It would go down in history as rock & roll’s Tour From Hell: the Winter Dance Party of 1959 that took place exactly 50 winters ago in February. As their heat-deprived yellow converted Baptist-school tour bus went slipping and sliding in subarctic temperatures along the ice-laced highways of the Upper Midwest, a dozen shivering young musicians inside whiled away the hours huddling under blankets, catnapping, cardplaying, storytelling and making music together on acoustic guitars. Among the riders were the 22-year-old Buddy Holly, one of the radiant lights of 1950s rock & roll, from Lubbock, Texas; the 17-year-old Ritchie Valens, a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, from California’s San Fernando Valley; the 19-year-old Dion DiMucci (better known as Dion) and the Belmonts — soon to rise to the top of the charts with “A Teenager in Love” — from the Bronx; and the 28-year-old group elder, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, a … [Read more...] about The Last Days of Buddy Holly
Millie bobby brown
Jim Morrison Lives: The Legacy of the Lizard King
Jim Morrison, 1981: Renew My Subscription to the Resurrectionby Rosemary Breslin Kelly’s mother picked up the phone for the fifth time that night. It was for sixteen-year-old Kelly. “Who’s speaking?” the mother asked. “Eddie,” the boy answered. “I’ve got it,” Kelly shouted. When Kelly hung up the phone, her mother inquired, “Who’s Eddie?” “A friend,” Kelly replied. “Where’s he from?” She didn’t like the sound of the accent. “Oh, I think he’s from Spain,” Kelly said and slid out of the den. Puerto Rican, the mother worried. Just what she wanted for her blond-haired, green-eyed daughter. The next day, she was cleaning Kelly’s room. In a small wooden frame on the bureau was a picture of a young man. His hair was long and curly. He wore no shirt. His arms were spread out as if he were being crucified. When Kelly arrived at her Long Island home that afternoon, … [Read more...] about Jim Morrison Lives: The Legacy of the Lizard King
Good Old Grateful Dead
But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilise me and I can’t stand it. I been there before. – Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn The Dead didn’t get it going Wednesday night at Winterland, and that was too bad. The gig was a bail fund benefit for the People’s Park in Berkeley, and the giant ice-skating cavern was packed with heads. The whole park hassle – the benefit was for the 450 busted a few days before – had been a Berkeley political trip all the way down, but the issue was a good-timey park, so the crowd, though older and more radical than most San Francisco rock crowds, was a fine one in a good dancing mood, watery mouths waiting for the groove to come. The Airplane were on the bill too, so were Santana, the Act of Cups, Aum, and a righteous range of others; a San Francisco all-star … [Read more...] about Good Old Grateful Dead
Willie Nelson: Holy Man of the Honky Tonks
The desk man at the Greensboro, North Carolina, Holiday Inn shook his head when I asked for Willie Nelson. “Got no Willie Nelsons today.” He turned away officiously and resumed cleaning his fingernails with a Holiday Inn matchbook. He was about as encouraging as my cab driver had been: “You goin’ to see Willie Nelson? Man, he was a no-show last week. They had ta haul that Wet Willie in; he play instead. You see Willie Nelson, you tell him for me, ‘Man, you die fast in this town.’ “ I went back to the Holiday Inn desk man: “See here, I was really looking for the party of Fast Eddie and the Electric Japs.” “Well, goddamnit, why dincha say so.” He started thumbing through registration forms: “Lemme see, Mr. Eddie ain’t here yet, but Mr. Snake is, Mr. Poodie is, Mr. Beast is . . . “ “Okay, gimme Snake’s room number.” Poodie, who is Willie’s road manager, and Beast, his cook and … [Read more...] about Willie Nelson: Holy Man of the Honky Tonks