Jerry projected a bunch of slides he’d shot of Bob onto a white wall. He gave a running commentary with each photo. “Oh, there’s a nice one. That’s too dark. That’s got nice composition but it’s out of focus.”
“Wait, go back,” Bob said. “I like that slightly blurry one.”
Jerry flipped back to it and laughed. “It looks like I don’t know how to focus my camera, but it is a cool shot.”
“I like it. Maybe that would be good for the cover,” Bob said.
“We can crop it here,” said Jerry, pointing to the middle of the shot. “Or block out the sides to make it fit the album format.”
“Since it’s going to be a double album,” I offered, “why not print it sideways, the whole length of the front and back cover?” They thought about it and agreed it would be unique.
At Ondine with Jerry and Bobby Neuwirth, Bob told me he was going back to Nashville to finish his new record. “This time, you should come,” he told me. “It’s great down there.” I mentioned I had been to Nashville with Ronnie Hawkins and found “they don’t take well to outsiders.” I asked if the other Hawks were coming, but Bob said it would be just me and Al Kooper. The studio was already booked, and we’d head there right after a mid-March show in Florida.
“Okay,” I said, “but I’m telling you—they don’t take kindly to strangers round those parts.”
Bob lit a cigarette. “I’m a stranger down there, and they treated me just fine.”
Bob and I had adjoining rooms at our hotel in Nashville, and I could hear his typewriter clacking away nearly all night. Al Kooper and I hung out a bit while Bob worked on song ideas. Al was a very humble guy, and said that Garth was a fantastic keyboard player. He thought the only reason Bob brought him was because nobody else would play such simple organ parts.
The next day, when we got to the Columbia studio, the musicians were already at their positions. You could see they had their system and everything was in order, microphones set, amplifiers baffled for sound separation. Bob Johnston, the producer, had this Nashville thing down, but I was a little suspicious of the “music factory” concept—the idea of a formula that was applied to most artists who passed through.
All the musicians greeted Bob like it was old home week. Al Kooper and I introduced ourselves, and although everybody was warm and inviting, you could tell the Nashville guys were hoping we were roadies. But as we were getting settled, I heard Bob Johnston telling the musicians that Al Kooper had come up with some catchy organ parts on Bob’s last album. “And Robbie there,” he added, “is a hell of a guitar player. He plays with the Hawks, the band that’s backing Bob on tour.”
Al and I sat out the first song, and I soon had a whole new appreciation for how the “new Nashville” studio scene felt. This crew was quick to come up with ideas and arrangements and to reset the baffles between them while Bob rewrote words on a music stand in the middle of the room. I really liked the way the different musicians passed around suggestions and ideas to one another, with Bob Johnston being the perfect filter.
The drummer Kenny Buttrey was very instrumental in helping to shape the arrangements. Joe South played bass or guitar, whatever was needed, and didn’t seem too bothered by anything you put in front of him. His guitar work particularly caught my attention. They brought in a terrific piano player, “Pig” Robbins, who instinctively knew where and what to play. He was blind, and everybody sensed that he could hear with greater precision than any of us. Jerry Kennedy and Wayne Moss were coming up with beautiful guitar parts right and left. Henry Strzelecki was probably the main bass player, but it was hard to tell, they changed up so quickly and frequently.
While I was sitting in the control room, Bob said over the microphone, “Robbie, why don’t you come play on this next one?” The studio went quiet and Johnston threw me a look that said, Good luck, kid. Welcome to the lion’s den. They showed me where to set up and loaned me an amp. There was definitely a chill in the room as I plugged in and tuned up. It almost felt like my playing on a track might throw off their whole system.
I had no idea what song we were going to do, but I was at the starting gate and feeling restless. Bob stopped writing, looked up, and said, “Okay.” The engineer asked what the name of this tune was. Bob answered, “Let’s call it ‘Five Believers’ for now.” We ran through a couple of verses, and then Charlie McCoy grabbed a harmonica and played a Roy Orbison “Candy Man” kind of lick and we kicked it off. The song broke meter in an interesting way, and Bob and I wailed like we were at a blues bar in Mississippi. By the time we’d finished the tune, the mood in the studio had completely changed. My extreme bending and quivering of notes wasn’t in any of these guys’ arsenals, so I wasn’t taking anybody’s job. They all came over and shook my hand after the playback. Bob Johnston said to the other musicians, “I told ya this cat could play! So what are you calling this song, Bob? ‘Five Believers’?”
I said with a bit of flair, “Obviously, ‘Five Believers’!”
Bob laughed, “Yeah, that’s good—‘Obviously Five Believers.’ ”
By the time we cut “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” I was settled in and had a blast tearing that one up. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on playing while hearing the outrageous words Bob kept belting out. The images in the song were hilarious, which made me want to play even looser. By now, Kenny Buttrey and the boys were making me feel part of the gang. It felt good breaking down these barriers, kind of like the shows we were doing, steadily up against the odds and making our own rules.
—
During our next trip to California for a run of shows, Bob and I stayed at a house called the Castle in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was a big, classic, Spanish-style house with a huge window that offered a view for miles, smog permitting. One fascinating thing about this place was that it sat right across the street from Ennis House, the classic Frank Lloyd Wright building that had been home to Bela Lugosi, the original Dracula in movies. He had a reputation for being a morphine addict, and you could imagine him holed up in this spooky fortress of a house for weeks at a time, peeking out the long, narrow windows to scan for police or intruders.
After getting settled in a downstairs bedroom that opened onto the garden, I went over to the Hyatt Hotel on Sunset, where the other guys were staying. We’d had word that Levon might be out in LA, and Richard asked me if I’d heard from him. I’d tried calling him the day before and again that morning, but no answer.
“If he wants to see us, he’ll get in touch,” Rick interjected. “Otherwise, I say leave it alone. Maybe he’s not in a very social place right now.”
Jim McGuinn of the Byrds came by to visit Bob and play a new track his group had just recorded called “Eight Miles High,” which would be released as a single the next week. You could tell he was excited about it, and he certainly stirred up my curiosity with his space-age description of the song. He took off his little rectangle-frame shades, wiped them with his shirt, and put the disc on the record player. He was right—it was spacey, quite a departure from their earlier folk-rock sound. Bob didn’t seem overly impressed.
“How’d you come up with that?” he asked Jim.
“Been listening to a lot of Coltrane. Trying to interpret that in my own way on the twelve-string guitar.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Jim answered. “Probably because I like it. Don’t you like John Coltrane?”
Bob laughed. “Sure, but I don’t try to copy his stuff.”
Jim smiled. “Well, maybe you should. It’s pretty good.”
It wasn’t uncommon at the Castle that over breakfast someone would offer you some grass or a hit of acid. I had tried LSD a couple times before and had some mind-opening experiences. We had a couple days off, and Rick and I thought, What the hell, it caps breakfast off quite nicely. We spent the morning playing a little music, looking at photographs, tripping and laughing. Later in the afternoon, Victor Maymudes, who had joined up with us
as Bob’s road manager, came out to the garden and asked me if I wanted to take a drive to the airport with him to pick up some equipment. I wasn’t that keen to be tripping out in traffic, but Victor talked me into it.
As we drove along, the warm wind blowing in my face was a glorious sensation. The scenery going by started bending and weaving impressionistically. When we arrived at the airport, Victor drove to the cargo area where deliveries were picked up and found a parking spot right in front, where trucks were coming and going.
“Wait here,” Victor said. “I’ll go grab the packages.”
It felt like I was sitting there for quite a while, but I couldn’t be sure if it was five minutes or fifty. I looked over at some large containers being hoisted in and men carrying them to vehicles—seemed like quite a production. I stared and stared until suddenly I realized: these containers held the bodies of soldiers that were being shipped back from the war in Vietnam. I broke into a sweat, closed my eyes, and cringed and withered in the car seat.
As Victor climbed back into the car, I pointed to what I had witnessed. Stunned, he said, “Holy shit! I’m sorry, man, this is horrible.” We peeled out of the lot. That night I reached out to my friend Ann Marshall for comfort. We both hated the idea of the war, and seeing the returning bodies had torn my guts out. We fell asleep in each other’s arms.
—
We had known it was going to come to this, but now it was upon us: Sandy Konikoff couldn’t find his footing as a drummer for the Hawks. It had never really worked for Bob, and now we knew there was going to be a change. Sandy could feel it coming too and took comfort that Levon, one of his heroes, hadn’t found his groove either.
Bob had seen a drummer from Texas playing with Johnny Rivers who he thought might fill the bill. We got together with Mickey Jones at Columbia Studios in Hollywood and played late into the night. Mickey was sturdy and powerful and had a right foot on the kick drum that could knock the lights out. It was hard filling Levon’s shoes, a fact Mickey was well aware of. He could certainly play drums with us for the upcoming tour, but he knew he was a gun for hire. Eventually we embraced Mickey with open arms. Garth especially helped make him feel comfortable, and Garth being such a loner made that twice as surprising to see.
In the meantime, Levon had finally gotten in touch with us, and a get-together had been arranged. I couldn’t wait to hear what he had going on out here in the City of Angels. The Hawks, including Sandy, caught up with Levon, and it was just like old times. I told him about some of our crazy adventures on tour and our new digs in New York City. Levon said that he and our friend Kirby Pennick had worked on an oil rig off the coast of New Orleans for a while, but they hadn’t found it all that appealing. I thought, I could have saved you boys some time on that one.
As great as it was to see Levon, something had changed for the rest of us Hawks. Experience had opened our eyes. We had always been responsible with our work, but this advanced touring schedule called for a higher level of focus, being on our game at all times. And it showed on our faces.
The girl Levon had been seeing in New York, Bonnie, had rented a place in Hollywood and they were living together. Both of them looked tired and ghostly. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but soon it became obvious: there was some serious drug experimentation going on here. Richard said he thought it was a shame to see Levon not really playing drums and wasting away. Rick said Bonnie had always had a strong relationship with pills, according to his girlfriend, Robin. We all took pills here and there, but this was a whole other program, and it sure looked like it was taking a toll.
—
Victor Maymudes asked us to join him for a little spiritual getaway in Taos, New Mexico. I would’ve liked to go since it was part of Indian country, but Bob and I had things to do in LA. People from both the music and movie worlds of Los Angeles were continuously coming and going. Bob took me on a lot of his ventures and rendezvous, and he couldn’t have had a more game comrade-in-arms.
We started hanging out with a savvy and gorgeous young actress named Pat Quinn, rumored to be Marlon Brando’s girlfriend. She had dark hair and intense eyes, and her loose spirit gave the impression that you couldn’t really cage this night bird. Pat was a few years older than me and gave off a vibe like she could handle herself and take care of you too. Bob invited her to accompany us on some of our rounds to clubs and get-togethers, and she fit right in. She knew the way in the front door and the way out the back.
One day Pat asked if Bob and I would like to go say hello to Marlon Brando, who was shooting a movie in town. So a couple of days later we went with Pat over to the set where they were shooting The Appaloosa. Pat took us through the guards and the gates with ease to where Brando was shooting a scene, and we were escorted up near the camera to watch.
“All quiet, okay, here we go,” a man called through a megaphone. The director waited a moment, stood up from his chair, and yelled, “Action!” I had never been on a movie set before, and the whole scenario felt intoxicating. Marlon took a few steps, peeled off some dialogue, and patted a horse on the neck before the director yelled, “Cut!” Marlon’s presence on the set was mesmerizing. After the scene ended, Pat waved to him and he started heading our way, but just then the film’s producer approached him.
“Marlon,” he moaned, “you act like you’re bored in these scenes, like you don’t mean a word you’re saying. The director, the other actors, nobody feels that you’re really committed. We can’t have this.”
Brando kept walking. “Who’s saying these things?” he asked. “I want to know who’s saying these things about me.” Then he stopped and glared at the producer. “Look at you, the lenses of your glasses are all dusty. How do you even know you’re talking to me?” The producer took off his glasses, shook his head, and walked away.
Pat threw her arms around Marlon’s neck as he smiled. “You see what I have to deal with? People think this job is easy.”
Pat laughed. “I know, baby, I know how hard you work. Here, I want you to meet Bob Dylan, and this is his guitar player, Robbie Robertson.” Marlon gave us solid handshakes and invited us to join him in his trailer. As Pat led the way, Marlon admired her from behind, closing his eyes for half a second, as if to say, God has surely blessed me…
Inside the trailer I sat on the couch, Pat sat beside me. Bob kept standing, inquiring about the movie. Marlon pointed to the couch where Pat and I were sitting. “That’s where I’ve been giving Anjanette Comer”—the lead actress in the movie—“massages for her back. She has a lot of tension. I’m trying to loosen her up.” He smiled, then asked us if we wanted drinks. “What would you like to drink?” he asked Bob.
“Tea, some hot tea with honey and lemon.”
“Nothing for me,” Pat said.
I said, “I’ll have a Coke, if you’ve got one.” He looked at me and looked at Pat. Then he walked to a small fridge and took out a bottle of Coca-Cola, stood right in front of me, and opened the bottle with his back teeth. He stared deeply at Pat as he handed it to me. “I’ll get the tea for Bob,” Pat said. “Be right back.”
What a charge, seeing Brando standing there in his cowboy costume, makeup on his face and hands. He asked Bob about writing songs and remarked that he’d always loved music and wished he had really devoted the time to learn to play guitar or piano well. He looked at my hands wrapped around the Coke bottle. “You play guitar?” I nodded. “Yeah, I wish I had learned properly. I can play a couple of chords or I can play ‘Three Blind Mice,’ but I’m mostly stuck pounding away on my bongo drums.”
After we’d said good-bye to Brando and made our way off the set, I thanked Pat for arranging the meeting and confessed, “My jaw dropped when he opened that Coke with his teeth.”
She laughed. “Yeah, he chipped a tooth doing that. But he don’t care.”
Pat had a nice little place in the Hollywood Hills where friends dropped by day or night. She invited Marlon and his buddy Wally Cox over one evening while Bob, Richard
, Rick, and I were visiting. Wally, who had played the four-eyed, pickleberry type Mr. Peepers on TV for years, was the last person you would think of as Brando’s running buddy, but he turned out to be cool and funny, even a bit salty. I chatted with him off and on while Bob and Marlon had a meeting of the minds, but I spent most of the time talking with Pat. I didn’t know the terms of her relationship with Marlon and didn’t want to get in the middle, but Pat’s open, free-spirited personality didn’t exactly help establish any boundaries. So I asked straight up what her situation was. She kissed me on the cheek and said, “I do what I want and he does what he wants. We are lovers, not prisoners.”
A few nights later I was over at Pat’s place with a couple of her friends when Marlon and Wally stopped by. When Marlon saw me there again, a look crossed his face that did not square with the description Pat had painted for me of their open-minded relationship. I tried to distance myself from Pat in the room, so as not to give Marlon the wrong impression. Hell, this was still the hot-tempered Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire.
All of a sudden Marlon said, “Hey, people, we’re going to play a game. Come here, gather round this table.”
I sat beside Wally, who whispered, “He likes games and mostly makes them up as he goes along. Hardly anybody ever gets killed.” Pat sat beside Marlon across the table and looked at me with sympathetic eyes, as if she had gotten me into something I really didn’t need.
“Okay,” Marlon began, “if the…one, two…seven of us were lost at sea and then stranded on a small island, which of us would survive the longest? Simply, which one of us would outlive the rest?”
One person offered that they always carried a small Swiss Army knife, which was all you needed to survive. Someone else said they grew up fishing with their father, and if you could fish, you’d never starve. When my turn came, I mentioned my native heritage and said, “As a kid, I was taught how to make fire. I know how to make flames from sticks and stones, and as we know from human evolution, the key to life is fire.”
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