Time Between

by Chris Hillman

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DESERT ROSE

  Within the last six months of the MCH band, Connie and I had sold our homes—mine in La Jolla and hers in Los Angeles—to buy a house on the beach in Ventura. It was our first home together, and we were a happy couple. I was putting the nightmare of my outburst in New York behind me and trying to get myself sorted out. Just when things were looking up, however, I received notification of a lawsuit from the English promoter who put together that disastrous English tour I’d quit in early 1977 after he failed to pay us. Though I’d given him thirty-six hours to rectify the situation at the time, he failed to do so, and that’s when I walked away. Though Roger and Gene were part of the equation, for some reason I was the guy who was held responsible for the collapse of the tour. In addition to the lawsuit from the crooked promoter, there were some other unresolved legal issues that all seemed to land on me at once. I was scared until Connie said to me one night, “If we have to sell this house and move into a studio apartment for a while, that’s fine. We’ll still be together.” That was all I needed to hear. I knew then that God had brought this beautiful woman into my life.

  The two of us flew to London together for the trial at the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. The proceedings lasted three days, but I was fully exonerated of all the charges against me. Great! I was proven innocent at a cost of $75,000 in travel and legal fees. But my wife was by my side through it all. Another reminder of what’s really important and how blessed I was.

  Shortly before the trip to London, I found out that Sugar Hill Records, a small independent label in North Carolina, was planning to re-release the album I recorded with the Gosdin Brothers and Don Parmely back in 1963. Though we never landed a record deal at the time, Jim Dickson released it on a label called Together Records in the 1970s after I’d had some success. It even included some dreadful liner notes supposedly written by me that I didn’t write. For some reason he put it out under the name The Hillmen rather than The Golden State Boys, which was our actual name, but then it disappeared. Despite those irritations, the music was good, so it was exciting news to find out it would get a better release. I assumed the album had vanished forever. Dickson, who owned the masters, was in negotiations with Barry Poss, the head of the label. I met Barry through a phone call, we discussed the album’s release, and he asked if I would write the liner notes—for real this time. I agreed and then asked him if he had any interest in me recording a solo album. He was more than interested, and we began planning a record for Sugar Hill.

  Sugar Hill was what you would call a boutique label by today’s standards. It was primarily geared toward folk and bluegrass, which was perfect for me. I had already decided to rediscover what really got me involved in music and that it was time for me to play acoustic guitar and mandolin again. I asked Al Perkins if he was interested in playing together as a duo, with me on vocals, mandolin, and guitar, and Al on dobro, vocals and guitar. We began touring throughout the US and Canada, and we sounded good. Al was a pleasure to work with on the road and in the studio. He was and is a very patient and loving man, and he had such a calming effect on me. Finally, I had found my passion again by going back to my roots in folk and bluegrass. Musically, it was the happiest, most comfortable, and most motivated I’d felt in years.

  When it was time to make the record, I brought in all my old pals again. In addition to Al, the festivities were joined by Herb Pedersen, Kenny Wertz, Byron Berline, Emory Gordy, and Bernie Leadon. We called the album Morning Sky after a Dan Fogelberg song and recorded some great tunes by John Prine, Bob Dylan, and Kris Kristofferson, as well as J.D. Souther’s great song “Mexico” that we’d recorded on the second SHF album, and Jerry Garcia’s “Ripple,” a Grateful Dead favorite. My old friend Henry Diltz shot a great image of me holding my Lloyd Loar mandolin with my arm around my sweet Springer Spaniel, Heather, that was used on the back cover. The album was a true labor of love, recorded with a budget in the neighborhood of only $6,000. It was 1982, but revisiting my early influences helped me take a major step forward as I reconnected with the music that first ignited my passion in 1960.

  For me, to perform acoustically without a full electric band was singing and playing at its purest essence. Playing with Al helped me reclaim the acoustic dynamics I’d lost during my “band years.” After the album was released, Al and I added Bernie Leadon and the great bassist Jerry Scheff to complete the first acoustic quartet version of The Chris Hillman Band. We were good. Very good. Bernie, Al, and I had a blast trading off solos while Jerry, still one of the finest musicians I’ve had the pleasure of playing with, made it all swing. Bernie had parted company with The Eagles and, like me, was having a lot of fun playing the music we both grew up with.

  Morning Sky did well enough around the States, Canada, and Europe to bring in some incredible festival and theater bookings. I was pleased, and Sugar Hill was pleased. The beautiful part of my experience with the label was my close relationship with Barry Poss. Here was a man of honesty and integrity in the record business. What a refreshing concept! Sugar Hill recording contracts were a total of two pages with no options or restrictive clauses. They could only offer a small budget, but they paid a fair royalty return.

  When Sugar Hill wanted to do a second album, I asked Al Perkins to produce it. Even though I had fully immersed myself back into acoustic music, I really wanted to explore doing a traditional country record with an electric backing band, but with material I would be able to duplicate with the acoustic band during the live shows. We got the greatest musicians to record the tracks for the album that would become Desert Rose, including the alumni of Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas band: Jerry Scheff on bass, Ron Tutt on drums, Glen D. Hardin on piano, and James Burton on lead guitar. We also recruited guitarist Bob Warford, Jay Dee Maness on steel guitar, and Ray Park and Byron Berline, who came in to play some fiddle parts. Al played the dobro, and Herb added his acoustic guitar and vocals. I wanted to keep the vocals in two parts, lead and tenor, like the old brother duets, such as the Wilburns, the Everlys, and the Louvins. Herb was the perfect duet partner and totally understood what I wanted to do. We recorded some of my favorite country classics like “Why You Been Gone So Long,” The Wilburn Brothers’ “Somebody’s Back in Town,” and The Louvin Brothers’ “I Can’t Keep You in Love with Me.” All those afternoons after school at Bill Smith’s house and my time playing on The Cal Worthington Show had paid off. I think we really captured the energy of West Coast country music on Desert Rose. The players and Al’s production were far more then I probably deserved.

  The Desert Rose album created a number of new opportunities, but it was nothing compared to the blessing Connie and I would receive on that wonderful morning in the fall of 1983 when our daughter Catherine was born. This beautiful little girl who entered my life became the center of my world. Holding her in my arms was an indescribable feeling of pure love. With a renewed musical passion and a sweet young family, I felt like the luckiest man alive. This was what life was supposed to be—the pure blessing of God’s grace. The blinders were off, the light was shining brightly, and nothing seemed impossible anymore. It was a spiritual reawakening.

  Not only did I have Al Perkins to thank for helping me recapture my musical passion, but he was also a true friend and a spiritual guide. The 1970s could have easily been my swan song with the bad choices I was making. I knew I was headed down a dead-end road, but I could almost hear a small voice in my heart crying out for mercy. Al was a devout evangelical Christian who remained ever-faithful no matter what mischief was going on around him in The Flying Burrito Brothers and Manassas. He and I had discussed the Christian faith on several occasions, but it all became very real in 1973 during a rough plane ride with Manassas. Al and I were sitting next to one another, and I was feeling helpless and scared as the plane bounced and bobbed wildly. On that flight I reached out to God and, with Al’s help, I prayed and accepted Jesus Christ into my life. It was one of those moments they someti
mes call a “foxhole conversion.” There’s danger all around, and you promise God your heart and soul in a moment of fear. Then, when the threat is gone, you forget all about it. I may have abandoned God the next morning after that frightening plane ride, but God never abandoned me.

  When SHF was recording our second album at Caribou Ranch in Colorado, Richie Furay was dealing with some personal issues in his life and began exploring the Christian faith. There was a dining room at the studio with a long, heavy wooden table where everyone would congregate for meals. One night, Richie was having a hard time trying to understand Al, who was ministering to him about Jesus. At the other end of the table, Souther was holding court with a couple of our road crew guys, where I joined them. Souther had a great sense of humor—very dry, very witty. When he looked over at me, he said, “Want to join our new club?”

  I said, “What’s the name of this club?”

  J.D. replied, “Why, it’s the Heathen Defense League, or HDL for short.” I couldn’t help but laugh. It was typical Souther humor—funny, but not mean-spirited against Al or Richie.

  After that foxhole conversion moment on the plane, there were some poor lifestyle choices, self-destructive behaviors, and a few angry outbursts, but over the next ten years, thanks to the miracle of becoming a father and guidance from Al, I found my way back to God and slowly worked my way out of the Heathen Defense League. Accepting Jesus Christ into your life is not an easy ride because the evil one is always there to take you down a different path, but this time I was determined to stay committed.

  During that time Al introduced me to a man named Steve Hill who lived near me in Ventura. Steve was a musician and a devout Christian. Within a few days of meeting each other, Steve and I wrote a song together called “Love Reunited.” It was the bridge to a long-lasting bond between the two of us. I later found out that Steve was also an ordained evangelical minister who held Sunday services in Oxnard Shores. He baptized me in the Pacific Ocean in late 1984, further sealing my renewed commitment to Christ.

  Not only were Al, Bernie Leadon, and Jerry Scheff my musical brothers in my acoustic quartet during the 1980s, they were also all Christians. We joined forces with another fine musician—fiddle, mandolin, and guitar player David Mansfield—to record a gospel album under the name Ever Call Ready for a Christian record label called Maranatha. We stayed within a bluegrass-influenced gospel style, recording mostly older songs right out of a Baptist hymnal—with the exception of one, “Panhandle Rag,” an old Texas swing song. We had so much fun playing it in the studio, we decided to include it on the album. That record is right up there with some of my favorite earlier efforts, and I loved the spiritual and musical bond I shared with those guys.

  In addition to the Ever Call Ready album, we continued to tour as an acoustic quartet. When Jerry decided to change course, I met and hired a wonderful singer and bassist named Bill Bryson. Our revised quartet continued playing dates around the US and Europe. We made a lot of great memories together with that lineup, including a European tour that took us to Bergen, Norway. The Norwegian promoter had a small boat and graciously invited us out fishing on our day off. Bernie, Bill, and I signed on for the voyage. Bergen is located right on the fjords and may have been one of the ports the vikings sailed out of on their way down the coast to raid monasteries in England, Scotland, and Ireland. It was an amazing sight, looking back on those long, sloping mountains rolling into the North Sea as we set sail at sunrise. Little did we know our goal was going to be catching the elusive killer squid, a Norwegian delicacy. We hit the jackpot and soon began hauling in squid on grappling hooks faster than you could recite the first line of Moby Dick. Bryson proved to be the master squid hunter, with me and Bernie taking a close second.

  Following our European adventure, upon arriving back in the States, Bernie was ready to move off in another direction. We parted ways on great terms. Here was a guy I had known since he was in high school when he took over for Kenny Wertz on banjo in the Squirrel Barkers. Bernie was like my little brother, and we remain good friends to this day. I knew I was going to miss Bernie in the acoustic group, but I also knew I wanted to continue with that kind of lineup. I would need an equally adept musician, and I certainly found him. Bill Bryson had already been telling me about this young guy around town named John Jorgenson. Bill couldn’t say enough about John’s talent, and he brought John by one day to meet me. After playing a few songs, I knew I had found the perfect guy. John was beyond incredible on guitar and mandolin and—I was later to learn—also a phenomenal electric guitarist. Actually, he was a master of just about anything with strings, including the piano. John had graduated from the University of Redlands as a woodwind performance major. I had never worked with a genuine “schooled musician” before, other than on an occasional recording session. I soon discovered there was nothing different about working with someone at John’s level, as he approached bluegrass, country, and rock like everyone else I had ever worked with who played by “ear.” John was playing with a bluegrass band in Frontierland at Disneyland, which took up most of his time, but when I offered him a job in the quartet, he jumped at the chance. We arranged to work our schedule around his.

  My acoustic quartets always remained one step above any of my prior pursuits, in terms of the quality of musicianship and the integrity of the people I worked with. By the mid-1980s, my long apprenticeship had come to an end as I began to finally feel comfortable in a leadership role. Sometimes, however, being a leader means having to make some hard decisions. One morning I got a call from Howard Rose, who was Dan Fogelberg’s agent. Dan had recently recorded a bluegrass album that Herb Pedersen and I had worked on called High Country Snows. Dan was planning a long tour to promote the record and he wanted me to put together a quartet to back him up. An acoustic quartet? That had become my specialty.

  The only caveat was that Dan wanted Herb to be part of the group. Made sense to me since Herb is such a fine singer and musician. Fogelberg was a huge Manassas fan and loved Al’s work in that group, but he needed Herb’s voice and banjo and didn’t want to have a five-piece group. I made sure John could get time off to go with us and secured Bill and Herb for the tour, but I had to tell my dear friend Al that he wouldn’t be a part of this group. Breaking the news to him was one of the more difficult undertakings I’ve ever faced. I knew Al was very upset. Who wouldn’t be in his situation? Ultimately, however, we were all able to move on.

  The tour with Fogelberg ran from June to July of 1985 and was very successful, especially for me, Bill, Herb, and John. A special bond was forged between the four of us on that tour that ended up taking me far beyond anything I could have imagined at that point in my life. When we first arrived back in Los Angeles, I naturally drifted into what I’d been doing before the Fogelberg tour—more acoustic shows, and even some trips back to Nashville for television appearances on Nashville Now and This Week in Country Music. John, however, was convinced we should start a country band with Herb and Bill, but also bring in Jay Dee Maness on steel guitar and Steve Duncan, a multitalented singer and drummer. I knew Jay Dee from working with him on The Byrds’ Sweetheart album. Plus, Gram and I would go sit in with him at all-night jam sessions at the Aces Club in the City of Industry back in the early Burrito days. I didn’t know Steve yet and wasn’t in a drummer mood, so I fought the idea. The last thing I wanted to do at that moment was to put together another electric band. But John was persistent, almost to the point of becoming annoying. He was young, ambitious, and, ultimately, persuasive. John began to win me over.

  The six of us finally got together and ran through some tunes. I had a few new songs, and we revisited stuff from the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers catalogs, as well as some Buck Owens and Merle Haggard songs. I already knew the other guys were good, but Steve was also a fine musician. I hadn’t played with a good drummer since Greg Thomas in MCH and, before that, with Jim Gordon in SHF. By the end of the rehearsal, it was clear we had enough material to book a gig, and we s
et up a trial show at the annual LA Street Scene Festival. It wasn’t necessarily earth-shattering, but singing with Herb created a perfect blend between our two voices. Bill and John added some great three-and four-part harmonies too.

  I was still a bit skeptical about the electric band idea—too many bad memories from the various 1970s groups I was involved with. But John Jorgenson, ever vigilant, was on a mission, and he found some other places to play around town. In early 1986, we played the Palomino Club a few times, which was the old Flying Burrito Brothers stomping grounds. By the second time we played the room, people began coming in to see us. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and the word about the new band was good. My attorney, who had negotiated most of my recording contracts in the 1970s, mentioned us to another of his clients, Jim Halsey. Jim was a well-respected country music manager, agent, and promoter who handled Roy Clark and The Oak Ridge Boys—two extremely successful country music acts at the time.

  On our second or third night at the Palomino, Jim came down with William Golden from The Oak Ridge Boys. They were impressed, and even though we were still developing our sound, they both saw our potential. Jim offered us a two-week run, opening for The Oak Ridge Boys at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in May. Coincidentally, the Oaks had recently recorded one of my songs, “Step On Out,” that I had written with Peter Knobler, former editor of Crawdaddy magazine, and they made it the title track of their album. Things were happening in a way I had never anticipated.