Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

sleep by the sound of country insects, gave me a sense of security and I would drift off. It was tranquil, peaceful, and boring, and my parents knew it would keep me from the dysfunctional and criminal landscape of our neighborhood. But, if I was lucky enough to be chosen, my parents sometimes sent me to stay with my father’s parents. I enjoyed that very much, but not because I enjoyed my grandparents. I had long ago figured out those dynamics and came away with few warm childish memories. I enjoyed it because they lived in the city of Detroit, which was like the other side of the planet from Warren. It was on those occasions, under the lacking supervision of my grandparents, that I was free to explore black culture first hand.
    The music was more than I could ever have wished for. Artists with names like Ike and Tina Turner, Sarah Vaughan, Buster Brown, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Richard, Jimmy Reed, Little Willie John, Jackie Wilson, Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke and the most prized of all, James Brown and his Famous Flames (and specifically his recording,
Live at the Apollo)
. The Apollo recording drove me to witness two unforgettable performances by Mr. Brown at the Fox Theater in Detroit, and I studied every nuance in an effort to commit them to memory. The lights, the choreography, the background harmonies (especially Bobby Byrd), the clothes and costumes, the sound, the players, the emotion, and finally James Brown as he worked his audience. Then, using that as the premium standard, I compared the white artists. Truly, if I was ever going to sing and make music that I could feel good about, I knew I was going to have to stay with the ethereal probes of black culture.

     
a window to my soul
     
    
“I’m sittin’ there an’ over on a row of empty seats is this beautiful girl but she’s really messed up. Too much drugs or somethin’, an’ she’s just sittin’ there passed out. Then this old, dirty, rumpled-up, unshaven street jerk with no teeth, long stinky hair an’ filthy skin comes in an’ sits down next to her. He’s lookin’ at her an’ lookin’ around seein’ who’s watchin’ an’ he does that for a while. Then he puts his arm around her an’ with his free hand he undoes her blouse. Now he’s feelin’ her up an’ she ain’t movin’. He’s fallin’ in love an’ he’s gettin’ excited an’ his chewing tobacco that he’s been gummin’ to death starts runnin’ out his fucking mouth just as he goes to give a French kiss. He’s workin’ it an’ workin’ it until he stops dead. He pulls his old filthy tongue outta her mouth, looks around one more time with his little rat eyes, picks the girl up in his arms an’ ever so slowly walks out of the fuckin’ building. Somebody’s teenage daughter didn’t make it home that night an’ I never saw ’em again.”
    I had heard about a “hot little place” in Detroit, over on Woodward and Alexandrine, called the Village. The Village was a dark oasis for aspiring stars in Detroit and I was very curious about its reputation. I began hanging around whenever I could, somewhat uneasily checking things out. The slow nights, in the middle of the week, let me catch a feel for what it was and I didn’t have to deal with the crowds of the weekend.
    Many nights the music was no better than the memory I just shared. The two brothers that owned the Village had a pretty slick little operation. They had open auditions for house bands as often as they could. That way they didn’t have to pay anybody. Unfortunately for the singers and other artists, it affected the quality of each performance but I learned to look past that as my hunger for the arcane debauchery of the joint evolved into an addiction.
    Darryl was an exotic dancer there. He was a skinny young white male with a bad case of pimples, short hair, defiant attitude when he wasn’t frozen with fear, bad overbite and an unspoken list of social crimes against his person that made him detestable and pathetic. I tried to be in the front row when he came parading out in his little grass hula skirt with no hips, his little grass bra with no tits and absolutely no chance of ever being able to buy any (even though you could see the drool run from his mouth as you mentioned the possibility), and finally, his real crown of thorns pushed tightly enough into his skull to draw blood.
    Darryl danced eyes-closed and barefoot across the stage as his canard flew smack into the face of his