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sometimesmylifeissoeerie
Fourth Love
198 Posts |
 Posted - 05/04/2017 : 20:20:12
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The Turtles/Zappa & The Mothers Legend Jim Pons Pens New Book “Hard Core Love: Sex, Football, and Rock and Roll in the Kingdom of God”
Hopefully there'll be some stuff on Judee Sill and her ex-husband Bob Harris, who was in the Turtles, The Seeds and the Mothers.
I ordered it for my local library. |
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sometimesmylifeissoeerie
Fourth Love
198 Posts |
Posted - 22/04/2017 : 23:15:11
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The book finally came in. It was good in the beginning, he talks about The Leaves. I didn't know they were big on the Strip, the same time Love was playing there.
The Leaves had an audition to replace The Byrds as house band at Ciro's. They were scared to death when they found out they had to compete with The Grassroots for the gig.
We all know what band the Grassroots turned out to be, and The Leaves felt they were totally outclassed by the professionalism of LOVE at that time. However, The Leaves was chosen over LOVE for some reason!
They became friends with LOVE, and were 'pot smoking buddies' with AL and Bryan MacLean. BM had learned a folk song from David Crosby called 'Hey Joe', and BM taught it to John Beck, and The Leaves asked them for permission to record it.
Pons said it was never clear whether they were given permission to record it, but it was in Public Domain, so they decided to record it anyway.
Pons said that 'it is said that both LOVE and The Byrds resented that The Leaves recorded it', but they wound up having a huge, #1 hit with it, and overnight became big Hollywood stars.
When The Leaves broke up, Pons became bass player for The Turtles, who were also a big group on the Strip.
It was then that he met Judee Sill, who was the GF of a piano player named Bob (Bob Harris), who sold John Beck pot to support Bob and Judee's junk habit.
He never used Harris' last name, and only mentioned him that one time in the book, so you can assume they weren't close friends, even though they joined Zappa's MOI at almost the same time.
Judee told Pons and Beck that she was working as a hooker to support her junk habit. They eventually got her a job as songwriter for Blimp, the Turtles record company, and then a recording contract with Asylum.
He raves about Judee's songs, and musical ability as a singer and multi-instrumentalist.
he thinks that Judee's songs weren't commercial enough to get a hit record, but that she was idolized by girls in the UK.
He lamented Judee's OD after a failed romance with a famous record executive (Geffen?), and thought that she would've become a big star if not for her drug habit.
Pons then joined The Mothers, and was with them when the casino burnt down in Switzerland, and in London when Zappa was pushed off the stage by a psych fan, and wound up in the hospital for months.
The last words Zappa said to Pons when he was in the hospital were, "Your hair's getting good in the back".
The Mothers broke up, and that was the end of Pons' musical career. The rest of the book is about his other work and born-again life.
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new book- Jim Pons Autobiography
