A new book by frequent Voices of Laurel contributor, Forbes magazine writer, and Laurel High School graduate (Class of 1973) Jim Clash has been released. Amplified is a compilation of Q&A interviews Jim conducted with some of the icons of rock ‘n roll. The Forbes name gave him access to the likes of Roger Daltrey of The Who, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of Cream, Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, and many more.
Besides rock stars, during his career Jim has interviewed a variety of notable people from astronauts to racing car drivers to scientists. His experience conducting probing interviews served him well in Amplified. In the book, Jim skillfully interviews a number of rock stars who are rumored to be difficult subjects, such as Baker, Art Garfunkel, Fogerty, and Bruce. The stories he elicits in these conversations are remarkable. For example:
Baker pulled no punches in his criticism of, among others, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Kiss. But Jim manages to show his softer side when Baker teared up discussing his legacy.
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull talked about the technical difficulties in recording “Locomotive Breath.”
John Fogerty recalled CCR’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show when the music was prerecorded but he sang live.
Grace Slick talked about Jefferson Airplane’s set at Woodstock that started at 6:00 am.
Roger Daltrey recalled The Who’s 1967 appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour when drummer Keith Moon loaded his drum kit with far too many explosives for a dramatic ending. The explosion destroyed the set and caught Pete Townsend’s hair on fire.
There are many more stories in the book. Amplified, a fascinating behind-the-scenes look with some of the most important performers during the golden age of rock ‘n roll, is an Amazon best-seller. The book is available on Amazon.com.
They Said What?
By Jim Clash
Imagine as a teen at Laurel High School listening to your favorite rock music on the radio, then later meeting and interviewing the very rock stars you had listened to. That’s what I’ve been fortunate enough to do over the years as a Forbes journalist. My chats with those musicians are included in my new classic rock book, Amplified, in their entirety. But here, I’m recounting some of the more amusing highlights from those chats.
Art Garfunkel: With Art, I was star-struck, being a long-time fan of the film, The Graduate, to which Simon & Garfunkel wrote the musical soundtrack. Also, this was the guy who was one of the two voices in “Sound of Silence,” the song of the 20th Century. I fessed up to my admiration up-front.
Art, with his relaxed attitude, put me at ease right away, and we had a nice exchange. In the middle of it, though, probably due to nerves, I accidentally called him “Paul.” Now while Paul Simon had been his lifelong partner in musical crime, sadly the two don’t much get along these days. I kept talking, hoping that he didn’t notice my guffaw. Five seconds later, he said, “Jim, I heard that.” I started to apologize, and profusely, but he stopped me abruptly, saying, “Don’t worry, it happens all of the time.” We both laughed.
Another thing about Art: Now that he’s bald and sans his signature sixties afro, he doesn’t seem as tall as you might remember. In fact, standing next to him backstage, he and I surprisingly were the same height, about 5'10". Another reason Art looked so tall: he’s most always pictured with Paul Simon, who, in reality, is very short—only 5'3".
Grace Slick: When I interviewed the iconic Jefferson Airplane singer by phone, she lacked any filters, to a degree refreshing. When I told her that we, collectively as teens, adored her as a kind of sixties sex symbol, she immediately disagreed. “I had kinky black hair, which looks odd on a White person, and blonde eyelashes and eyebrows,” she said. “I had to put on makeup so that my eyes matched my hair. I have no tits and, from the knee down, my legs are very, very short. How do you work that? Proportion. You wear boots that come up over your knees so it looks like the lower part is longer.”
Another thing Grace told me was that she was not impressed with The Beatles when they broke in America on The Ed Sullivan Show. She thought it silly that grown-up men were singing about wanting to “hold your hand” and “she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” But when she first saw Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones, more counterculture and bad-ass, she thought, “Now that’s the stuff there.”
John Fogerty: At Laurel Junior High School, I remember skipping down the hallways with classmate Bobby Jeschelnik, singing, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I’m no fortunate one...” John Fogerty, of course, wrote those lyrics as part of “Fortunate Son.” He also wrote the lyrics to a slew of other Creedence Clearwater Revival hits including, “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Proud Mary,” “Green River,” and “Bad Moon Rising.” That last tune has an oft-misquoted lyric: “There’s the bathroom on the right.” In reality, John is singing, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
When I brought up the amusing anecdote to John during our conversation, his sense of humor immediately kicked in. “People show up at concerts with ‘there’s the bathroom on the right’ signs and a little arrow pointing to the right,” said John, laughing. “It gets confusing. Do they mean my right or their right? When I’d sing that line, I’d point to my right. But, as any good first-grade teacher knows, you have to point to the student’s right. So nowadays, I point to the left, which is actually their right.”
Ginger Baker: Ginger, rest his soul, was known for his split personality. Sometimes he was warm and charming (he actually teared up when I asked about his legacy), other times he was cranky and aggressive (his love/hate relationship with Cream bassist Jack Bruce, for example, and his breaking the nose of director Jay Bulger during the making of the 2012 documentary, Beware of Mr. Baker).
When I spent the day with Ginger at his horse farm in Parker, Colorado, he was mostly on good behavior. But that didn’t stop the greatest drummer of the sixties from blunt tirades about things he didn’t like. When I brought up the popular show band, Kiss, for example, and all of the money they were generating at the time by reuniting, he was direct.
“These people dress up in spandex trousers with all of the extraordinary make-up. I find it incredibly repulsive, always have,” said Baker. “I’ve seen where Cream is held responsible for the birth of that sort of thing. Well, I would definitely go for aborting [laughs]. I loathe and detest heavy metal. I think it is an abortion.”
Ginger is not too keen on American tea, the beverage, either. “The instructions printed on the bag say to pour boiling water over the tea,” he points out. “How simple is that? No, they bring you an empty cup with an unopened tea bag—how nice—and a pot of water that is hot, but boiling it isn’t. So, tea you have not. It’s the boiling water that brings out tea’s flavor. But the brown liquid you end up with here looks like gnat’s pee, and has nothing to do with a really good cup of tea.”
Roger Daltrey: The Who’s lead singer is surprisingly down to earth for the icon that he is. After all, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who are considered the best of the British Invasion groups.
I’ve known Roger for quite awhile, having worked with his Teen Cancer America charity for ten years. I once asked him whether the four Who band members had really urinated on the stone monument pictured on the famous album cover, Who’s next. His answer at first puzzled me: “It was some and some.” When I probed deeper, Roger said that indeed they had urinated on the thing, but that wasn’t enough for the photo, so they fixed it a bit by adding water.
Roger also recalled in great detail the time drummer Keith Moon had loaded his bass drum with explosives for a live Who performance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Problem was that Moon had used more explosives than he needed, and when set off at the finale of their performance, the concussion blew Roger off the stage, and caught guitarist Peter Townshend’s hair on fire. “It involved all of the fire marshals, and, for 24 hours, it was a pretty bleak scenario,” says Roger. “But when word got out and the show aired, we realized we couldn’t have done anything better to get The Who known in America [laughs].”
Micky Dolenz: As the last living member of The Monkees, the sixties television show rock group, Mickey is in high demand. But during the darkest days of Covid, he had time on his hands. When we started our phone interview, I asked how many minutes he had. He replied that, being in lockdown, he had nothing to do that afternoon except mow the lawn–and talk to me. In other words, I could interview him for as long as I wanted.
Micky’s a fascinating guy, with tons of anecdotes. But one of them is pretty much over the top. When The Monkees first went on tour, a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix was opening for them. Yes, Jimi Hendrix was opening for The Monkees. Crazy, right? But while Jimi was playing songs like, “Purple Haze,” hordes of Monkees’ fans became restless. Suddenly chants of “We want Davy [Jones], We want The Monkees!” began to bubble up, drowning out and frustrating Jimi. “It was very embarrassing,” recalled Micky.
There are five other rock icons featured in Amplified, any of whom I could have chosen for this piece: John Kay, Ian Anderson, Dion DiMucci, Jack Bruce, and Eric Burdon. All have great stories, too, but I just didn’t have enough space here to include them. I’ll leave it to you to discover their anecdotes after purchasing the book on Amazon!
Jim Clash immerses himself in extreme adventures for Forbes magazine. He has driven a Bugatti at 253 mph, flown in a MiG-25 to 84,000 feet at 2.6 times the speed of sound, summited the Matterhorn, and skied to the South Pole, among other things. He graduated from Laurel High School in 1973. His books include Forbes to the Limits and The Right Stuff: Interviews with Icons of the 1960s.
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