Before I tell the story, you have to know who Bobby Neuwirth is. Bobby was a guardian angel of sorts during a magical time of my life. Before I met him, he was the dark shadow beside Dylan in Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back”. Hip, cynical, funny, infuriating.
(Date unknown)
From Kris Kristofferson’s Personal Journal
Used with permission
When I met him, I had come to New York with Mickey Newbury, who was working at the Bitter End. He was hanging out with us and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Michael Pollard. He was friends with a lot of artists: Larry Poons, Warhol, Patti Smith.
When I came back from Peru, one of the first things I heard from a photographer friend was that Janis Joplin had sung “Me and Bobby McGee” at a concert. Bobby taught her that song before I ever met him. So I was indebted. We hung out around the Village and one night Bobby told us that Pennebaker wanted to film a jam session in somebody’s penthouse. Odetta, Ramblin’ Jack, Seasons Hubley – Bobby told us later that we’d been filming the Woodie Guthrie Story. I was Cisco Houston. I think he said Odetta was Leadbelly, only he never told anyone. Michael Pollard was wearing a Russian fur hat and Neuwirth said he was a young Bob Dylan. Or Janis Joplin.
I remember Ramblin’ Jack singing “This Land is Your Land” as the sun rose over the city, singing out to the dark buildings. He had acquired some suspicious-looking snakeskin pants. In mid-song, a pair of female hands reached out through the window and grabbed him by the hips and pulled him back and on through.
Somehow it was decided we would fly to San Francisco to look up Joan Baez, Janis, and other friends of Bobby. Odetta decided to go with us, and Ramblin’ Jack sang us out to the plane (something about California not lookin’ so hot when you ain’t got the do-re-mi). On board, Bobby told the stewardess that we were Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Odetta (Mary) had been to the islands. When we got there Odetta went to her friend Nina Simone’s and Bobby and I slept in some out-of-town musician’s place. Then he introduced me to Janis and we hit it off, and we sort of moved in. She was working out like a fighter with her band – a bunch of great Canadians that Albert Grossman had again stolen from Ronnie Hawkins, so Bobby and I had enough time to get in trouble and make a lot of music. In a few months I would start performing at the Troubador, and it was like stepping onto a roller coaster. And Janis, Bobby and I went in different directions.
For example – Bobby Neuwirth and I are talking in a late night after concert jam session in a London hotel. Jerry Lee Lewis is playing the piano and singing. Bobby says, “If you don’t believe there’s a God, ask for something impossible and stand back.” Bobby is beautiful. A Shakespearean jester who’s wiser than all the rest. We ran together for a while in a time of guts and glory and dreams coming true or not. I guess he told me more surprising things that turned out to be true than anyone else I’ve run into, personally, on the planet.
The next morning we fly to Gothenburg, Sweden to begin a tour with Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison and Guy Clarke, and I think of how they shared a common grief of the most heartbreaking human experience, the death of beloved children. It’s not meant to be thus: Jerry Lee’s was a pool and jeep accident. Roy’s died in a fire in his home when he was away working. Roy’s wife was killed on a motorcycle when they were biking together.
When we landed in Gothenburg somebody came with the news that my daughter Tracy had been in a motorcycle accident and was unconscious and in intensive care.