gram lying there naked,” Phil reported. “As a matter of fact, later on the police tried charging us with stealing jewelry and clothing off the body. I told them he was naked. All he had was surgical tape on his chest where they had done the autopsy … .” Phil poured gasoline all over Gram and set him on fire. “We watched the body burn. It was bubbling … you could see it melting … . His ashes were actually going up into the air, into the desert night. The moon was shining, the stars were shining, and Gram’s wish was coming true … .”

  G
ram got more press for being scorched in the desert than for his heart-boggling musical legacy. When I told people I had just lost a dear friend, Gram Parsons, they would say, “Oh, wasn’t he that guy who was burned up in the desert in some sort of weird ritual?”

  Phil and Michael were arrested for grand theft of a coffin, since there were no laws against stealing a body (Phil later called it “Gram Theft Parsons”). The day before the arrest, what was left of Gram was buried in a simple New Orleans cemetery, the Garden of Memories, under a gravestone that reads “God’s Own Singer,” the title of a Byrds song that Gram had nothing to do with. Bob Parsons never got any of Gram’s coveted inheritance and died a year later from alcohol abuse.

  On November 5, Phil and Michael pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft and were each given a thirty-day suspended jail sentence and fined three hundred dollars. It would have been Gram’s twenty-seventh birthday. To help pay legal costs Phil had a truly tacky event called “The Gram Parsons Funeral Party,” charging five dollars to watch Bobby “Boris” Pickett mince between papier-mâché tombstones, singing “Monster Mash.” Phil sold G.P. T-shirts and bottles of beer labeled “Gram Pilsner—A Good Stiff Drink for What Ales You.” Tasteless and crass items, but I still have both of them.

  A couple of weeks after Gram died I went to the Joshua Tree Inn and spent the night in room number eight, sending him love and praying for light on his long white ride.

  “Gram was special,” said Keith Richards. “If he was in a room, everyone else became sweet. Anything that Gram was involved in had a touch of magic to it.”

  “He cut straight through the middle with no compromises,” Emmylou Harris said. “He was never afraid to write from the heart, and perhaps that’s why he was never really accepted. It’s like the light was too strong and bright, and people just had to turn away … because it was all too painful. It could rip you up. Not many people can take music that real.”