It had also started to become more and more noticeable that cocaine was gaining popularity. At random moments people you’d least expect would offer you a little dab on a teensy, tiny little spoon—like one might offer a pinch of snuff in the old days. For all of us who smoked cigarettes, it made the experience more rewarding. Smoking and speed, I think, were born on the same day. A well-worn phrase was “This drug’s nonaddictive. You know, like a good cup of espresso.”
—
Various magazines were calling Albert’s office, wanting to do articles on the Band. Curiosity was growing in our absence, and they said we needed some current photos, “just to show you’re still kicking.”
I said, “There’s an interesting photographer I heard about recently. He captures shadows and auras and reflections. Maybe that would be suitable for a situation like this.”
We got in touch with the photographer and he came to Woodstock to scout for locations. Rick suggested some places that had some mystery to them. We all gathered at one setting, but the photographer didn’t feel the light was quite right there. He suggested going to another area where a stream led into a pond. “We may have to remove our shoes there to get the right image in the water,” he said.
I thought this was getting interesting, the way he was visualizing different shots, with sunlight bouncing off the water and casting shadows. Garth took off his shoes and splashed through the shallow stream; he found a stafflike stick and waved it in the air like Moses. Rick was quick to follow, playing mountain man as he fought the current. Our photographer and his assistant meticulously studied the angle of the sun and placed cameras accordingly. They found the perfect spot where an image reflecting in the water was vivid and clear. He asked us to stand in a specific spot at the edge of the pond to get the right angle. The camera was facing down to catch our image off the water. “Yes. Yes, that’s it,” he said as he finished adjusting our positions.
He walked back to the camera as the assistant wiped the lens. He looked through the viewfinder, looked up at us, looked back through the lens, turned the focus, looked at his assistant, turned his eyes to the sky, and looked back through the camera, twisting and turning, zooming and focusing. We didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but we stood there patiently. As all this unfolded, he seemed to be growing increasingly agitated. He put a different lens on the camera, made his assistant look through it, then pushed him aside so he could adjust it himself. He looked up at us almost angrily. He lifted the camera off the tripod and moved around with it, scurrying along the water’s edge back and forth. Finally he said to his assistant, “Okay, that’s enough! Let’s get out of here.”
“Did you get what you wanted?” I called out. “Did you get the shot?”
“I got nothing,” he fumed. “There’s nothing to get. I have to go.”
“Wait,” I said, “what’s going on? What’s the problem?”
He abruptly threw his equipment in his bag. “No reflection! There is absolutely no reflection. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what it is with you people, but you have no reflection, and I can’t deal with this. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
And with that, he and his assistant turned and left. The boys and I looked at one another for a moment and then we all cracked up.
“I should have warned him beforehand about our lack of reflections,” Garth joked, “but I got hung up watching the birds mating.”
“I didn’t like his aura,” added Richard.
Levon waved it off. “You know how I feel about taking pictures. He’s a weird son of a bitch, anyway.”
“Look, Lee! I can see your reflection right there.” Richard pointed down at the water. “I can see everybody’s reflection. Look! That moron was set up on the wrong side of the pond. I guess we’re not vampires after all.” It was considered a perfect disaster among the members of the Band—it almost felt like home.
But in the weeks leading up to the release of Rock of Ages, whenever I called for a meeting with the boys, I could tell something was wrong. Richard rarely showed up, and the other guys seemed to be there in body but not in spirit. Sometimes I would go over to Levon and Libby’s house to watch the Arkansas Razorbacks while Levon whipped up some popcorn. One afternoon, I talked about our making a new record and some different musical approaches, about working on some tracks together and seeing if anything might turn into a song.
“Throw it! Throw it! Oh, hell…he got sacked,” Levon yelled at the TV.
I called Rick to see if he wanted to get together and talk about some ideas for new songs. He said that he was going to Florida with Fred Neil to work on the Dolphin Research Project, Fred’s organization focused on protecting dolphins. I respected Rick’s ambition to support him, and we made plans to get together, soon as Rick got back. But he didn’t know when that would be just yet.
Garth came by my studio and I played him some of my tapes of nocturnal creature sounds. We talked about my idea for a piece called “The Works”—maybe we could do it in conjunction with the National Film Board of Canada? I waited for a response, but when I sat up and looked over at Garth, he had dozed off. He wasn’t making a statement by falling asleep; Garth’s narcolepsy caused him to doze at random times, day or night. Still, I would have liked a little volleying on these ideas. When Garth finally did open his eyes, he started talking about a new instrument modification he was working on. I didn’t have any idea what he was describing, but had no doubt it would sound great.
When I stopped by Richard’s house, the drapes were closed. Richard hadn’t written much in a couple years, and I hoped to stir him up a bit. I think he was caught off guard. He looked drawn and glassy-eyed. He scrambled to throw on a shirt and clear stuff off his living room coffee table as I said hello to Jane, who was busy in the kitchen.
“What’s been happening, Rich?” I asked once we’d sat down. “What have you been up to?”
“Aw, not too much,” he said. “Mostly just feeding the cats. Yeah, I gotta change that kitty litter.”
I asked if he’d be up for setting a writing schedule; see if we could come up with material for a new record. But he said that he hadn’t been feeling too good lately. “Kinda achy all over. Sometimes I get the chills. No energy.”
“You ought to go see Dr. Ed in Middletown,” I told him. “Let him fix you up. You do look unhealthy, to be honest.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I need to do that.”
As I got up to leave, I called to Jane, “Make sure Rich goes to Dr. Ed. He needs some medicine, get him back on his feet.”
Instead of going right back to my place, I drove up on the mountain. I thought, Well, I’ve made the rounds. Knocked on everybody’s door and came away with nothing. I used to be able to rev everybody up—get the blood flowing in the right direction. Either I was losing my touch, or there was nobody home. What the hell are we going to do next? I wondered. I didn’t like being affected by the negative energy around me. I didn’t want to be a victim of these circumstances, but damn, it was hard to be in a band and not feel torn down at a time like this. It doesn’t pull you in, it pushes you away.
When Rick got back from Florida, I called a meeting. It got postponed twice, and the third time Richard still didn’t show. And when Levon and Rick arrived, they looked incredibly stoned.
“Guys—level with me,” I said. “What’s happening?”
Levon started to speak. “Well, we’ve run into…” He stopped and closed one eye, like he’d lost his train of thought.
Rick lit a cigarette. “Some guys we know laid a bunch of China White on us, and we didn’t have the nerve to say, ‘No, thank you.’ ” Oh, man, here we go again, I thought. Fucking heroin. Rick continued, “Personally, I’m just checking it out and letting it go before I get in too deep. Lee, how you feeling about it?”
Levon opened his eyes and lifted his head. “No, man, I ain’t gonna fuck with that shit too much, but I can’t say the same for brother Rich. I believe ol’ Beak’s done bit off more tha
n he can chew already.”
I looked over at Garth. He had a deep sadness in his eyes at this news about Richard. None of us knew a damn thing about rehab or finding help for addicts and alcoholics. I had brought up the name Alcoholics Anonymous with Richard a couple of times in the past, but he wouldn’t hear it. Somebody we knew had mentioned a clinic in Switzerland, but Switzerland was far enough away that nobody took the suggestion seriously.
Levon and Rick came back a week later, looking more clear-eyed and concerned about what we were going to do with our future. But again, Rich wasn’t able to show up. We called him daily. We pleaded with him. We yelled at him. There were offers coming in to play concerts and Albert kept asking for answers, but we didn’t have many. We even discussed having to replace Richard in the group and went over to his house to give him an ultimatum. He looked haggard and broken inside. He swore he’d pull it together with everything he had, immediately. We said we’d be back in two days to hear his thoughts and how he planned to get better. This was it, we told him—the end of the line for excuses.
As we left Richard’s house, I said, “Well, if nothing else, we could put out a book of excuses.”
Rick smirked. “Yeah, I got the first two chapters written already.”
God, we wanted to help Richard, but we were so ill equipped. All we had was a bunch of love and anger for the guy—and a pocketful of threats.
When we returned, he had a crazy positive look in his eye. “I’ve got it,” he said enthusiastically. “Right here in these two old medical journals. It’s written right here, from during the time of Freud and Huxley. My problem, which you have obviously figured out, is that I have a severe habit. Totally strung out on this China White, and I’m terrified of kicking. Withdrawal could send me into shock and even kill me.” His hands were shaking as he took a sip of coffee. “According to Sigmund Freud and other doctors, the way to kick a major addiction to shooting heroin is to replace it with injecting high-quality cocaine. No withdrawal symptoms. And cocaine is not addictive, so I can stop as soon as I’m over the hump! Isn’t that incredible? And they knew that back in the twenties!”
Garth, Rick, Levon, and I looked at one another like we had just been told the world was flat. Richard continued, “I’ve already scored the coke. I’m getting rid of the junk, and I should be up and at ’em in a week or two, ready to go to work.” He seemed so hopeful and determined. I didn’t know whether to congratulate and hug him or call the loony wagon. We left scratching our heads. His plan sounded crazy, but if it worked, we’d take it.
Our next visit to Richard’s, though, was tremendously alarming. He looked wired to the hilt, trembling all over. My heart sank. He explained to Levon and Rick that he thought he was almost past the heroin withdrawal, but shooting coke was really strange. Suddenly he jumped up and smacked the wall with his open hand. “Did you see that?” he murmured. “Goddamn bugs everywhere.” I asked Richard what the marks were all over the walls. He said that’s where he’d had to burn the bugs that were crawling around. Shooting cocaine had given Rich the DTs, and seeing him in the midst of this madness brought tears to my eyes.
Over the next couple of weeks, we managed to get the needles and cocaine away from Richard, and he started slowly to gain some strength and confidence. But the craziest part was, while seeing this terrible, disturbing thing that cocaine did to Richard, the rest of us found it totally sane to continue snorting it. None of us were angels. We all had our own personal demons to chase, and the race was on.
Around this same time, one night Dominique and our nanny, Nicóle, said they were going down to the bar at the Bear for a glass of wine. I watched the kids and caught up on a little reading while they were gone. When they got back to the house, I could hear them giggling downstairs and I came down to see what was so amusing. They both looked happy—whispering and laughing so much I couldn’t tell what was so funny. Finally Dominique said, “I’ve made a wonderful discovery. We were going for a glass of wine, and instead we decided to order a drink. A ‘cocktail’ you call it…right?” And they both broke out laughing again. “Well, we ordered a drink with vodka, which I’ve never done in my life before! It was so great we couldn’t believe it…and then we had one more, and we haven’t stopped laughing—it was like the first time you smoke grass. So much fun!”
When Dominique and I went upstairs, she said, “Have you ever had any vodka drinks?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I drank some scotch years ago, but you know, mostly just some wine with dinner.”
“You should try vodka. It’s really fun.”
—
Albert had been doubling down on Bearsville. He bought another piece of land up Ricks Road called Turtle Creek, with accommodations where visiting musicians could stay. The land also held a barn, which he converted into another recording facility. I started meeting the guys there every morning, trying to get something going. The idea was to work on new material and to try to get everybody involved. For a few weeks, we tried all kinds of different approaches to discovering new songs. It made Richard feel discouraged, not being able to write, and he stopped coming. Everybody else was game. But nothing was going anywhere. It took about a month before I finally got it through my thick skull, once and for all, that some people write and some people don’t.
Still, I wanted to think of a way we could have some enjoyment in the recording studio. So I asked the guys what they thought of cutting some of the tunes we used to play in clubs back in our days as the Hawks. Everybody seemed up for that, knowing it would mean a lower level of pressure. As quickly as I made the suggestion, though, it occurred to me that the original recordings of songs are usually my faves. And going “back” could feel tired or strained too. Almost immediately I started imagining other songs besides our old repertoire that we could tackle with a new challenge.
I took a trip to LA to feel out the record company on the concept. Albert thought it was a good idea to show up anyway, because we’d been MIA for several months. It seemed like every time I went to the Capitol tower for a meeting, the company had a new president. This time I met Bhaskar Menon, an executive from India via London, where he had held a special position at EMI. There was something very likable about Bhaskar. No hustle, no jive—just down-to-earth and classy. I told him what we wanted to do for our next album.
“There is no question what your fans and the public would most like from you,” he replied. “They would wish for a stunning album of new songs. We know that. But sometimes it’s healthy to throw them a curve. If you do a record of cover songs that you choose and do it very well, which I’m sure you will, I applaud the idea.”
While I was in LA, I got messages from Jon Taplin and our lawyer, David Braun, saying that the head of Asylum Records, David Geffen, wanted to meet with me. I didn’t know much about David’s background, but they strongly encouraged me to check him out. They both said the same thing: “He’s a fascinating character.”
So one day, late in the afternoon, I stopped by the Asylum Records building on Sunset. This sure didn’t look like any record-company offices I’d seen before. Things here seemed much more relaxed and informal. Inside they pointed me to David Geffen’s office. The door was open and there was no “He’s on a call, take a seat, would you like some water?” No pretense. Just a warm welcome: “Hi! Come on in. Nice to meet you, I’m a huge, huge fan.” Within ten minutes, David was telling me about a conversation he’d had with his therapist that day.
“You go to a shrink?” I asked. “Does it help?”
He laughed. “I hope so. I go five days a week, so it better! I want to be happy, if I can, and I’m willing to work on it. Don’t you want to be happy?”
“Sure,” I said. “But maybe I should stop watching all those depressing Ingmar Bergman movies.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “But sometimes watching depressing things can make you feel better about yourself.” Then he added, “Your fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell is living with me. We’re hou
semates. She’s a genius. It’s not easy living with a genius, but I love her.”
I had never met anybody this open, this candid. David was the extreme opposite of most people from my background, who kept their inner thoughts closely concealed, but he made me feel totally comfortable. Before long, David knew the Band’s deal with Capitol, how many records we owed them, practically my Social Security number. Something clicked for us, and I liked him right away. David was just a few months older than me, and before I left his office, I felt like I had known him for years. As I got up to leave, he invited me to his house for dinner that night. “I’ll ask some friends over, and you can say hello to Joni,” he said. “Come—we’ll have a terrific time.”
So that night I put on my new blue suede jacket and headed to Beverly Hills. The place was beautiful; it was Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews’s old house and just the kind of place a movie star like Julie Andrews should live. David’s idea of a few friends dropping by for dinner was screenwriter Robert Towne, who was in the process of writing Chinatown; Jack Nicholson, who was always a joy to run into; and Warren Beatty, very funny and smart but way too good-looking. I think the brilliant writer Buck Henry was in and out as well. Then there was Joni Mitchell, who looked angelic, like a translucent blond Indian. When we sat down for dinner, I realized David was right. This wasn’t a party—just a Tuesday night with interesting friends. But I soon noticed that everybody here was on a mission. Everyone was relaxed but working. All eyes in the room were casting about for what might be right for their next project. That electricity was intoxicating, and my battery was in need of a jolt.
After dinner, Joni told me she had a new song almost finished. There were a couple of acoustic guitars in the living room, and she picked one up, changed the tuning, and motioned for me to pick up the other. Then she soared off into the cosmos with her angelic voice. I tried to follow her on guitar, but between her unusual tunings and obscure fingering, I was a man in search of the lost chords. When she got to the part where she hadn’t finished all the words, she just started scatting and broke up laughing. Everybody had gathered around and cheered, urging her to sing another one.
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