Eric Burdon shares his bond with Jimi Hendrix—reconnecting in London after a year, witnessing Hendrix’s heroin-fueled chaos before his death—while debunking suicide claims and hinting at industry exploitation. He criticizes America’s post-9/11 "lack of intelligence," contrasts raw 1960s mono sound with soulless digital music, and laments bootlegging despite self-publishing. Burdon’s spiritual, rebellious roots in blues and jazz, paired with UFO sightings near Joshua Tree, reveal a life where art and mystery intertwine, leaving modern culture searching for its lost vitality. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert in the great American Southwest I've been told.
Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be across this great world of ours, the planet, all 24 time zones covered by this program.
It is Coast to Coast AM, and I'm Mark Bell.
And I would like to welcome a new affiliate tonight, WRGA in Rome, Georgia.
5,000 watts in Rome, Georgia, on 1470.
Good regional station there, the GM Greg.
We get a break to Michelian, I believe it is.
Break Michelian.
And the PB Randy Quick.
Welcome.
Glad to have you on board.
What is a different kind of radio program?
And tonight indeed different again.
I don't know, maybe you've got to be the right age.
Not really, though.
Not this day of oldie stations.
But I'm the right age.
And Eric Burden and the Animals.
I'll tell him when he was here.
Eric Burden is going to be on.
Should be kind of interesting.
A lot of stories about Jimi Hendrix and Eric Burden, the animals.
Now, I was in the Air Force, and I was stationed for the most part of my time in the Air Force in the Far East.
With the exception of that here in the U.S., it was all in the Far East.
Okinawa, the Philippines, Vietnam.
And there were some songs that were almost like national anthems to people in the service.
Like getting out of this place.
We got to get out of this place.
Oh, man.
That was a national anthem.
House of the Rising Sun.
It's like a national anthem.
You're in the service.
Doesn't matter where you are, wherever you are normally in the service.
You just hate it on principle.
I don't care whether it's the Hawaiian Islands, wherever you are, it's the rock.
It's where you are.
It's where you have to be, and so you don't like it.
sorta uh...
later memories revise that but at the time those songs All right, now the scariest part of the show.
The news.
I figured out, of all the things that I do, reading the actual news at the beginning of the program is probably the scariest stuff you'll hear.
Our president, President Bush, sought to dispel China's doubts of distrust of America, urging the Communist Chinese on Friday to embrace liberty, tolerance, and religious freedom.
Dissent is not revolution, said Bush.
I'm sorry.
I just, you know, I know the Communist Chinese.
And I can assure you, whatever they're going to embrace, the last ones are going to be liberty, tolerance, and religious freedom.
It just is not going to happen.
Not without regime, not with the regime that's there now.
I shouldn't be laughing about this, but there's absolutely zero chance, and those would be the last on their list to embrace.
You know, that's a serious police state over there.
Pakistani authorities said today a videotape showing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl being killed by the Islamic extremists who kidnapped him a month ago has arrived and they do believe he is indeed dead.
The president making a comment and Musharif is acting swiftly, he says, to apprehend each and one of the gang of terrorists involved in the killing.
The southern Philippine waters had some trouble for us today, as in the U.S. and the Philippine military forces.
A U.S. Army helicopter carrying 10 Americans crashed into the sea MH-47 Chinook, which was faring troops in a counter-terrorism exercise.
We're kind of moving into the Philippines now in the war on terror.
There was no mechanical trouble reported, nor was there any rebel activity that might have affected the flight.
So there are no survivors as far as I know, and they have no idea why it went down.
Ayaser Arafat is scrambling to see some arrested and try and probably move some of the tanks out from his front door.
But they're still hitting his West Bank office.
And the situation in Israel is deteriorating quickly.
Military jets flew hundreds of sorties against a major rebel stronghold today, bringing Colombia's 38-year civil war to a potentially bloodier phase.
So things are going wrong down in Colombia.
And then in Toms River, New Jersey, a retired police officer, for absolutely unknown reasons, shot and killed his 22-year-old granddaughter today, then promptly went door to door and killed three neighbors.
Police said John Mabel 70, retired from Newark police in 76, was charged with four counts of murder.
Bail said at $3 million.
He was arrested as he sat on the front lawn of his home on his steps the 38 revolver.
So he killed his granddaughter and then went house to house, killing as many as he could Kill.
Now you see what I mean.
Oh, and a little bit of information that might not be out there otherwise from Georgia.
This is from Billy in Georgia.
And he says the total now in Georgia at the crematorium that didn't do its job is 290 bodies found.
They found that a lake on the property, in fact, does contain more bodies, according to Billy, and are planning to drain it.
Investigation is costing Georgia residents about a million dollars every single day.
He says, so far, now this is pretty interesting.
You remember I said I just didn't buy the whole motive of why this guy would have just disposed of bodies instead of cremation.
So far, bodies dating back 18 years have been positively identified.
A judge, according to Billy, has issued a gag order after the above information was released.
So this may be the last we hear for a while.
Billy lives about 30 miles from the scene.
Now, I didn't buy the Machine Didn't Work story when I heard it.
I don't buy it now.
And I certainly don't buy it over a period of 18 years.
There is something else, something very serious going on there.
Here's another piece of news you might not have heard.
This comes from the Times Night Ritter Tribune News Watch, business news watch, in fact.
An Alexandria woman said that she saw a flare or rocket ascending toward a U.S. Airways flight landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last month, similar to a report from a Southwest Airlines pilot landing at Baltimore, Washington International Airport on Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a report by the pilot of Southwest Flight 454 that he saw what looked like a model rocket pass on the left side of his aircraft on Sunday evening.
FAA says it has no reports of the rocket sighting by the Alexandria resident.
And she said it was kind of like a rocket, a reddish thing that came up from the riverbank.
She said it was aimed toward the back of the jet.
Maybe the pilot didn't see it.
She said she doubted that it was a model rocket.
Didn't look like any model rocket I've ever seen.
Said her son used to play with them, knows what they look like.
It was right toward the back of the jet, right behind the engine, and went in at an angle like it was aimed at the jet.
She added, however, the object didn't get close enough behind that it could have brought down the airplane.
But, you know, obviously the implication here is, if true, that somebody fired something at a commercial airliner, and one other airliner pilot saw something zoom by his window as well, so you have to wonder what might be going on out there.
I've got a story here entitled Antimatter Atoms Captured for the First Time.
Coming up in just one moment.
unidentified
The Shack.
The Shack.
Now we take you back to the night of February 21st, 2002, on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
This is a Minchio Kaku kind of topic, and we'll sure ask him about it.
Antimatter atoms, among the most elusive matter in the universe, have been captured for the first time.
According to the standard model of particle physics, every particle has a corresponding antiparticle with the same mass and opposite charge.
The pair annihilate each other on contact, releasing a burst of energy.
Scientists have wondered if they might be able to harness this energy, but they found it difficult to make and control anti-atoms.
Late 1990s, up to nine anti-hydrogen atoms were detected in particle accelerators at CERN and at Fermilab near Chicago, but they were moving at almost the speed of light, much too fast to be stored or even studied.
Now researchers on the AT-TRAP, ATR-AP experiment at CERN, the European Lab for Particle Physics near Geneva, think they have made and stored thousands of anti-atoms indefinitely in a particle trap.
This is really something.
The team led by Gerald Cabressel of Harvard University used powerful magnetic fields to trap antiprotons found in the debris of collisions in CERN's particle accelerator.
Then they introduced a beam of anti-electrons or positrons and used an electric field to slow them down and bring the two types of particles together.
When the group exposed the particle trap to an electric field, some particles failed to move, suggesting that the charged antiparticles had bound together into neutral anti-hydrogen atoms.
So I wonder what this is going to mean for mankind.
You know, you hear of this kind of story.
The atom bomb was bad, the hydrogen bomb was worse.
And if they have actually succeeded in trapping and holding antimatter, then I've been told, or at least I believe it would be true, that an antimatter weapon, and they're not going to start by making antimatter cancer cures.
Somebody's going to want an antimatter weapon.
And if this is the first little foot in the atomic door, or should I say, antimatter door.
Everything's atomic in some sense, but in the antimatter door, then mankind may have a big surprise coming down the road.
And we handled so far element 92 without self-destructing.
I wonder how we're going to do with antimatter.
And you may recall the movies about the construction of the atom bomb and the scientists who were irradiated and died horrible deaths in the Manhattan Project.
And I wonder what happens if you make a similar mistake, but this time with antimatter instead of something coming to a rapid critical mass in your face.
Well, at this point, with a gag order and no more information coming out, I suppose you could speculate about anything you wanted, but that wouldn't be my first.
But I don't have a first thing to jump to.
I don't have a clue, and I don't buy the machine thing at all.
You're listening to Arc Bell Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an oncore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
I know I always get by.
I love them.
If something comes in my way, I'm going round it.
Don't let life get me down.
Gonna take it the way that I found it.
I got music in me.
I'm gonna open up your gate.
And maybe tell you about Phaedra.
And how she gave me life.
And how she made it in.
Some velvet morning when I'm strange.
Flowers growing on a hill.
Driving flies and duffel deals.
Learn from us very much.
Look at us, but do not touch.
Phaedra is my name.
Some velvet morning when I'm straight.
I'm gonna open up your gate.
Open up your gate and maybe tell you about Phydra and how she came alive and how she made me listening to Ark Bell somewhere in time tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
Throughout the country, you would get similar stories in flowers.
I'll tell you here, our days are now suddenly, all of a sudden, out of nowhere.
We were in a deep freeze for a little while, and now all of a sudden, here it is in February, and the apple blossoms are shooting out, and everything living in the desert has concluded that it's time to start doing its spring thing.
So it has begun.
And that's the situation pretty much across the country.
So I think that a Buddhist, what I'm getting at here is that I understand that you do it in the name of Jesus Christ, but a Buddhist might do it in the name of Buddha and also be successful in ridding the demon.
Well, either that or it was done some time ago by the military, that that some black box technology, you know.
That's what he's claiming.
unidentified
Yeah, because it sounded to me like the point was this guy, you know, this happened only a couple years back or something, and that he was claiming his clone supposedly did it.
And I thought, wait a minute, cloning, regardless of all the other discussions, still relates to raising a baby.
Well, see, I was wondering what it was like, you know, at the police station where probably his attorney was meeting with him, you know, and they were talking about their defense.
And the guy said, look, here's what we're going with.
My clone did this.
And the attorney probably looked at him and went, brother, Medley, you know, of course, brother, you're going away for a long time.
I thought that was very interesting, you know, just to hear someone's opinion that you would never did the story last night about vampires in Colombia?
unidentified
No, see, that's what I'm saying.
Oh, see, they were talking about vampires last night.
In Colombia, there are roving bands of vampires right now that are stopping people on the street at gunpoint or knife point or whatever and demanding blood from their throat.
I had a dream a couple of years ago, and the person that came to me in the dream turned out to be someone that has passed away in the neighborhood close to my residence.
And the other night we went to the spot where I visioned in the dream, and I took a couple of friends, and they thought I was wacky, and I wound up going to that particular spot.
And I got a real eerie feeling, and the landscape, the trees looked different right in the spot, and it was just very strange.
And it turns out one of my friends looked down and seen a piece of the crime scene tape, and that's where it happened.
And it was very bizarre, and it was a very, like, you know, kind of desolate area right there.
So just like little things like that just keep coming up.
And yeah, and I just, I don't, you know, I wonder, like, like I've been listening to your show trying to see if other people are sharing the same experiences.
You can get it, you can put it on anything you want.
Gotta go.
unidentified
You're listening to Ark Bell somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
We'll be right back.
Seasons don't feel the reaper.
Nor do the wind, the sun, or rain.
We can be like that.
Come on, baby, don't feel the reaper.
Baby, take my hand.
Don't feel the reaper.
We'll be able to fly.
Don't feel the reaper.
Baby, I'm the man.
La la la la la.
La la la la.
Well, the sun refuses to shine.
People tell me it ain't no use in trying.
My little girl, you're so young and fresh.
And one thing I know is true.
Gonna die before your time.
See my daddy in bed and dying See his hair turning gray He's been working and saving his life away I know He's been working Every day Saving his life away He's been working, baby He's been working
Yeah We We gotta get out of the day.
We gotta do.
We gotta get out of the day.
There's a better life for me and you My little girl, you're so young and pretty.
And one thing I know is true.
You'll be here before your time is due.
So you will see my daddy in bed.
See it's happy.
Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell somewhere in time.
Tonight's program originally aired February 21st, 2002.
It was almost like the national anthem there, believe me.
Eric Burden and the Animals.
Eric Burden has been a musical...
He's gone from the driving force of the grittiest British invasion band, pioneering the San Francisco psychedelic rock scene, to fronting war, the biggest funk band of the 70s, to cutting an LP with an early influence, jazz, blues,
great Jimmy Witherspoon, to coming full circle, reuniting with his original band, The Animals, for a series of projects and a worldwide tour, to forming a group of, in quotes, animals, releasing a series of CDs, and a recent DVD concert.
Burton's lengthy recording career began in Newcastle, England, where he first covered songs for his idols like Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Josh White, Ronnie McGee, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed.
He and the Animals quickly gained notoriety as England's best R ⁇ B band, were selected by the pirate station Radio Caroline as the feature for the first broadcast of the U.S. That was a ship that was offshore until they got them.
They were part of the first live R ⁇ B recording in the U.K. when they joined Sonny Boy Williamson for the now-famous 63 New Year's Eve concerts.
This raw performance was followed by a more polished one when the Animals appeared with Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent on Renegade Granada TV in 64 for the Whole Lot of Shaken concert feature released on film as Don't Knock the Rock.
The film showcased a rendition of Talking About You shortly thereafter.
The Animals took the music world by storm when they recorded and released an electrified version of the traditional folk number, The House of the Rising Sun.
That was another one.
In short, Fare, they followed with such classics as Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.
We got to get out of this place.
It's my life.
I'm crying inside and looking out.
The story of Bo Diddley, bring it on home to me, C.C. Ryder, it goes on and on.
Here, folks, from Joshua Tree is Eric Burton, who's got a cold.
Actually, the vestiges, I guess, of a cold, right, Eric?
Well, I remember, I mean, sometimes I think it's my imagination, but I remember POWs.
They were dressed in British military fatigues, but they had a black diamond patch on their arms, and they would be in Woolworths and various other stores on the weekend shopping, like anybody else.
Italians, Germans, Russians, and of course Americans too.
I remember being taken to a USO club with my aunt who used to serve the Troops P at a club in one of the main thoroughfares in my hometown.
So that was the first time I ever heard big band jazz, and first time I ever saw black men, you know, in uniform, black men, period.
I mean, I just felt like a lot of other people, unbeknownst at the time, that the same thing was happening in Liverpool and in London and Manchester and various other places where kids were going to college and art school.
And we were fed up with what we were being fed because we knew it wasn't the truth.
And we searched for our own truth.
And we found it in imported music and imported movies.
So when I was at art school at Newcastle University, I spent most of my days in the movie theater watching American movies, French movies, Italian movies.
Yeah, instead of working on, you know, instead of sketching, going to art galleries and sketching things.
And then I would fill in my sketchbook later on from photographs, references, and things like that, and just get away with it.
And we formed our own band, starting out, as most kids did, as a skiffled group, which meant it was a rhythm section that grew out of the traditional jazz bands that were popular at the time in England,
like Chris Barber, who kind of really was the father of the English, eventually the English rock and roll scene, because his traditional jazz band was the first, he was the first band leader to allow the rhythm section to,
during a musical break, to have break out the guitars, keep the banjo on stage, lose the drama, lose the horn section, and then a guy who played banjo for Chris Barber's band, Lonnie Donegan, who would step up front and do things like Rock Island Lion.
I mean, it was a total surprise and shock to me to go down to London to a club called Alexis Corner Club, which was named after a guy called Alexis Corner, who started the first R ⁇ D bands in England and stand there in the crowd and look around and see Mick and Keith and Brian Jones and Ronnie Jones and Geno Washington.
The latter guys were two Americans who'd been in the U.S. Air Force in England and decided to stay because the scene was so groovy.
Then, of course, the Beatles really hit the world.
They came out of Hamburg with already about 200 songs written already.
And went into the studio and had produced refine them.
And that's how they came up with so many hit songs.
Well, what I'm curious about is why something like that happens.
I mean, there it is, Roxines trucking along in this country, and nobody knows it, but building in Europe is this incredible, incredible invasion, and it's happening all over the place.
Not just you, not just the Beatles, but so many.
All happening at the same time, all ready to break over our heads over here like a giant wave.
And it just, it seems so unlikely, or maybe it isn't, you know, that it would all be happening roughly at the same time.
You can have everything on your side in any facet of life.
And if you haven't got timing, you're dead in the water.
And it was just coming out of the warriors, coming out of the black and whiteness of the war years, and trying to inject some life into this stuffy British, you know, claustrophobic lifestyle.
Suddenly kids had money for the first time.
We had our own money and we cracked our own dress styles.
Before, long before the Beatles came on the scene with the Beatle haircuts and everything, there was the Edwardian teddy boys who wore Edwardian suits with purple drapes and the jacket had to be thumb length.
The stovepipe pants and huge thick crepe sole shoes.
And the girls were called black angels and they wore pencil thin skirts, ballet shoes.
And their weaponry was metal combs stuck in their beehive hairdo with sharpened edges.
And then the music just cut through because people, every, I remember coming to New York when I first did the streets of New York, and I met this guy on the street.
He said, I remember I stopped and looked at him because he had one shoe on.
And of course, everybody in the world loves everything with a beat.
And the one thing that I remember about being afraid to tell my parents what I was doing at night instead of night schools, I was going to a jazz club.
Well, see, my family, I was lucky, my family was split right down the middle.
First of all, my mother was from Scotland.
My father was English.
My father was actually in World War II a conscientious objector.
And my mother's side of the family were all military.
And there was an adopted uncle in the family who was Catholic.
And the family was English Presbyterian, basically.
So there was this mishmash of living on the border, on the borderline of England and Scotland.
And I must admit that the Scottish side of me was more important and meant more to me than the English side of me.
There seemed to be more to Scotland, more pride in Scotland, more well, more violence as well in Scotland, but also a regal feel to Edinburgh when I used to go there.
And every night I would go to bed and listen to the military bagpipes on the hill piping the end of the day at nine o'clock every night.
And that just soaked right into, you know, right through the poles of my skin and stayed with me right up till today.
And it's really, although I'm not on your side, so I don't know what it's like performing it, but my guess is the magic is there the same way for the person who performs it as those who listen.
I mean, I always say that the space between the stage and the performer, if you take a photograph of it, a Polaroid photograph of it, and take the Polaroid slide out of the camera and look at what develops, you'll see the audience and you'll see the stage and the performers, and between them nothing but space and light.
But actually, I think that space is filled with spirituality.
You're listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
You better take care if I find you than creeping down my backstay.
Something down, you better take care if I find you than creeping down my backstay.
She's been looking like a queen in a sailor's dream.
She don't always say what she really means.
Sometimes I think it's a shame when I get feeling better.
My father was a savior.
She sold my new jeans.
My father was a gambling man.
Down in you always.
Now the only thing you can ever do is a suitcase of a show.
And the only time he's satisfied is when he's on a drum.
Oh, mother, tell your children.
Not to do what I have done.
Spend your life.
You're listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks tonight and on your presentation of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
You're listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks tonight and on your presentation of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
Just you'd go to a rehearsal room and plug up the amplifiers and crack up a couple of tunes and our girls would wander in off the street just with our mouths dropped in.
I mean, I don't know how close anybody could really get to Jimmy.
I mean, he was a bit of an aloner as well as, you know, the girls would come first.
You know, LSD and girls came first, and performance came first.
Nothing else mattered.
I never saw the guy without his guitar for the first few years that I knew him.
In fact, the first time I saw him without his guitar in public, well, I mean, I say in public, I mean at a party in London, and he was without his guitar.
That's when I knew he was in trouble and things were changing for him.
And he was beginning to feel trapped because he was being used and utilized and he was a stranger in a strange land.
But there was one or two friends who felt his predicament and wanted to help him over it and help him through it.
Yeah, but that takes a lot of intense self-control to be able to pull that off.
But he'd created this role for himself.
And it was impossible to step back from the burning of the guitars and the reputation of two, three girls a night, whatever.
But I really believe that there was an inner person that I knew because he would come over to my house and over to my apartment, knock on the door and just say, I've had enough of that stuff, man.
Let's just kick back and listen to some music.
Because I had a great stereo system.
And we'd listen to everything from classical music to his latest demo tapes that he'd bring over to my house.
So we formed a pretty close relationship on that level.
And it was pretty bizarre how I got pulled into his demise, into his death, because I hadn't seen him for about a year.
I'd given up on trying to reach him.
And I came into London in his roadmatch.
I said, Jimmy wants to see you.
And my reaction was, well, if he wants to see me, he'll come and find me.
Because I knew that would draw him out of his self-imposed exile.
He was hiding out in a hotel and with a current girlfriend.
And I was playing at Ronnie Scott's Club in London.
But in my first book, I did theorize that it was a suicide because I thought that he was so depressed.
And I found a letter by his bedside, which to me read exactly like a suicide note.
So I assumed that it was a possible suicide or he'd just gone too far and couldn't pull out of the dive.
But after doing much research and looking at every interview that was ever done with his girlfriend at the time, I think now that I was wrong and I've come up with a different theory.
Well, I should say one should read my new book to find that out because, you know, I'd be I don't want to give it away.
I want people to read it in black and white from off the page.
I think that it was like you guys did a whole bunch of drugs together and you had a great time, and one of you fell off your bike and crashed and broke your neck, and the one who survived is going to cop all the guff that goes with it.
So I was just like humped in as like I was his junco partner, and that's the way it could be.
And I think that that is to jump from Jimmy and that period of time to the present day.
I think that's one of the biggest problems we face in the world today is that every government and every political entity, they all look at the word drugs and they hump it all together in one piece and say, drugs are bad, period.
I really believe that if they'd have legalized marijuana in the United States in the 70s, in the early 70s, I think that it would have affected other countries to follow suit.
And we would have had a soft core alternative for the younger generation to turn to other than alcohol.
Because each generation always wants an alternative away from what the previous generation had.
And when you lump it in with everything right up to and including heroin, then the little kid who's going to try it for the first time after hearing every commercial in the world tell him, you know, he'll go mad or whatever, he's been lied to once now, he figures.
It opened up my mind to the possibilities of everything.
In fact, I moved out here to the desert to Joshua Tree, where I now live, originally because it was a UFO center.
It was the place where you came to gaze at the stars at night and take a psychedelic to enhance that, which is unfortunate now because it cancels out any visions that I've had of lights moving across the sky at night because I was stunned at the time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
Sky pilot, how high can you fly?
You'll never reach the sky.
Start off.
Start off.
This following program is dedicated to the city and people of San Francisco, who may not know it, but they are beautiful, and so is their city.
This is a very personal song, so if some of you are going to understand it, particularly those of you who are European residents, save up all your bread and fly 1012 Airways to San Francisco, USA.
Then maybe you understand the song.
It will be worth it.
If not for the sake of this song, but for the sake of your own peace of mind.
Strobe lights beam, creates dreams.
Walls move.
Minds move on a wall sandwich.
Oh child, young child, you alright On a wall sandwich night Angel Sing Leatherwing June blue,
Holland Davidson On a wall sand friends Hold angels, young angel, feel alright On a walmart and friends and night You're listening to Ark Bell somewhere in time tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
Before I leave the subject of Jimi Hendrix and everything, there's one more, a couple aspects I want to cover.
One is during those years, we've got into the Vietnam War and things were pretty crazy here in America.
And a lot of people think that Hendricks, Jimmy was on a list, probably regarded as a national security threat, along with a lot of other people at the time.
And I wonder if you're aware of that or whether you've considered that or know it for a fact.
And I think that if Hendricks had lived, he certainly could have gotten sucked into that vacuum because he had Indian blood to start with and where he got his knowledge from in his early years.
And he certainly knew a lot about Indian philosophy, Indian practices, the belief in four winds, the belief in animal contact and receiving messages from animals and chasing storm clouds and all this kind of stuff.
This was a guy who had just been in the U.S. military.
And I just found out recently that he often took advice from a great Indian shaman, Rolling Thunder.
And I'm now friends with Rolling Thunder's grandson.
His name is Elk Thunder.
And Elk Thunder has told me that Emricks often would meet and converse with Rolling Thunder for strength and well-being and health and direction and all that goes with it.
So if you look at that AIM situation, that American Indian movement that happened in the 1971 through the 73, 74, where there was a lot of the hippies, white hippies, were being influenced by the Indian movement.
And although the Indians weren't that too happy about that, they didn't say no.
They felt that it was power to their cause to see these young white kids copying their dress styles and getting to sweat lodges and all of that kind of stuff.
And there was these charismatic leaders that developed, Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Leonard Peltier, who went to jail and I think is still in jail.
And all they needed was a definite power and a definite force to rally people to their cause.
And Hendricks would have definitely would have been the guy for that.
Not really, other than when I headed for Wounded Knee in 72, I think it was, I wanted to go to Pine Ridge to witness what was going on there because I thought it was such an American event.
I thought it was history in the making.
And I got as far as, I think it was the Idaho State Line, and I was told in no uncertain terms by these gentlemen standing by this unmarked car.
I don't know if they knew I was coming, but I just think they were turning everybody around.
So I literally turned around and went to Mexico.
And I stayed in Mexico, drove around Mexico, went down to Belize and Honduras.
And when I came back, I really thought that America wasn't going to be there when I got back.
Because the imagery that in my head as I left was just total, you know, close to absolute civil unrest.
But, you know, as luck would have it, and once again, timing came into play, Richard Nixon's tapes came to light, and that put everything on the back burner.
And the standoff at Wounded Knee and all that were involved were forgotten completely.
Probably most of the FBI files and the government surveillance, rather than Wounded Knee, most of it was probably because of the anti-war movement, wouldn't you think?
That was the one thing that was missing in his world.
And Yoko, whatever anybody thinks about her, she fit the bill.
And she taught him that there was life beyond the Beatles.
And in effect, broke up the Beatles in order to do that.
But their love affair came first, and at that point in time, the Beatles came second.
So you have to put that in perspective.
She was hated for doing that.
But she and John had become this artist and muse, man and wife, lovers, whatever, politically oriented people with their betting demonstrations and so forth.
But she did change his life, and for a while, he was very happy.
You could see that he was extremely happy.
For the first time in his life, he lost weight because he always hated being pointed at as the people who would get fat first, the pudgy guy.
And if you look back at those videos that they made in New York, he was slimmed down and dressed differently, and the hair suddenly was cut to a GI military-style cut, and he was happy.
He was in New York.
He didn't get buttered by people, but he got stalked.
Well, one can't forget the threat that came from that camp against everybody, particularly against the Beatles, because they must have got the feeling that if they ever performed again live, that somebody might be out there with a gun.
But, you know, somehow also understandable would be, you know, after enough years have gone by, just to sort of get together again and see if the magic's still there.
But, you know, that's partly what the drug culture did.
It changed a lot of people.
It turned a lot of people instantly into the desire for peace.
And I think that the greatest thing that rock and roll music aspired to was the period during the mid-60s through to the mid-70s, where it became an international peace movement and was accepted as such throughout the world.
Art Bell, Somewhere in Time If you listen to the words of John's song, and you approach communism as just an ideal, you know, a perfect ideal, which I suppose if it was implemented perfectly, it might have been, then that's what he was singing about.
I think John Lennon's communist experience, if he had one, was probably being a member of the Beatles, and he found out it didn't work.
I think that John's stance, if he had one, and what shaped his character was the fact his mother was run down by a policeman in Liverpool when he was a kid.
And from that point on, he hated any form of authoritarian.
And I think that probably shaped him more than anything.
And of course, out here, I've seen a lot of stuff that people have been freaked out by, but I've known that it was the military here locally with their jump jets, you know, the Harriet jump jets, and the wind's going in the opposite direction.
And it makes them look super ghostly because you don't hear the noise of the engines.
Well, I just thought it was an incredible structure, you know, for anybody to build.
And I found, did a bit of reading on who Van Tassel was.
George von Tassel was Howard Hughes' chief death pilot.
And I don't know whether it's true or not, but I think he was in the German Air Force in World War II.
But I don't know whether that's true or not.
But this whole area is filled with a lot of mysticism and stories.
I mean, it's true that there was a high-ranking German officer who lived in the shadow of Big Rock, which is right next to the Integratron.
And this Big Rock is the biggest boulder in the world.
And it suddenly just split about two years ago, right down the middle.
And makes me wonder because it's right next to 29 Parns Marine Base.
The local explanation for it splitting is that it was hot engines from four-wheel drives pulling in there to camp in the middle of the night.
But this boulder is bigger than Ayers Rock.
And it split.
So that's one of the local mysteries.
But the Integriton stands is the most fascinating one because a couple of ladies have taken it over and refurbished it back to its supposedly original state.
But of course, nobody can come up with von Tassel's theory of rejuvenation, which is what he said he learned from an alien abduction.
The problem with that is, though, unless that's what's projecting it, because a lot of people, you know, like people who don't do drugs, cops I've interviewed, law enforcement people who have, you know, really pilots who have had near collisions with UFOs, those kind of people, you know, maybe they're the recipients of, you know, what's being projected if it's all from us.
That's all I can imagine because they certainly wouldn't be projecting it.
And I've made a life out of snaking my way through the ups and downs of life and being able to keep my own private life to myself and not be splashed all over the tabloids and yet move in the world of rock and roll.
And I go into that experience in depth in my book because I want people to understand how bad it is when you're judged wrongly, when you're Henry Fonda in the wrong man.
Well, a lot of people wish for fame, and I've told them frequently, you know, you really should be very careful what you wish for, because fame and all it's really cracked up to be.
You know, like I say, I've managed to walk a fine line between fame and keep a private life, but there are times when there's times when it works, too.
One of the worst overall things is that you're out there on the road, on stage, getting adulation from people who want your autograph so they can put it on eBay the next day and sell it for $200 and they're hounding you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And you're getting hit on by girls, left, right, and center.
You come home, and it's an empty house.
And all you do is hear the white noise from the gig going through your head as you sit alone in the hotel room.
Um I you know, I would love, listen, I'm coming to the part of the show where I always ask my guests, or I try to, and I know you've got a cold, and I know you're not used to staying up real late necessarily, but I'd love to let the audience ask you some questions, and I'm sure they would love to ask you some questions.
It's just a matter of whether you're up for it and whether you're feeling all right.
Well, they danced their way through the Carter administration and through what's his name here recently, and they danced a lot in a lot of administration.
I mean, I take it you didn't really favor the Vietnam War.
We'll be right back and we'll go to the phones with Eric Burton.
I'm Art Bell from the High Desert.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
Don't touch that dial.
unidentified
You're listening to Art Bell somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from February 21st, 2002.
There's a man with a gun over there.
Telling me, I got to beware.
I think it's time we stop.
Children, watch that sound.
Everybody look what's going down Music by Ben Thede X Cause he was telling everyone in town all that he felt.
And reason made a play to split.
He talked and talked.
And I heard him say that she had pretty eyes anywhere.
And reason ain't of his latest fame Though I smiled, the tears inside were burning I wished him luck and then he said goodbye He was gone but still his words kept returning What else was there for me to do but cry?
Would you believe that yesterday This girl was in my arms and swore to me She'd be mine eternally And reason ain't a place plain Though I smiled, the tears inside were burning I wished him luck and then he said goodbye
You're listening to Arc Bell somewhere in time on Premiere Radio Networks.
Tonight, an ongoing presentation of Coast to Coast AM, from February 21st, 2002.
We're talking about Presley a while ago on this record.
Yeah, I found, eventually located what I believe to be the original House of the Rising Sun.
It's owned by a very well-known attorney in New Orleans, and it's located on St. Louis Street and has been carefully restored to its pristine original state.
And I was lucky enough to be invited there to dinner one night.
And to my surprise, the gathering of people there were basically comprised of about 40 Catholic nuns, two high-ranking police officers and a couple of high court judges.
Yeah, I was told that I wanted to go see the Doors were playing, and I can't remember how else, but I wanted to go to the Fillmore, and it was actually, you know, impossible unless you had some sort of an in.
And I got word from one of the Hells Angels that Janis would meet me at the stage door entrance at 1 o'clock on the dot, and there she was, and I stepped across the threshold.
She shook hands with me, and I opened my hand, and there was two purple pills in the palm of my hand, which I promptly ate.
and it took us about three hours to get from downstairs, upstairs, through the dance floor, around the other end, down the stairs at the other end, and then the dressing rooms, and it took us about three hours.
There have been rumors for years and years and years about a big stash of LSD that Timothy did,
unidentified
buried somewhere you hear anything about that no all right East of the Rockies I think he took it all with him that could be east of the Rockies you're on the air with Eric Burden hello hello Mr. Bell and Mr. Burden my name is Steve I'm a senior at the University of Iowa and I'm a research assistant to a class taught on Elvis Presley called Elvis's Anthology really yeah we listen to a lot of old music and a lot of the music that influenced Elvis
and other artists and I guess what I'm curious about I've read your book Mr. Burden the New One and it's really good there's a little plug for you I'm wondering if there are any of your influences that seem to be I don't want to say forgotten but maybe not as well known to people who are young that you would like us to know about well I've
that's incredible you you that's you you witnessed that yourself you've seen that oh yeah many times unfortunately he pushed himself too hard and he had a stroke in his 40s and That was his demise after that.
I mean, this guy really just wanted to get out of his body and into a different sphere.
I mean, and his knowledge of old New Orleans marches and dirges and all the way up to playing pop music.
He's just a walking soundtree.
And I can't impress enough to young Americans who haven't been exposed to this guy to listen to his music.
It's absolutely wonderful.
unidentified
Well, that's fantastic.
Thank you.
I'll definitely check him out.
I'm writing a thesis right now.
And some of the academic powers that be don't think that this music has enough merit to carry along academic research, but it's only been around 100 years.
I had a couple of comments about Jimi Hendrix and a question about Jimmy really quickly.
The comments are, I've been researching Jimmy's life and music and everything for pushing 25 years, and I thoroughly believe that Jimmy was murdered.
It's next to impossible for someone to drown themselves in red wine.
And I just, you know, there's such a focus on a lot of the drugs and so forth around Jimmy's life.
And every opportunity I get, I try to, if you will, resurrect some of Jimmy's reputation.
It doesn't bring him back, but he was such an incredible person living out his potential that this narrow focus, it seems to be pervasive.
The other thing that I found out, and while I understand that Jimmy experimented with heroin, he was not a junkie and was actually terrified of needles.
You were real an inspiration to, I can just feel all, I guess my generation, our generation, whatever you want to say, is just, I don't know, I can feel it tonight.
It's just such a special guest, you know, art you have there.
It happens because the nature of the business is that while you're out on the road performing, your money is going to a different location.
An artist can't be expected to pick up 20 grand at the end of the night after a festival and walk the streets of Detroit with 20 grand stuffed in your pants.
It was a bit weird because I was on tour in Germany at the time, and my keyboard player came across to me and said, guess what?
You've been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And I thought, oh, that's cool.
But I couldn't be there because I was on tour.
So the result of that was that the people at the Rock and Hole Hall of Fame committee, they thought that I deliberately snubbed them, which isn't true at all.
It's just that I had a job to do and I couldn't duck out of it.
But about 20 years ago, I was in L.A. and I was in a situation and I got stuck and I was hitchhiking and Eric stopped and was very nice and gracious and helped me out and gave me a ride and it's always been, you know, it's very unassuming.
I don't exactly remember where, the exact geography of it, but it was going down towards USC area, I guess.
But I don't know.
I don't know, but I remember it was you and you were really cool about, you know, you mentioned that you were in a band, and I thought it was just a little band.
I can't promote any of the new album until all of the legal paperwork, publishing is all complete because there's so many bootleggers out there that I have to be covered lawfully before I perform any of the new work.
Well, it's killed the music business from my point of view.
It's very damaging.
I haven't been in a recording studio for many years because A, I don't understand the new technology.
I couldn't see a place for my voice in it until recently when I met a producer who once was a drummer for me, Tony Brownagel, and showed me that he and his musicians and the system that he has in LA can record digitally but can mix it and make it sound like it was recorded analog.
And I'm very happy with the way my new record sounds.
But I produced it myself, financed it myself, and I know the minute that it's released it's going to be downloaded and bootlegged.
But at least if I have the publishing hold tied up, at least I'll have some recourse to go after people.
It meant that every individual had his own micing system which went into the four or eight track board.
So each instrument had his own personal power, you know, power line to the pressing of the record, and the grooves were much bigger and wider.
So when you had just simply four or eight tracks dumped onto a 45 record and then pushed out over a Bell Amaze jukebox, which was designed for that particular sound, it hit you right between the eyes.
It wasn't stereo.
It wasn't diffused.
It was mono.
And it just bang, you know, it was just rock, you know, just out there, you know.
And music doesn't sound that way these days.
And people don't listen like they used to.
They don't listen like they used to.
They don't look at movies like they used to.
MTV has ruined movies as far as I'm concerned.
I mean, the way people cut movies now, they cut movies like MTV Videos.
There's only a few people like Robert Altman and directors like him that are still making movies in the old-fashioned way, where the images are warm and engaging and full of action on the screen.
I mean, the digital effects have just taken over from writing and writers and stories.
It's not a very good situation.
And I think all of Hollywood know this they're shaking in their boots at the moment.
Some of the Q ⁇ As that I've done at signings, particularly when people have read the book and they want to get deeper into some of the things that I've written, it's a lot of fun to just stand up there and answer people's questions and play around with theories.
They give me their theories and I give them my input.