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

Kimberly’s parent’s house and opened the car door, however, the cat bolted out and we never saw her again. We must have stopped ten or eleven times on the trip back, sometimes in the open desert at night and that cat always returned to us––and the car. Not this time.
    Everything else aside, we were re-united with our families. Kimberly and I settled in with Russ and Dora, Kim’s parents, and Kim began looking for a job. I applied for and received thirteen weeks of unemployment insurance and everyday, after halfhearted attempts at finding work, wrote lyrics and composed music. Kimberly landed a very good job with the Xerox Corporation and we started looking for a place to live. Near the end of our stay at her parents’ house I was outside trimming a shrub when acar pulled up to the house and out stepped a young man who would open the next chapter of my musical life. His name was Billy Csernits.
    I had been laying low and was surprised that anyone was able to find me, but apparently Kim’s father, Russ, had mentioned to one of his co-workers at Ford Motor Company that his son-in-law, Mitch Ryder, was back in Detroit and living at his home.
    Billy explained that the co-worker was his father and that when his father mentioned my presence he was compelled to seek me out because I was one of his heroes. We talked for a while about what he was doing in music and what I had been doing. I was guarded at first, but Billy had a calming effect on me. Plus, I trusted Kimberly’s father a great deal and didn’t believe he would expose me to a situation that would bring me harm. Actually, I think he just wanted me out of his place.
    The conversation with Billy didn’t last all that long but I found myself enjoying his company enough to agree to get together again. Neither of us knew it at the time, but Billy would become my most trusted friend and confidant in the years to come. Billy would help me understand and serve as my window to the new generation of music and musicians that had evolved in the years of my absence from live performances. He would also become my new spiritual guide.
    I had spent a great deal of time thinking about how I would re-enter the music business and had developed a plan that, at first glance, almost guaranteed failure because of the inherent exclusionary foundation from outsiders. I wasn’t in a very trusting mood. I had been maligned, ripped-off, conspired against, and treated badly, and I was fond of quoting an acquaintance who often said, “Just because everyone’s out to get you doesn’t mean you’re not paranoid.”
    I was going to make another recording and I was going to control every inch of it. There was no reason to believe anyone still cared whether or not there was a new Mitch Ryder recording. What mattered to me was my quest––which goes on even today––to provide an account of my growth and progression as an artist in the world of music. People have hit records and some will go on for a while and others will fade away. Even though I was not in the consciousness of the buying public, I wanted to continue to fulfill my destiny and pay gratitude for the gift I had been blessed with. All the other stuff, the material belongings, the women, the drugs, the perversities, the ego trips, the money, the self-serving pleasures . . . a waste of time. For some reason, we define success in this country in monetary terms. That is true even with our public servants. But I’ve never had any money to speak of. What has messed with me every waking hour of my existence is fame.
    I decided that on my next recording I would write all of the music and lyrics. When I say write all of the music, that meant the musicians, for the most part, would play the chord patterns and beats to my requirements. I would own all of the publishing, Iwould create the cover and liner notes and credits. I would produce the recording, own the label, and direct distribution of the product. Naïve would be a workable word for such an ambitious plan, but I would settle for nothing less because it was in all of these areas and more that I had been taken advantage of.
    It was in this frame of mind that Billy introduced me to an acquaintance of his named Tom Conner. Our first meeting took place at a huge warehouse out of which Billy and Tom were supposedly doing interior van customizing. When I arrived at the site I walked through the front door into what was supposed to be the lobby office. There was an empty