MY LIFE IN THE DAY - Sally Stevens

FAREWELL, MRS. BURTON

  For people of a certain age, Elizabeth Taylor will always be an icon, in the company of James Dean, Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, Paul Newman - she was 'us,' in the way that true stars are.  A woman of great wit, with a giving spirit and a kind heart, a great actress and great beauty, who lived her life with enthusiasm and independence, despite personal set-backs and ongoing health problems. 

Then, like stars do, she blinked out, and on March 24 she was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Cemetery, close to her dear friend and fellow child star, Michael Jackson.  She was buried within 24 hours of her death, as required by Jewish law (she converted during her marriages to Mike Todd and then Eddie Fisher) and coincidentally died on March 22, the same date that Mike Todd died in 1958.  In true Taylor style, she was fifteen minutes late for her own funeral, at her request.  

Colin Farrell, a friend of Ms. Taylor's, who is rumored to be portraying Richard Burton in an upcoming biopic, read Gerard Manley Hopkins' The Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo, and her grandson, Rhys Tivey, played a trumpet solo of Amazing Grace.   

The great love of her life, Sir Richard Burton, a Welshman, was raised in Port Talbot in South Wales by his sister, and was known as Richie Jenkins, but to my grandmother and other housewives in the area, he was simply Richie The Bread - a Welsh tradition of identifying folks by their occupations, stemming from a limited supply of surnames, Jenkins being very common in those days. 

Family history has it that Richie The Bread would make his delivery run to wind up at Gamma's house and she'd have him in for a cup of tea and a biscuit and a bit of a chat.  She was very happy when he became so successful. 

He didn't have a mother, who had died after having 14 children, at age 46, leaving Richie to be raised by his sister in Port Talbot, and he certainly didn't have a grandmotherly person of his own to chat with, so he had my grandmother, who was also from a family of 14 children herself, and mother of 4.

My Dad, her youngest, ten years Richie's senior, became a very successful opthalmic surgeon after his war service in the RAMC, which netted him a few medals, particularly the Military Cross and an OBE.   Like Richie, Dad also left the Welsh valleys and struck out for the bright lights of London, quite a daring thing to do in those days. 

In an odd coincidence, Richie The Bread worked for Hopkins Bakery in Port Talbot.  My Uncle Percy, Dad's older brother, was married to Lillian Hopkins of the bakery family, who died when she was 92.  Sir Anthony Hopkins is her nephew and my second cousin, who carries on the acting tradition.  I have no idea if he knows of this connection to Sir Richard The Bread. 

I was told that when Liz and Richie visited the family in Port Talbot, she was unpretentious and very much liked by the Jenkins clan. 

 And so, farewell and much love to a great lady, Elizabeth Burton-Taylor, from your friends in the land of Wales. One of ours - home at last. 

 

 Richard Burton reads The Leaden Echo (video)

"WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE" REVIEW FROM 2009: THE EMPTY SEAT

On June 24, 2009, the Doors' documentary, When You're Strange, was screened for the first time in Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles Film Festival in Westwood.  It had already shown at Sundance in January. Because of the inclusion of footage from Jim's 1969 experimental film, HWY, which featured Jim as a performer as well as writer/producer, etc., the director of When You're Strange, respected writer/director Tom DiCillo (Johnny Suede, Living In Oblivion, Delirious, Box of Moonlight, as well as many episodes of Law and Order) was unjustly accused of hiring an actor to portray Morrison, albeit it by a fringe group.  Not true of course, but rankling nonetheless. 

I count myself among the group who found Oliver Stone's "The Doors" as irritating as cheap underwear.  This was probably a function of having known most of the principals on varying levels, which Stone did not, but it didn't sit well with me, and the exaltation of Jim Morrison as a mostly insenstive boor was particularly irksome.  We know he had his problems, but he lived his life the way he wanted to, achieved so much more than most 27 year olds ever do, and left this earth in a way that continues to provoke discussion and speculation.  He would have liked that.  An endless mystery.

However, from my observation,  and as his father notes, Jim was a basically decent human being, a person you'd want to know.  I wish Oliver Stone had known him.  I did, albeit briefly.

I reviewed the documentary right after I saw it, and thought I might post it here for those who haven't seen it yet.  It's available on DVD, with additional features, including a rare interview with Jim's father, Rear-Admiral George S. Morrison, who died in 2008, and Jim's sister Anne Chewning, who now controls the Morrison Estate.  When I first talked to Jim, it was apparent that he and I had the same father.  Wonderful men, no clue about what we were doing though and. in those days, vice versa. 

The day after the screening, June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died, also under clouded circumstances, still to be resolved.  You couldn't get into Westwood that day.  It was all cordoned off. Lucky for Jim and the movie that they beat that deadline.

So, the review - amended. 

"Just got back from the screening, so here's my first impressions.

Westwood was a zoo, but I found parking very quickly, right across the street from the Regent, and although the show was sold out, I got a good seat off to the right of the main block of seats,  just me and two women who likely had seen the Doors back in their early days. We got a bit of a late start, because of the huge amount of people.

Ray and Robby made a quick entrance through a side door, but were spotted by the crowd and got applause. Robby quickly waved and sat down, Ray played to the crowd a little more, of course. I'd say the crowd was largely film types, Doors fans from back when, a smattering of young men. I was the only one with an empty seat beside me.   

The producer of the LA Film Festival got up and read a short note from director Tom DiCillo, who was unable to attend, and then off we went.

Is it a great film? Yes, for 'casual' Doors fans and definitely for those wanting to know more about the band and the times. Ferrara's footage was very well utilized, and the editing was seamless.

It opens with a segment using  HWY footage, while Jim Ladd is heard on the car radio, announcing Jim's death from the original broadcast, as Jim, at the wheel of his Shelby, gets the news.   This idea to use outtakes from Jim's film was DiCillo's, who wrote the whole radio scene with Jim hearing his death on the car radio, reported by Jim Ladd. It's worth noting that this sequence doesn't exist in HWY, where there's no sound or dialogue at all. It was created from series of unconnected outtakes, pieced together to make it look like Jim was hearing something on the radio.

From there, the exploration of the Doors begins, looking at their early days, how the band was put together,  a recounting of how they were signed to Elektra by Jac Holzman, the first two albums, the clubs, lots of footage from concerts, funny interviews with fans - one got a big laugh, where a girl asks them if they were like the Monkees!

I'd say the written material lacks in detail, but for those who don't spend their lives diarying every move the Doors and Jim made, it's basically unimportant. Depp's narration is very low-key and unobtrusive, almost subliminal.

Miami is well explored, but so is New Haven, which seems to be where Jim's challenges to the establishment really began. As Jim continues to burn out, you can see how the other Doors became more and more terrified of what might happen, as he continues his reckless progress, further hampered by the emergence of his alter-ego, Jimbo.

 It's sadly apparent that Miami broke Jim's spirit. He has suddenly realized that he is not invincible, and the look in his eyes says everything. 

There is no footage of the performance at Miami, so DiCillo and the team created the entire eight minute sequence using scraps of footage from an unknown concert. The movie only shows Jim from behind because he had a beard at Miami. In the available footage he was beardless.

Obviously, most of Jim's problems stemmed from a sense of alienation and the overuse of drugs and alcohol to cope. Pam Courson-Morrison apparently got him to a psychiatrist, but he didn't go back. Michael McClure steered him towards poetry, which appeared to refocus him and he was able to find inspiration enough to get to New Orleans, and present some the LA Woman material, but that was all he had left. Ray Manazarek notes that he literally saw the psychic energy leave Jim, when, after pounding the stage to splinters with his mic stand,  he sat down on the stage and then couldn't get up again.

And so, Jim flies into the sunset.

From there, the filmmakers simply note that, once in Paris, Jim developed a bad cough and Pam had him see French doctors, who strongly urged him to give up drinking and put him on steroids for his respiratory problems, which he probably disregarded. His death is explained simply as a heart attack after a night of heavy drinking.

There was sturdy and deserved applause at the conclusion.

Kudos to the editors, who did a magnificent job, Mr. DiCillo for an inspired vision, Johnny Depp for skilful narration, to the entire team, and to Jim, John, Ray and Robby for being The Doors. Without whom, this movie would not burn as brightly as it does.

And, if Jim had gone to any screening, this would have been the one. UCLA, Westwood, Los Angeles Film Festival. He'd have really liked it, I believe.

The empty seat was for him."

The movie won a Grammy this year for Long-Form Music Video.  I continue to recommend it. 

When You're Strange DVD

Steve Morrison talks about his son

Footage from HWY (unique - worth watching)

Tom DiCillo talks about the Grammy

Tom DiCillo info (IMdB)

TROUBADOURS, THE MOVIE - REVIEW

About five  years ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Michael Walker, the author of "Laurel Canyon, The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood."  In the book, I'm quoted as saying the following about the Troubadour, which I visited many times from 1970-1975ish. 

FROM LAUREL CANYON THE INSIDE STORY OF ROCK AND ROLL'S LEGENDARY NEIGHBORHOOD. BY MICHAEL WALKER FABER & FABER 2006

As the Troubadour's fortunes declined and its prestige faded, the musicians who gave the club its specialness drifted away. "I stopped going to the Troubadour in 1974-75," says Stevens. "That was the last time you sensed that it was a place you'd still run into the old crowd. By then they were all kind of rich and famous. People were on the road, everyone was always out of town, so you didn't see anybody."  The days were over when Stevens could pass an afternoon with Janis Joplin at the Troubadour bar, 'Just the two of us getting mildly bombed and hitting on this surfer guy who got frightened off because we were getting a bit much for him, so we went outside and some people had left a couple bicycles against the wall, and we started riding around on the railroad tracks, screaming and falling off, having a great time. It seemed like every time you went down there something like that was going on, some little drama."

But she also remembered the jockeying of young musicians at the bar, looking for an opening, anything to get ahead.  "It wasn't, 'Oh, let's go down and we'll hang out and have a merry old time at the Troubadour.'  There was absolutely an agenda going on.  Glenn Frey - I've never seen a guy work a room like that guy could - whatever he could get, to get himself going for his career.  He was very, very career-oriented.  They all were.   Anyone who pretends they weren't doing that is fooling themselves."

Michael's book went into millions of sales world-wide, and presaged what appears to be a revival of interest in the Troubadour club and what it means to the history of music, as well as Laurel Canyon and its influence. 

The first blip on the radar was the lovely Reunion concert, featuring James Taylor and Carole King, which for me really recaptured the musical spirit of the place as it used to be, before younger bands of a different ilk took over and made it theirs, altering the architecture, changing the showroom, removing the tables and chairs, once set sideways on to the stage, [where everyone sat shoulder to shoulder, all able to see the stage without someone's head in the way], putting another bar in there, and so on.  Standing room only nowadays, and they charge you to come in and drink in the bar.  In the old days, you could drink at the bar and have your two drink minimum - or whatever your mileage was - and no need to see the show if you couldn't afford it. There were ways around that. The restrooms had to be visited, after being in the bar for a while, and then you could lurk about at the back of the showroom, catching however many minutes you could of the on-stage action, before Bob Marchese marched down from his post by the door to remind you to either get back to the bar or go buy a ticket.  He was usually pretty fair about lurking, though. 

The club had an excellent management team in the days before 1975, and Doug Weston generally left them to it, preferring to hold court at night, and hammer out legendary and hard-nosed deals during the day, with artists who turned out to be the biggest in the business, most of whom still recall the terms of Doug's contracts with a certain wry resignation.  There was no place quite like the Troub for presenting an endless flow of talent, and no club owner quite like Doug Weston.    

On March 2, PBS aired "Troubadours, The Movie," after it's successful screening at Sundance.  It should first be noted that this is more of a continuance of the initial James and Carole DVD, and spends considerable time on Carole's early days songwriting with husband Gerry Goffin at the Brill Building and her move to Los Angeles in the late 60s, and James's formative years in Massachusetts, New York and the UK.  While this is absorbing and presents terrific early footage of both artists in their very young days, it really has little or nothing to do with the Troubadour club.  

James and Carole were two of many talents who graced the Troubadour stage, though not by any means regulars in the bar - James never maintained a residence in Los Angeles, and Carole was not a bar type.  I never saw either of them there except in concert, though my then-old man was out on the road with the James, Carole and Jo Mama tour in the early 70s, so I got to know most of Jo Mama socially in those days.  

As far as the Troubadour story, we hear from a sprinkling of the usual commentators, i.e. photographer/musician Henry Diltz, David Crosby, and Jackson Browne who is puzzingly interviewed in the guitar room at McCabe's. 

Robert Hilburn (the highly-respected Los Angeles Times music editor), Kris Kristofferson, and former artist manager Dickie Davis provide insightful comments, and Lou Adler shows up to explain, among his reminscences of working with Carole, why he found it necessary to open the Roxy on Sunset, to directly challenge and ultimately close down the Troubadour.  As for the mean-spirited commentary from former Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau, why?  It's well-known that the east coast critics hated the  music coming out of California in those days, so why belabor the point?  And really who cares?  I agree with Kootch on that one.

The Eagles are awkwardly stuffed in towards the end, using BBC footage of the band in the early days, and standard photos from the brimming Diltz archive, but without their personal commentary it fell flat for me.   And why open with a great comment from Graham Nash, and then never see him again? I particularly missed commentary from Louise Goffin, Carole's other daughter, a successful studio owner and singer/songwriter.

I also wanted to hear from a lot more people who were club regulars in the day, i.e. Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, Chuck E. Weiss, Harry Dean Stanton, Douglas Dillard, Van Dyke Parks, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, David Geffen, Linda Ronstadt, a few more of the staff besides just manager Paul Body and Weston's p.a. Ursula Britton, who at least tried to provide a glimpse of the club itself and the working relationship with the unique Doug.  Even a word from Mike, the perennial bar-tender at Dan Tana's, the Italian restaurant next door, who knew all the denizens of the Troub in the early days, would have been interesting.  Unfortunately, this didn't happen, and so, in my estimation, the definitive documentary on the Troubadour itself still remains to be made. 

This particular documentary had great moments, but for me it failed as a whole, simply because it was two movies attempting to be one.  James and Carole, top-flight seminal musicians of the era, both hailing from NYC though, deserve documentaries all their own, at the very least, as does the Brill Building, that great New York factory of pop music in the early 60s.  And as does the Troubadour. 

Ultimately, one story canceled the other out, and I constantly found myself figuratively pleading, "Could we get back to the Troubadour story, please?" as Danny Kortchmar held forth on James and Carole's early days, and we got to hear about The Section and so on, which really had nothing to do with the club at all, wonderful though The Section are. 

So, until such time, as far as a real recounting of the glory days of the Troubadour is filmed, this movie is an entertaining and enjoyable stop-gap, which continues to promote the worthy Troubadour Reunion Tour franchise. 

Interview with Ursula Britton.

Watch the movie here on the American Masters site.

Artie Wayne remembers Carole from their days at Aldon Music.

Photo of Glenn Frey - Deborah Chesher.