The very next day, we all piled into the Dodge station wagon from Cal Worthington and made the long drive up to Jackpot, Nevada. I got to know the guys during that road trip and, being the youngest, managed to survive their ribbing. Vern and Rex were very open and friendly, while Don was also really nice, but guarded. When we arrived, we discovered that Jackpot had one gas station, one medium-sized casino, a small market, and one pretty suspicious-looking motel. We were shown to a cramped trailer behind the casino, which would be our home for the next two weeks.
The Golden State Boys played three to four shows a night for the next two weeks, and it was fantastic. All the guys were really good singers. Vern sang lead and Rex sang tenor, with the pair handling all the classic duet material and sounding just as good as The Louvin Brothers. Don added his baritone on several songs and was quite skilled, as well. That short engagement in Jackpot helped us really gel together as a group, and it went by really fast.
Back home in California, we played Friday and Saturday nights at places called The Harem Lounge, The Foothill Club, The Leilani Club and other hillbilly clubs in Los Angeles County. Along with our club work and our usual appearances on Cal’s Corral, we also played a live radio show in Long Beach on Sundays called The Squeakin’ Deacon Show. We were busy. In fact, that Honda motorcycle I left with the buddy in San Francisco who swore he’d take care of it for me? I never saw it again. I was way too wrapped up in the music to ever have a chance to retrieve it.
In order to work so steadily with The Golden State Boys I had to figure out how to get beyond one obvious hurdle. Since I was still underage, I needed an ID to work the clubs. I certainly wasn’t going to manufacture one myself, since I’d learned my lesson on that front. Somehow, I managed to acquire one from the DMV in Napa, California, that wasn’t exactly accurate. I told them my birthday was December 4, 1942—exactly two years before my actual birthdate. I also told them my name was Christopher Hardin. I borrowed that last name from Glen Dee Hardin, who played piano on Cal’s Corral and in the house band at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood before going on to become a member of Elvis Presley’s TCB Band. I just thought his name sounded cool and would look believable on a driver’s license. God only knows how I got away with that stunt. There wasn’t a bartender in all of LA County who believed I was twenty-one. I looked fourteen on a good day.
I had kept in touch with Jim Dickson after our brief meeting with The Scottsville Squirrel Barkers when he referred us to Crown Records. One day I called him up at World Pacific Studios and told him about the new group I was in, how good the Gosdin Brothers sang, and how tight the band was. He agreed to come down and see us at the next Monday Hoot Night at the Troubadour. Recognizing that our playing and singing was a huge step up from the Squirrel Barkers, Jim was knocked out when he heard us. He asked us to come down to the studio to record some tunes. His idea was to complete an entire album of ten or twelve songs and then shop it to Elektra or Vanguard, which were the big folk labels at the time. The first night, we ran through the usual bluegrass fare: Flatt and Scruggs, Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Jim and Jesse, and that kind of thing. Dickson listened patiently but, at some point, stopped the take. “Listen, you guys,” he said. “You’re a great group, but do you want to cover other peoples’ songs like all the other bluegrass bands, or do you want to find songs from other kinds of artists that would lend themselves to a bluegrass treatment?”
We all sort of just looked at one another. We didn’t really understand where Jim was going with this but, not having too many options and wanting to make a good record, we listened to his ideas. He wanted to help us find material, which was exactly what a good A&R (artist and repertoire) man was supposed to do in the music business. Vern and Rex were already writing some pretty good songs, a couple of which—“Roll on Muddy River” and “Going Up”—made the final cut. Jim was bringing in Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie material and, when we started learning those songs, it worked. We preserved a couple of bluegrass tunes, “Brown Mountain Light,” “Fair and Tender Ladies,” as well as including our own arrangement of Bill Monroe’s “Wheel Hoss.” It was a worthy project with some fine singing. I was still figuring out the mandolin, but Don, Vern, and Rex more than made up for my learning curve. I’m still not entirely sure how I got that job, but obviously it was meant to be.
Jim Dickson had a friend who was an agent at the William Morris Agency who handed us a wonderful opportunity to play a couple of folk festivals: the Monterey Folk Festival in Monterey, California, and, prior to that, the Honolulu Folk Festival, which was a three-night weekend event at the Waikiki Shell (kind of like a smaller version of The Hollywood Bowl in a park right off Waikiki beach). Judy Collins was on the bill with us in Honolulu, and she was so kind to me. She looked out for me like a big sister, even reminding me to eat dinner and take care of myself. She was already well-known in folk circles, so it was really sweet of her to take an interest in us.
Despite Jim’s involvement and encouragement, however, no record deal materialized for The Golden State Boys. Without that extra boost we needed, we just weren’t earning enough money to keep it going. I was struggling as a single person, but the other guys had families and staying in the band would have been a true hardship for them. Sadly, The Golden State Boys ultimately broke up. Don found work as a driver for Continental Trailways, while the Godsin brothers found jobs in construction while continuing to sing and write songs.
Fortunately things would eventually work out for all of us. Don later formed the highly successful band The Bluegrass Cardinals with his son David, who grew into a fine lead singer, and Rex became a prolific songwriter. Vern and I remained very close throughout his life, and it was a thrill when we both started having hits on the Billboard country chart years later—me with The Desert Rose Band, and Vern with his huge catalog of radio hits that resulted in nearly twenty Top 10 singles. I hosted an episode of a TV show called American Music Shop in the 1990s, and Vern was one of my guests. It was the last time we performed together. Vern, Don, and Rex have all passed on now, but I’ll always be grateful for my time with them. I learned a lot, and they truly helped prepare me for the next musical venture that awaited me.
CHAPTER SIX
SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK ‘N’ ROLL STAR
After The Golden State Boys disbanded, I moved back up to Hollywood from Norwalk. I was flat broke and living with two other guys in an apartment on Fountain Avenue. Herb Pedersen lived right down the street from me and was in the same financial situation, as his band was struggling to survive. I had to get some kind of a job, so I went to an employment agency and was handed a couple of leads. The first was for a job at a machine shop, which was located back down the freeway near Norwalk, where I’d just moved from. I applied for a job as an apprentice machinist, but I was totally unsuited for that kind of work. The gentleman who interviewed me knew it and advised me to look for another line of work.
Next, I walked into the La Brea Carwash located on La Brea Boulevard between Sunset and Melrose. I applied for a job as a washer, but the manager, an older guy, just looked me up and down. “I can’t hire you, son,” he said slowly. “Take a look out the window at all the guys I’ve got working for me out there. Those guys’ll eat you for lunch.” Everyone working out there was Black or Latino. It didn’t bother me, but this was still 1963, and the manager knew that those guys wouldn’t take kindly to some dumb white boy working alongside them.
Fortunately, I soon ran into my old Squirrel Barkers bandmate Larry Murray. He told me about a band Randy Sparks was putting together to perform in his folk club, Ledbetter’s, near the UCLA campus in the Westwood neighborhood. Sparks was the guy who had created The New Christy Minstrels folk group, which was a very successful touring and recording act at the time. He sold the Minstrels to a management firm and opened Ledbetter’s as a venue to showcase his new groups. His latest creation, which was similar to the Minstrels, was called The Backporch Majority. And now he was hoping to assemble a bluegr
ass-oriented group, too. Larry advised me to come down to the club and try out; if I made it, I’d have steady work—and Randy was even providing a place for the musicians to live. Though the whole thing sounded way too manufactured for my tastes, as a broke and newly unemployed musician, I jumped at the chance to put a little money in my pocket.
The next day, I showed up to Ledbetter’s with my mandolin and was hired on the spot. The band was named The Green Grass Group and featured Larry Murray on dobro and lead vocals; two old San Diego pals, Pete Socksie on guitar and Marilyn Powell on dulcimer; a stand-up bassist named Bob; and a very talented English woman named Patty Hill who played banjo. Patty could really play and, with her cockney accent and wonderful attitude, she made the whole experience bearable. The final member, who would become a good pal of mine, was Dwayne Story, the nephew of gospel singer Carl Story. Dwayne was a great bluegrass guitarist and singer/songwriter. In fact, he was way too good to have been in that band. Dwayne had a wife and young daughter and, like me, needed the money and stability until something legitimate came along.
The music was dreadful, to say the least. All the songs were written by Randy Sparks and sounded like they were right out of a bad Lil’ Abner script. One lyric from that period in my life is still stuck in my brain to this day: “Billy’s mule can tote a wagon, he can pull a plow.” That was the opening line to “Billy’s Mule” and pretty well gives you a sense of The Green Grass Group. But, hey, it was work, and we were each paid $100 per week, which was big money in late 1963. The lodging we were offered was in a very nice ranch-style home in Encino, in the San Fernando Valley. At least I had money in my pocket and a roof over my head at a time when I really needed both. To this day, I’m grateful to Larry Murray for tipping me off to the opportunity.
By early 1964 I was working steadily with The Green Grass Group. Then, on February 9, my life changed. Actually, everyone’s life changed. It was a Sunday night and I just happened to pop into my mother’s apartment. She was watching The Ed Sullivan Show, along with the many millions of other Americans who faithfully tuned in each week. Just as I sat down on the couch, I heard Ed say, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles. Let’s bring them on!” I had heard of these guys, but hadn’t actually heard their songs yet. They burst into “All My Loving,” and I was transfixed. Who are these guys? What is happening here? It felt like that moment in The Wizard of Oz when everything goes from black and white to color. The look, the hair, the songs! It was incredible. It was as if these guys were ending the nightmare of the Kennedy assassination from a few short months earlier and ushering our entire culture into a new era. It was that powerful.
By the time I reported for duty at Ledbetter’s on Tuesday night, my head was still spinning from seeing The Beatles on the Sullivan show. I didn’t know how or why, but I intuitively knew that something musically different and exciting was waiting for me right around the corner.
As taken as I was with The Beatles, they weren’t darlings of the folk scene. Very few people from that world heard anything special in the group’s blend of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, folk, pop, and light jazz. That didn’t damper my enthusiasm for either folk music or The Beatles, however. Even though I wasn’t playing Hoot Night at the Troubadour with The Golden State Boys anymore, I would still go down when I could just to visit friends and see what was going on. I couldn’t really understand why a lot of my peers weren’t as excited as I was about what this strange new British band was doing, but I was pleasantly surprised one night when a guy jumped up on the Troubadour stage and played “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on a twelve-string acoustic guitar. It sounds a little strange to describe it, but this guy was very good, and it really worked. I didn’t get a chance to meet him that evening, but someone told me his name was Jim McGuinn, and I filed it away, hoping we would meet some day and share our mutual love for both folk music and the Beatles.
A few weeks later, Jim Dickson called and told me about a trio he was working with called The Jet Set. He was recording some demos in hopes of landing them a record deal, and he invited me down to World Pacific to hear them sing. He explained that one of them was a former member of Les Baxter’s Balladeers named David Crosby, with whom Dickson had already done some recording in the past. David had been the third guy to come into the group after it began as a loose duo with Gene Clark, who had been a member of The New Christy Minstrels, and Jim McGuinn, who I’d seen play at the Troubadour Hoot Night. “Wait,” I said. “Jim McGuinn? I think I saw him play at Hoot Night at the Troubadour a few weeks back!” Dickson confirmed it was the same guy, so I eagerly accepted his invitation to come hear them.
A few nights later, I went down to World Pacific after my last set at Ledbetter’s. When I walked in, Jim McGuinn was playing a Gibson twelve-string acoustic guitar, while Gene and David were each playing six-string acoustics. They were singing one of Gene Clark’s songs, and they sounded like angels, the way their three voices blended together. I knew something about good harmony vocals after having worked with the Gosdin brothers in The Golden State Boys, but this was something on a higher plane. David Crosby had one of the strongest, most beautiful tenor voices I had ever heard. I could tell he was approaching his parts from a different angle; his aesthetic didn’t come from the church or from country music, but from a jazz-influenced harmony in the style of The Four Freshmen. Those three guys had the beginnings of a great blend and, needless to say, I was very impressed. I told Dickson that they had something really special going on.
I quickly discovered that The Jet Set was looking to hire a drummer to turn the three-man acoustic outfit into a proper quartet. They wanted to pattern themselves after The Beatles, with Jim and Gene on guitars and David on bass. I thought it could be something really special, but didn’t think too much more about it once I was back to my nightly gigs with The Green Grass Group at Ledbetter’s. Then, about two weeks later, Dickson called me and told me that the guys had recorded a couple of original songs, “Please Let Me Love You” and “Don’t Be Long.” They brought in a rhythm section of studio musicians to round out the session and, on the strength of those recordings, Dickson pitched Jac Holzman, head of Elektra Records, on the idea of releasing it as a single. Jac agreed, but wanted to call the group The Beefeaters, which had British implications but was a terrible name.
Unfortunately, The Beefeaters’ debut didn’t get any traction. Dickson, however, was undeterred. He believed in the group and was ready to continue developing the trio into a proper band. Then, one night at Ledbetter’s, I was given a message when I got off stage. Dickson had called and asked that I call him back as soon as possible. I dialed him up that night, and he explained that David Crosby had met a guy named Michael Clarke in Big Sur, and they’d brought him on as the drummer. They thought they had their lineup, but Crosby wasn’t comfortable playing bass and wanted to switch to guitar instead. Then Dickson asked me a question that would change the course of my life: “Can you play bass?” I replied, “Sure, I can handle it,” lying through my teeth. I had never held a bass, let alone played one.
The race was on to find an electric bass guitar. I managed to locate a Japanese-made red bass with one pickup, but keep in mind that this was a good thirty years before they started making decent quality instruments in Japan. I didn’t even have an amp. The night I showed up for the first rehearsal, I hoped I was going to be able to fake my way through it. When I arrived I met Michael Clarke, with whom I hit it off immediately. He was a great-looking guy with long blond hair, a dead ringer for Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones. He was sitting behind a makeshift drum kit of cardboard boxes and one cymbal.
As I looked around the studio, I noticed some beat-up gear and one tired old amplifier in the corner that Jim McGuinn was plugged into. This is a pretty rag-tag outfit, I thought to myself, but I was the new guy in the equation and was trying to keep an open mind. I walked over and plugged my bass into that lone amp alongside McGuinn. Since I was primarily a mandolin player—and sometime guitar player
—I played the bass with a pick instead of my fingers. I figured nobody would mind since I’d noticed that Paul McCartney played with a pick and a lot of really good session guys used a flat pick on bass, too. I don’t remember what we played that night, but my anxiety level quickly decreased as I realized the other guys were all scrambling to figure it out, too. McGuinn was undoubtedly the most seasoned player, having put in time as an accompanist with The Limelighters, The Chad Mitchell Trio, and Bobby Darin. He had the most experience, and the fact that he’d toured around the world made him the obvious choice to captain the ship of this still-nameless quintet.
Amazingly, I survived that first rehearsal and was offered the permanent gig, so I gave my notice to Randy Sparks and The Green Grass Group. I’ll never forgot how hard Mr. Sparks laughed at the idea that I was leaving the stability of his group to work in a rock and roll band. I think he assumed I’d come crawling back in defeat. What he didn’t know, however, was how determined I was to make this new situation work. Under Dickson’s tutelage we began regular rehearsals. Dick Bock, who owned World Pacific Studios where Dickson worked as an engineer, was kind enough to give us access to the studio after midnight whenever there wasn’t a session booked.
There was no money coming in at first, and we were all struggling just to stay alive. I was living in a one-bedroom garage apartment on Melrose, so Mike and Gene moved in with me. McGuinn and Crosby, meanwhile, would hustle enough money to stay at The Padre in Hollywood, which was a real fleabag hotel. We had to be clever to survive, which meant meeting sympathetic girls with cars and jobs and borrowing money from generous friends. Gene and I had checking accounts and checkbooks, but there were times we literally had a zero balance. Right down the street from our apartment was a small market where, at one time, Gene and I each had to knowingly write a bad check just to get some groceries. Dickson was generous and, when he had a little extra cash, would buy us all cheeseburgers at Norm’s Restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard.
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