Testimony

by Robbie Robertson

  “It can also be the key to death,” Wally joked.

  Pat said she was a great tree climber; even as a child, she never saw a tree she couldn’t climb, so if there were any animals on this island, they couldn’t catch her. Then Marlon looked around the table with his chin raised, like Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty. “Well, you’re all wrong, and you could never survive beyond me.” He looked over at me. “You know why?”

  I gently shook my head no.

  Marlon rubbed his chin slowly with his thumb. “I’ll tell you why. Because I’m the only one here who wouldn’t feel bad about eating the rest of you.”

  Later, when I told Richard, Garth, and Rick about my Brando experiences, they fell apart laughing and pointed out that my hanging with Pat might not be the healthiest of pastimes. I related the story to Bob, and he said, “Yeah, Marlon’s coming to the concert Sunday night.” Bob had arranged for Marlon and his friends to come to our Santa Monica show. They were seated in the front row, and while we were playing, I couldn’t help every once in a while glancing down at Brando sitting dead center, looking on bemused, as if studying lions devouring Christians. It was an odd feeling—as if he was the only one in the audience.

  When they came backstage after the show to say hello, Bob asked Marlon right away what he thought. Marlon said he liked being able to hear the words clearly in the first part, the acoustic set. Then he grew more animated and said, “When I was a young man, about fifteen years old, one day I stood just a few feet away from a railroad track as a long freight train went roaring by. I made myself just stand there until it passed. That was the loudest thing I have ever witnessed, until tonight.”

  “Nah,” said Bob. “This was an easy night. We usually play much harder than this.”

  —

  To celebrate the end of the North American tour, we had a little party for the crew who wouldn’t be going overseas with us, which included the Lodestar pilots who had flown us to every gig. About two or three hours into the party, our chief pilot, Tony, and his copilot came over to wish us good luck on the next leg of the tour. Tony shook our hands with a warm, teary smile on his face. He took a sip from his drink and pointed his finger at me and said, “Plenfo wifguy omsee mimfer sliba grevabebe.”

  “Sorry, Tony, I didn’t catch that,” I said.

  He slapped himself on the cheek and grinned. “Imen lofla togar.”

  The copilot stepped in and said, “I think what he’s trying to say is he’s sorry for getting upset with you guys for smoking that stuff on the plane.” I looked at Tony and he nodded his head in agreement. He was completely smashed and nearly tipped over. Rick grabbed him, held him up, and said, “Tony, I can’t tell you how happy I am that you saved this debauchery till the end of the tour.”

  At the beginning of April, Bob, Albert Grossman, and I listened to a test pressing of Bob’s new album, which he had named Blonde on Blonde. I told them that as much as I had thought “Visions of Johanna” would be my favorite song on the record, I was now leaning toward “Just Like a Woman.”

  Albert agreed. “There are so many artists that could do a great cover of that song.”

  “Like who?” Bob asked.

  “I could hear Frank Sinatra doing it,” Albert said gleefully.

  I said, “You know who could sing the hell out of this and is my favorite singer in the world right now? Otis Redding.” Bob and Albert both lit up. “You could also give it to Richie Havens,” I added. “He’d do a beautiful job, but maybe get it to Otis first.”

  It just so happened that the night before we were scheduled to leave for Hawaii to kick off a new tour, Otis was playing the Whisky a Go Go nightclub on Sunset Boulevard. Victor made arrangements for us to catch his show. I hadn’t seen Otis perform since the Buffalo show I went to with Levon, Connie B., and Mama Kosh. This time we were going to get to meet Otis as well. At around ten he took the stage and sang for an hour, and his performance knocked me out. After the show we hooked up with Otis and his manager, Phil Walden. Otis looked ageless—he could have been twenty-one or forty-one. He had a deep warmth in his eyes, and that voice—it had a shimmer to it even when he was just talking.

  Bob played the acetate of “Just Like a Woman” and they absolutely loved it. Otis quietly sang, “and she aches…just like a woman.” He broke into laughter and said, “Man, I dig that song!” I sat with Phil Walden for a few minutes talking about all kinds of music. “Who came up with the idea for Otis to do this song?” Phil asked.

  I just winked at him and he hugged my shoulder.

  Later I heard Otis went into the studio to record that song and couldn’t get through it. When he got to the bridge and the part about “amphetamine and pearls,” he couldn’t get those words to come out of his mouth. It just didn’t fit, and he had to scrap the idea. Richie Havens did a version of it, though, and it turned out to be a stunner.

  Hawaii, Australia, Europe. Marco Polo has nothing on us, we thought. Bob’s tour was taking us on our first venture out of North America to the other side of the world. Soundman Richard Alderson was joining us for this leg of the tour with a much cleaner, more powerful sound system. Richard was an outstanding sound mixer and thankfully very familiar with Bob’s music.

  We were all excited, but I especially got a kick out of how much Garth enjoyed traveling: his curiosity and enthusiasm were contagious. On landing in Honolulu, right away he asked, “Anybody want to go check out Pearl Harbor?” Richard, Rick, and I looked at one another, not quite knowing how to respond—it was hard to reconcile rock ’n’ roll with sightseeing. Mickey Jones ended up going with him—the two made good sightseeing buddies. But for me the highlight of Hawaii was the people—such warmth, such unique style, although like in most places around the world, Europeans had dominated and overwhelmed the native culture. Here, in 1966, their music survived with the incorporation of lap steel and slack-key guitars and ukuleles side by side with indigenous instruments. Their island melodies and tender vocals were like a Maui breeze, and could there be a more dreamy, sensual dance than the hula?

  We played a Saturday show at the International Center in downtown Honolulu. True to the laid-back vibe that pervaded Hawaii, the audience appeared somewhat neutral toward the Hawks’ part of the show—and that was a relief. Plus, we didn’t want to scare Mickey Jones away just yet.

  The flight from Hawaii to Australia took fourteen hours. (“Garth slept the whole way!” Mickey told me with amazement. I smiled. He just didn’t know Garth, who wasn’t so much sleeping as dreaming and avoiding chitchat.) When we arrived it felt like landing on the moon, but a certain familiarity set in when I saw the Australian flag—British Commonwealth indeed. Sydney was an impressive city, and we all felt a bit renewed being such a great distance from the chaos of the last few months. Maybe the Australians would receive what we were doing with open minds and fresh ears.

  The ground literally shifted beneath our feet when we performed for the first time in the round at Sydney Stadium on a rotating stage. The Australians didn’t know if they liked what we were doing or not, but as confusing as it was for them, it was worse for Mickey Jones. He’d heard that things could get crazy on these tours, but this was his first real taste of standing before the firing squad.

  The press in Sydney wasn’t encouraging either. Headline: SEND THE BAND BACK TO AMERICA. But we forged on. Bob had a few press conferences lined up and, as he often did, he asked a couple of us Hawks to come along. I was always game for witnessing these odd sessions where journalists tried to get to the bottom of Bob’s “ambitions.” Very few artists have done more entertaining press conferences than Bob. Bizarre, quick, challenging answers were dished out faster than the reporters or music writers could digest. In the past he’d made entire rooms explode with laughter or frustration as he fielded pretentious questions:

  “Do you think of yourself primarily as a singer or a poet?”

  “I think of myself as a song and dance man.”

  “What poets do you ad
mire?”

  “Oh, you know…Rimbaud.” He’d smile. “And W. C. Fields…”

  I remember Bob once purchasing a ventriloquist’s dummy and doing an entire conference with the dummy on his knee. Here in Australia the press seemed particularly naive—perfect for a ride on the Dylan express.

  We’d heard ahead of time that Melbourne was more of an artistic center and that we’d probably enjoy it there most of all. Sure enough, you could sense a pretty hip feeling in the air. Scores of interesting characters passed through our hotel doorway, as if a medicine show was in town—musicians with didgeridoos, aboriginal poets, writers, ballerinas. We never lacked for company. Bob and I shared a two-bedroom suite with a living room where we could meet with friends or play music, and our road manager would automatically put out two guitars for us whenever we arrived. Bob never seemed to have much of an appetite, so playing music often took the place of room service, and we got by on cigarettes and tea. In those hotel rooms I also found that Bob probably knew more songs than anybody walking the earth.

  Our bookers had arranged for us to play a television show in Melbourne, complete with a cheap set, corny flashing lights, the works. Afterward, we put together a little soiree at the hotel: Bill Avis rounded up some hashish and invited a few girls to come by. He gave Bob and me a big square chunk of hash and kept a nice stash for himself and the other guys.

  I hit it off that night with a very attractive girl named Lynn, while Bob shared stories with a small group that included a local poet. We knocked back a couple of fat spliffs and at around two in the morning, when Lynn looked like she was starting to fade, we retired to my room. As we crawled into bed, I realized how beautiful she was, with a strong resemblance to Charlotte Rampling, the gorgeous star of the film The Night Porter. We melted into one another, and just before we fell into blissful sleep, she whispered in my ear that she was seventeen years old.

  Too late, I thought as we drifted off. A couple hours later we were jolted awake. Three men in suits came busting into my room, scaring the hell out of Lynn and me. The first thing that flashed through my mind was that it was Lynn’s father. Holy shit, I thought, I’m busted for being with an underage girl.

  “Now get dressed and step out into the living room!”

  When we came out of the bedroom, Bob was standing there with a groggy expression while detectives searched the place. We were all in a daze except for Albert, who kept up a constant stream berating the police for barging in like this and threatening to make a formal complaint. The cops asked to see our passports and IDs. When they looked at the girl’s driver’s license, I thought, This is it. I’m screwed. But they just looked at her, checked her ID, handed it back to her, and told us to sit on the couch while they searched the bedroom for drugs. So that was what they were after. I should’ve guessed. But now I had a new worry: What had happened to the chunk of hash Bill gave us? Visions of our trial back in Toronto flashed through my head. If we got busted for drugs half the world away, this could derail us completely. We waited while the police searched the other guys’ rooms, with Albert hectoring them the whole time. This disturbance, he announced, was ruining the rest we sorely needed for our next performance. Albert was wearing a cap fit for a British gentleman: he looked sophisticated and properly outraged.

  Finally the detectives left, taking Bill with them—they had found some hash in his room. We fretted, not knowing what would happen next or what charges would be brought against Bill. Lynn left a bit shaken, though relieved not to have gotten in real trouble. Albert, Bob, and I tried to make sense of everything.

  “What happened to the chunk of hash we had?” I asked.

  Albert smiled. He took off his British gentleman’s hat to reveal the hash sitting on top of his head. I couldn’t believe it! He’d coolly spent the whole time giving the detectives hell for busting in and harassing us.

  We found out that Bill had slipped off with some guy’s girlfriend at the party and the guy was so pissed off, he’d called the police, swearing we had drugs. Albert said he’d talk to the police about it, adding, “I think they’ll let him go if we send him back to the U.S. or Canada.” And that’s exactly what happened. We felt terrible to see Bill go, but he said he understood completely and would see us back in Toronto. Exile was definitely preferable to jail.

  Albert’s humor sometimes had an edgier side. In Adelaide two days later, he and I went for a walk in the afternoon to check out the local scene. We were passing a butcher shop when Albert stopped suddenly, staring into the window. Hanging directly in front were three large pigs’ heads, mottled, pink, and terrifying. I followed Albert into the shop as he announced that he wanted to buy one of them. Laughing, I asked what in the world he was going to do with a damn pig’s head.

  “I’m going to send it to Mickey Jones’s room anonymously,” Albert replied with an air of satisfaction. “Just let him figure it out.” Hardly able to contain himself, he arranged with our hotel’s room service to have the pig’s head put on a tray, garnished with scattered greens and cherries in the eye holes, and delivered to Mickey’s room while he was out.

  When Mickey walked into his room and found the pig’s-head presentation, he got very upset. He didn’t think it was funny at all and racked his brain trying to figure out who had put it there and just what it was implying about him. “Are you saying I look like a pig?” he demanded. “Are you calling me a pig? Are you telling me I’m a joke? What the hell does this mean?” Albert said, “It only means what you want it to mean.” Mickey kept posing these questions to all of us until eventually he became so upset that Albert finally admitted that he was just playing games with him and meant no harm.

  —

  People in the more eastern Australian cities we’d played spoke of Perth like it was a no-man’s-land, faraway and backward. Looking out the airplane window during the long flight across the continent, the openness and vast spaces reminded me of the American Southwest desert. Only original peoples know what to do with this kind of terrain, I thought.

  In Perth, Garth and Mickey went on one of their discovery missions about town; Rick and Richard began searching, as usual, for where the fun might be; Albert and Victor amused themselves by harassing the staff at the hotel; and Bob and I played music, read, and hung out with aboriginal musicians. But just as we were settling in, Albert and Victor heard that the Australian government was sending more troops and personnel to Vietnam and had declared a military emergency. All international flights had been canceled out of Perth for five days. We had been scheduled to fly to London, where we could adjust to the time difference and catch our collective breath before starting the European leg of our tour in Sweden. Now we would have to cool our heels for five days in Perth, then fly directly to Stockholm. We’d practically be going onstage straight from the airport.

  For the first couple of days stuck in Perth, I felt the angst of being tied down and trapped. Then, somehow, somewhere, I met two delightful twin sisters who dreamed of going to America someday. The idea totally occupied their imaginations and I was the closest thing they had found so far. They were about to turn twenty-one and looked identical, playing tricks on me to keep me guessing who was who. They had green eyes, red hair, and pale flawless skin and each stood about five and a half feet tall. The guys thought it amusing to see me traipsing around with the twins on my arms. They came to stay with me at our hotel and brought little overnight bags with them that held matching flannel pajamas. We went to dinner and took long walks, and they told me crazy stories about their family. In return I plied them with tales about New York City, Los Angeles, and Toronto. We even went to a drive-in movie in a taxicab, where we saw Michael Powell’s incredible film Peeping Tom and endured a bit of Door-to-Door Maniac starring Johnny Cash—so much for being stranded in Perth.

  Circumnavigating the globe, all the way from the west coast of Australia to Stockholm, in 1966 no less, deserves a world traveler’s medal. We hopped from Perth to Singapore, then Malaysia, Thailand, Rangoon, an
d on to New Delhi, India, where we stopped at four in the morning to refuel. Crowds of people dressed in white milled around the air-conditioned airport. Outside it felt like a hundred degrees even in the dead of night. We were all completely exhausted, and we still had a stopover in Beirut. Talk about the joys of travel. We arrived in Stockholm red-eyed, tired, and dehydrated, with barely time to change clothes before a sound check at the Konserthuset, the elegant neoclassical hall where we’d be starting the European leg of the tour. Filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, whom everyone called Penny, met us at the Flamingo Hotel along with his cameraman/editor Howard Alk and Howard’s wife, Jones—known as Jonesy—who did sound. Pennebaker had filmed Bob’s 1965 tour of England for his documentary Dont Look Back. Albert had recently made a deal with ABC Television to produce a music documentary special, and Penny was on board to shoot this tour as well. Bobby Neuwirth was part of the team too, along with our live-sound engineer, Richard Alderson. Of the film crew, the Hawks knew only Neuwirth and Alderson, but the smiling faces of the rest told us it would be a good time hanging with this bunch. There were cameras every time you turned around, and I thought it might be awkward to be filmed constantly, but Penny and company were so good at remaining unobtrusive and discreet that we all managed to stay relaxed.

  Around the time the tour hit Belfast, I started getting concerned about Bob’s health. We were working more and more and he was eating less and less. He kept losing weight and appeared to be subsisting exclusively on tea, honey, and lemon. I would order extra food for myself to see if I could tempt him into putting something in his stomach. He took a couple of bites here and there, but not enough to sustain him for the kind of energy he put out when we performed.