Music Before the Money

The tentative release date for my first ebook, Brian Jones’ Diary, is Saturday, October 20th, 2007. Here is a brief sale copy:

The summer of 1969 was one of the most pivotal few months in modern history: the first moon landing, Woodstock, the Tate-LaBianca murders, the first trans-Atlantic flight of the Concorde. This roller-coaster ride of events and, as well, the end of the 1960’s revolution, ended on the blood-soaked track of Altamont Speedway in California during a Rolling Stones concert.

The source of this negative synergy was found on the bottom of a swimming pool in southern England on July 3rd. The founder, artistic driver and symbol of the Rolling Stones, Brian Jones, died under mysterious circumstances that night launching a bizarre string of celebrity deaths that included Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. In addition, it also signaled the end of music as an artistic endeavour and ushered in the era of big business.

My novel, Brian Jones’ Diary, explores this transitory time in history through eyes of a rock wannabee named Andrew Widgeon, who just happens to die violently in the midst of playing a Rolling Stone song. A disheartened soul, Andy is propelled to an area between life and death where he comes face-to-face with his idol, Brian Jones, the founder of the Rolling Stones, plus a gathering of persons who died at the same instant as Jones. The area appears to be a giant holding pen for all the unattained dreams of the 1960’s with young Andy as the reluctant interloper.

Stay tuned!

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.

- Richard Bach - author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Bach is an amazing guy. He is first, and foremost, a pilot; a pilot who writes. You get this from his many books including Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. I have read this book five times and might start it again tonight.

Not only is he a pilot but he flew the hi-tech birds of his time. From 1956-1959 he served in the United States Air Force and earned his pilot wings. In the 1960s he directed the Antique Airplane Association and also worked as a charter pilot, flight instructor, and barnstormer in the Midwest, where he offered plane rides for three dollars a person.

In the 1970’s his book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was aid to have “captured the mood of the 1970s, becoming popular with a wide range of readers, from members of the drug culture to mainstream Christian denominations.” Seagull was also said to have given credibility to New Age proponents, making the term fashionable.

My favorite book is Nothing By Chance, which tells of flying with his barnstorming friends. As a former pilot myself( I barely got 100 hours!) I can feel myself up there when I read Bach. But it is his philosophy that makes him a giant in my books.

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.”

I learned the lead parts to Operator - the sad, soulful song by Jim Croce about a lovesick guy who hasn’t got the money to pay for a call and ends up talking to the telephone operator - from a Jim Croce song book. There were no tabs to denote where to put your fingers on the frets so I picked out the notes from the sheet music to copy Maury Muehleisen’s chordal runs. It was doubly sad because both he and Croce had died in plane crash the week before on September 20, 1973.

Jim Croce came up the hard way, almost as hard as the path taken by black blues player. He and his wife, Ingrid, played the coffee house circuit to live and Jim sang background on commercials. Tired of trying to survive city life they moved Pennsylvania, where they had their son, Adrian, and Ingrid supported them by baking bread and selling canned fruit and vegetables. When the cash got low Jim sold his guitars he had accumulated and when the last one went he worked construction again. He finally got a break and recorded You Don’t Mess Around With Jim which, obviously, changed his life.

In August of 1973 Bad Leroy Brown was the number one song in North America. But then came September 20th. After Jim’s death, Operator started getting even more airplay and the singles I Got a Name, Time in a Bottle, I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song, and Workin’ At The Car Wash Blues were posthumous Top Ten hits. A fourth album, Photographs & Memories was packaged as a greatest hits collection in Fall, 1974.

I still pick the odd Muehleisen lick and can mimick Croce’s drawl when I do one of his songs.