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DISGRACELAND
Gram Parsons: A Stolen Body, Heroin, More Rolling Stones and Cosmic American Music
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- [00:05]
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Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Graham Parsons are insane. He died at just 26 years old. His body was stolen, unceremoniously disposed of. And the story became the stuff of instant rock and roll legend. Graham Parsons was a prodigious junkie, drunk and creative confidant of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. He was scarred by grief, wore his deep emotional pain on his sleeve and channeled it as best he could through the music he grew up on. The music of the American South. Country, soul, blues and R and B. In the process, Gram Parsons invented a new genre of music, alt country, and unknowingly inspired a future generation. Graham was with the Stones at Altamont and at Nelcott for the making of Exile on Main Street. And somehow, amidst all the chaos and drug use, with his bands, the International Submarine Band, the Birds and Flying Burrito Brothers. And then later, as a solo artist, Graham Parsons made great music. That music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called The Lost Gourd MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Delta dawn by Helen Reddy. And why would I play you that specific slice of recycled rockabilly cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on September 19, 1973. And that was the day Gram Parsons died. Setting off one of the most enduring rock and roll legends of all time. The stealing of Graham Parsons body. On this episode, a reservoir of grief, cosmic American music, disappearing dead bodies and Gram Parsons. I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace. Well, I can shoot him if that's what you want. The handler for the Rolling Stones. Management didn't want Phil Kaufman to shoot anyone on behalf of his clients. No, you don't have to shoot him. In fact, please don't do that. Just run them off. The handler was concerned with Hollywood's predatory drug dealers. The Stones were in town to mix their latest long player beggars banquet. And the last thing they needed was more drug trouble with the authorities. It was 1968, only a year removed from the Rolling Stones infamous bust, sentencing, appeal and release in London for drug possession. The whole affair was an utter fiasco. And in the States the Rolling Stones needed to completely avoid any such trouble if they were to continue as a working band. That's why Phil Kaufman was brought in. Someone from Bob Dylan's camp recommended him. Or perhaps someone from the band, as in the band, Dylan's backing band from Canada, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, those dudes. Kaufman had done a turn road managing them and things worked out okay. So he was recommended to do the same for the Stones here in la. Not necessari, merely road work, as the band would be local, but more accurately, babysitting the band. Or as Mick Jagger put it, Kaufman was an executive nanny. He took care of things for rock stars, which in the nascent years of the music industry was, as it very much still is, a unique skill set. Phil Kaufman was much more than a road manager. He was uniquely capable of getting whatever needed done done. Okay, but if I run them off and they come back, I'm gonna have to shoot him. The Stones lackey could see that this conversation was going nowhere. It was like arguing with a drunk person, an impossible task. Fine, he thought. Yes, you can shoot them if they come back. The dealers would have to be suicidal not to take Kaufman's warning on the first go around anyhow. And if indeed they were shot, then that would be their own damn fault. Phil Kaufman's command was hard not to he. He was an intimidating figure. Not necessarily tall, but big, built like a brick shithouse. He wasn't going anywhere if he didn't want to move. And likewise, if he wanted you gone, he best take it on the arches. Phil dressed in the requisite rock and roll biker garb of the day. Well worn leather, greasy denim T shirts, big Brando engineer boots, massive belt buckle. And he carried with him an aura that basically said one thing very clearly. Don't fuck with me. The air around him gave way to his natural funk. One of motor oil, heavy pomade, unfiltered cigarettes and domestic beer. His friends called him the Mangler and the Mangler. Phil Kaufman was every bit the outlaw his image projected him to be. Back in 67, he caught a drug charge and took a state sponsored vacation at Terminal Island Prison. In jail, he took to a little dude who played the guitar. His name was Charlie. Charlie was a trip. He actually liked jail. Phil never understood that. Charlie said it afforded him the time he needed to practice his guitar playing, which he did often but never seemed to progress at. Phil encouraged him. Despite Charlie's awful playing, Phil thought his voice was pretty good. And his ideas, his words, those lyrics were wild, just like Charlie's sense of humor. Humor. Except Phil could never really be sure when Charlie was joking or not. The guards told Charlie if he didn't stop banging on that guitar and annoying the shit out of them, that they'd never let him get out of there. Charlie responded with get out of where? When Phil got out, he told Charlie he'd take care of him when his stint was up. Told him he had some music industry connections he could introduce Charlie to. Phil moved into a home in Hollywood up on Waverly with some friends of friends, ex cons turned on head types. When Charlie later got out, Phil arranged for one of his housemates to pick Charlie up from Terminal island and to bring him back to the house. Set him up, give him a place to stay. When Charlie showed up at the house, Tony, in comparison to the institutional life he'd grown up in, he'd never Forget the address. 3267 Waverly Drive. Just down the road apiece from 3301 Waverly Drive, where in just a few years, Death to Pigs would be scrawled on the wall in the blood of the home's owners, leno and Rosemary LaBianca. That's when everybody would start to get an idea of who this Charlie cat really was. Phil stayed in Charlie's caris for a bit after he first got out, moving into where Charlie was staying in Topanga after things went south with his roommates. By that time, Charlie had put together a short string of girls and was running them out into Hollywood during the day to scam up bread for food and drugs from square johns who wanted in on that dirty hippie sex vibe. Phil loved it. Later, when Phil, along with the rest of America, watched Charlie Manson's so called family parade across television screens on trial for the Tate LaBianca murders, Phil would remark, I had sex with every one of those murderesses. But back to our story. Phil Coffin didn't have murder on the mind or even sexual. He had the Rolling Stones to occupy his brain. And specifically the conundrum of how to show these rock stars a good time around town while keeping them away from the kinds of trouble that sometimes came with the type of good times rock stars craved. Lucky for Phil, Keith Richards had made up his mind for a lot of them. They were going to see Chuck Berry, who was playing that night at the Whiskey a Go Go. Chuck played his band's sucked three kids in a makeshift pickup band too terrified to keep up with the changes. And they were cheap and it showed. Keith and Mick wanted to meet Chuck and convince him to come on the road with them and open up their shows. Chuck blew them off. They bounced. Keith directed the entourage out to the corral. A divey little cowboy joined in Topanga to see a friend of his perform the country and western songs he and Mick had become obsessed with as of late. Keith Friend's name was Graham Parsons. Phil Kaufman would, of course, meet Graham that night for the first time. And neither of their lives would ever be the same in this modern world of digital transaction. I'm assuming that you guys are like me and you've run into the problem of waking up one morning and looking at your checking account, your credit card bill, and you're saying to yourself, what. What are all these costs that are going out? What's coming in? Wait, did I sign up for this? From which account? What's happening here? Or maybe you're doing okay, and you just opened another account. You get you've been shoveling money into your 401k for years, but you've got no. No idea how much you've saved. Maybe you have other investments. 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In 2013, two brutal murders left the city of Davis, California, paralyzed in February.
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The victims were an elderly couple. It was up close and personal.
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He's. I think the word is psychotic.
- [13:28]
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- [14:18]
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The piano swung mid tempo, totally infectious in that honky tonk kind of way. The Flying Burrito Brothers were in their element. Small crowd blitzed on Wild Turkey and acid and whatever else was going on around the Canyon and found its way into the bar that night, the Corral, and Graham Parsons was feeling himself on stage. He was in that sweet spot between buzzed and obliterated when the heroin jones hadn't quite kicked in, the alcohol hadn't completely taken over, and the pills weren't yet working the way the good doctor had intended, and Graham was inspired. His famous friend Keith Richards was in the crowd. Keith loved Graham and Graham loved Keith, and Mick Jagger hated them both for it, but he was too cool to show it, so he played along. Sure, Graham, you can hang out and sing your country songs and shoot your heroin, but you'll never be a rolling stone. Graham Parsons knew about being lonesome, and Mick Jagger could give a fuck. Keith thought Graham was some sort of cosmic poet who'd mainline the the best that his native south had to offer. Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb, and somehow had a bead on cracking the code, the code that they were all trying to crack, the one that took traditional American music, country, blues, soul and RB and refashioned it into something modern and previously unheard, a new kind of rock and roll. Graham was onto something, Keith thought, and whatever it was, Mick knew that he and Keith were also chasing it down and were hot on its heels as well, but as of yet still hadn't quite captured it. Not on beggars anyway. Maybe on the next go round. Or the next. In the meantime, whatever it was, maybe Graham Parsons would inadvertently help the Stones find it, lead them around the right creative corner. Or just as likely, Mick thought, maybe Graham Parsons would just lead Keith Richards straight down a heroin hellhole. Graham was a prodigious drug addict and a bad drunk, unlike Mick and Keith Graham couldn't handle his drugs. It was downright embarrassing. He was a slob and despite his soft spokenness, when wasted a lout, he came onto women hard, slobbered, drooled, passed out and had to be taken care of. He was a liability and at the time the Rolling Stones didn't need any more liabilities. But the music Gram Parsons played and sang came from an authentic place. Having grown up in Waycross, Georgia, Graham was steeped in the exact type of traditional American music that had utterly captivated the Rolling Stones and rock and roll's second generation of artists, the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and more. There was something about that music and where it came from, where Graham came from, that was endlessly compelling. That music was class music, lower class music and its originators, the old blues. Blues and country singers, knew real pain and misery and the music they created was forged through that hardship. Graham came up in that same area of the country, the South, Georgia. And though he was white and raised in a wealthy family, he knew of deep, deep hardship, losing kind. When he was 12 years old, his father took his own life on December 23, 1958. Ruined Christmas forever for Graham when he raised a.38 revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger. And on the day of Graham's high school graduation, his mother died of cirrhosis of the liver, having drank herself to death. Eighteen years old with two dead parents, the grief from his father's suicide was unprocessed. The trauma from his mother's death calcified Graham's grief into a state of ever present pain. Alternately, throughout the rest of his short life, he would use music and drugs to run the grief down. Sometimes the results were undeniably great, as they were with the output from his first group, the international submarine band that he put together during his brief time attending Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And later when lending his country singing and songwriting talents to the very well established American folk rock group the Byrds on their album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. An album that did as much for 70s mainstream rock and roll as any other critically acclaimed or commercially received album before or since its release, Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline included. To say nothing of what the album did for another generation of alternate rockers three decades later. But whatever creative strides Graham Parsons made there are consistently marred by the inconsistency in output that his drug use created. Unlike Mick and Keith, who, despite whatever drugs or drink they were on, never lost sight of the goal to make great earth shattering culture defining rock and roll, Graham would let the booze the heroin, the pills, the acid eat him up and completely derail whatever progress his music had made for him in his career. But still undisciplined, loud things that he sometimes was. He was mostly a sweetheart and to everyone not named Mick Jagger, fun to be around. Phil Kaufman took to him instantly. Later that night, after the Flying Burrito Brothers gig at the Corral, Graham, his band, Phil, Keith, Mick and the rest of their entourage made it back to the home the Stones were renting in the Hollywood Hills. It was late. Keith had disappeared, and so had Mick. The party was dying down. Graham was out back with the writer Stanley Booth, who was traveling with the Stones. He, too, was from Waycross, Georgia, where Graham had grown up. Such was the cosmic thrust of rock and roll, two Waycross boys, relatively the same age, who'd grown up breathing the same air but who'd never met, thrust together in missed, ascending British stars some 3,000 miles from home under Hollywood's vampire moon, sharing a joint and looking out over the glittery Sunset Strip. Phil stood near, quietly sipping a Schlitz and listening to the two Southern boys talk. Look at it, man, graham said. They call it America. They call it civilization. They call it television. They believe in it. It's slow, pollute it and sing songs to it and eat and sleep and die still believing in it. And. And. I don't know. Graham paused and pulled again from the joint before continuing. And then, man, sometimes the Mets come along and win the World Series, Phil Kaufman would learn. This was just like Graham, poetic in one moment, approaching greatness and then devolving into nonsense. Graham Parsons needed help, and Phil Kaufman was just the guy to give it to him. We'll be right back after this.
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- [22:34]
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- [22:48]
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Graham Parsons would continue on as Keith Richards own personal junkie pilot fish over the course of the next few years by Keith's side during pivotal moments in the trajectory of the Rolling Stones at Altamont and later on the French Riviera. Keith's place during the recording of the Stones masterpiece Exile on Main street, all the time angling to benefit somehow from the glare of Rolling Stones stardom, perhaps as an artist on the newly formed record label by the Rolling Stones or, cooler still, perhaps even joining the Rolling Stones. Despite Graham Parsons immense talent as a songwriter, when it came down to it, dude was a straight up starfucker. He'd been kicked out of the Flying Burrito Brothers over his drug use and the fact that to his bandmates he seemed more interested in the Stones than he was in his own band. But being without a job didn't faze Graham. He had a $30,000 a year trust fund, which in 2000 $20 worked out to roughly be about 200 grand a year. Graham could afford to get wasted putts around on stage and puke into the mic, or alternately chase the Rolling Stones around America or the south of France. His bandmates couldn't. So Graham was out on his own. And despite whatever promises to Graham Parsons that Keith Richards may or may not have made, Keith was a hard man to pin down. Graham tried catching the creative wave burbling up from the basement of Keith's Nellcott mansion during the Stones Exile sessions, but the Stones shut him out. Perhaps because Graham was a mess, shooting Corsican heroin, drinking heavily, and generally unable to keep up with the supernova creative energy and shambolic focus of Keith and the rest of the Stones. Graham played it cool. He'd grab time with Keith when he could, and when he couldn't, he'd keep working on his own songs. In those rare lucid moments at Villanellecon when not totally high on smack or fall down drunk, Graham would Keep his demons down. By working on songs for his next musical project, a solo album, Graham wanted to do things his way and do them unencumbered by the creative restrictions of bandmates. He had a vision. A vision of America through the lens of his own cosmic experience and aspirations. Cosmic American music. And he would bring it to life through a unique and unprecedented melding of the American country, soul and gospel music he'd grown up in the south, listening to, all expressed through the prism of pain he'd been enduring since his father's suicide and his mother's death. He kept writing, but even songwriting had its hangups. No matter how he cut it, Graham kept running headfirst into his unprofessional, processed grief. It reared its beastly head constantly, making songwriting especially painful. So when Graham couldn't write, he'd shoot heroin. And when he couldn't shoot heroin, he'd write. Life was one long race to outrun the beast raging inside, daring him to look around the corner of his consciousness to confront the pain. For Graham Parsons, there was no peace. Graham buoyed back and forth between complete inebriation and half assed attempts at the songwriting, all while marveling at the work ethic of Keith Richards and his bandmates who no matter what drugs or drink were swimming through their systems. No matter what the situation or the environment, always seemed to rise to the creative challenge. Their approach to their craft. Making the greatest rock and roll music the world had ever heard, being the greatest rock and roll band the world had ever seen, and doing it all without a playbook was inspiring to grab and also totally fucking intimidating. But Graham gathered his own inspiration, like a handful of loose change to make one last purchase. Graham was motivated to get his shit together to make great music. But first he needed to kick heroin. And to do that, he needed to get out of France and stay away from Los Angeles. So it was decided. Joshua Tree Joshua Tree National park is about 140 mile drive from LA. It's located in a small desert town filled with entertainment industry burnout seekers, angel dusted LSD heads and UFO chasers. Graham Parsons was, in one way or another, all of these things. After his experience at Nelcott, Graham found his way to LA and burned his way through the Hollywood rock scene before landing out at Joshua Tree to clean up his act and start leaning into the writing process for songs that he hoped would become his first solo album. Graham loved Joshua Tree. And why wouldn't he? It's a place unlike any other on the planet. Its desert is a psychedelics acid dream come true. With its trippy yucca trees, sun, blistered terrain and glittering star freckled nighttime sky. And the town of Joshua Tree was and still is a low key hippie outlaw's paradise. There's a lawless vibe about it. There aren't a lot of people and most of those that live there seem to be trying to avoid some sort of hassle. At night, Graham would head out to Joshua Tree national park and frolic through the desert high on acid in hopes of spotting UFOs and or God. Both were pursuits he believed in. During the day in Joshua Tree, Graham would sleep off the LSD and try to write songs from the cozy confines of his room at the Joshua Tree Inn. Not exactly clean living, but at least he wasn't doing heroin. However, getting fucked up and tripping balls eventually won out and Graham's writing took a back seat. So be it. Being high kept the pain away. He'd get around to writing and to making his solo record in due time. Meanwhile, the Stones Exile on Main street was a smash. Graham was happy for his old friend Keith, but a part of him was pissed off that he wasn't along for the ride. He couldn't help but think that all that country music he'd shared with Keith had helped inform the sound of Exile. Now the record was double platinum and what did Graham have to show for it other than an increasingly intense heroin addiction? But what had Graham even more upset was a new band that was quickly becoming unavoidable on the FM dial. The Eagles. The Eagles featured Graham's ex bandmate from the Burrito Brothers, Bernie Layden. And the band represented everything Graham hated about modern rock and roll, to say nothing of his annoyance at their infusing country into their brand of rock and effectively working his side of the street. The Eagles traded on all the country and none of the soul influences that Graham had been messing with since he started making music back at Harvard with the International Submarine Band. Then through his work with the Byrds and ultimately to his near perfect first album with the Flying Burrito Brothers. Graham had dedicated his life to fusing country and Seoul into a new form of rock and roll. And here was this new band of frankly, by his estimation, assholes who, judging from the high gloss production of their singles, cared little for the actual spirit of this music and only for the success that its most watered down, trite realization could bring. Peaceful, easy feeling. More like plastic dry fuck, went Graham's assessment. Graham Parsons hated the Eagles. Graham knew he could do better. It was Time. Time to get out of the desert, time to put a studio band together, time to get some songs going and make this damn album, and time to deal with his damn demons. To do that, Graham needed to get in touch with his road manager and friend, Phil Kaufman. After connecting through the Stones, Phil had joined on with Graham as a sort of part time road manager and minder. But the two quickly established a legit friendship. Phil saw it as his duty to take care of the fragile singer songwriter. He made sure Graham didn't take too much smack, didn't sleep with the wrong women, and made it to the gig or the studio on time. When Phil got the call, he hightailed it out to Joshua Tree, grabbed Graham, brought him back to LA and nestled him into an apartment at the Chateau Marmont. At first, Graham was motivated, inspired, and ready to get down to work. The two made travel arrangements for Graham's new muse, Emmylou Harris, the beautiful singer with the enchanting voice whom Graham had met on the road. Then they got Barry Tashian, the former singer of the Remains, to fly in from Nashville and immediately began working on a repertoire for Graham. Barry brought with him a suitcase of song, Streets of Baltimore by Harlan Howard and Tompo Glaser, I Can't Dance by Tom T. Hall, and Cry One More Time by Peter Wolf and Seth Jussman of the Jay Giles Band, a white hot R and B band from back in Tashian's home turf of Boston, Massachusetts. With these songs, along with the handful of originals he'd been working up, Graham could see his album taking shape. But working on original material brought painful emotions to the surface, and Graham quickly fell into the familiar habit of burying the pain with alcohol and heroin. Graham was incoherent for long stretches of time, more of a rambling buffoon than a tender troubadour. Kaufman and Tashian knew that making this record wasn't going to be easy, and they needed to act quick while Graham had some semblance of motivation and before he was completely consumed by his addiction. So naturally, they headed to Sin City to find a band. The trip to Las Vegas was strictly business. Tashian and Graham had a job to do. Convince Elvis Presley's band to back Graham in the studio for his new record. It was a brilliant idea. While the rest of the rock and roll world was busy chasing country music up the charts, putting their hair in ponytails and fitting themselves for snap button shirts and bolo ties, all the while paying scant attention to the soul and spirit at the heart of country music. Graham decided to hire deeply talented musicians who got this music on a molecular level. And the fact that they were still seen at the time as being tragically unhip. Backing Elvis as a show band in Vegas, running through a career retrospective of square cheese for beehived housewives and black framed pencil necks in for the early Bird special on junkets from the Midwest made the move by Graham all the more ingenious. While self satisfied country rock and rollers like the Eagles fiddled with learning Chet Atkins and Floyd Kramerris on guitar and piano, Graham would have James Burden and Glenn D. Harden playing guitar and piano in his studio band. Two players who could both come out on your porch or step into your parlor and show you how it all went down. Hiring Elvis's band paid off big time. In addition to having Stone Cold Killers in the studio, Graham, with so much respect for these musicians, kept himself sober through the work. And the result was stunning. The sessions with Elvis's band produced a masterpiece. The record GP as it would come to be called was Graham Parsons vision of cosmic American music come to life. A perfect meld of country, soul and gospel, Southern gothic tradition and irony and inner pain channeled through B bent telecaster strings, R and B chord progressions and honky tonk piano riffs. Graham's heavy, soft spoken, understated singing voice stank of heroin. He sang loose and slack jawed. But his admiration for country singer Conway Twitty lent a measure of directness to the vocals. And the mix of those ingredients manifested an emotional harpoon, a vulnerability that cuts straight through to the hearts of listeners. GP is a staggering work of artistry. When the record was completed, Graham was emotionally spent so he headed out to Joshua tree to chase UFOs again. But there would be little rest for Graham Parsons in his damaged soul in 1973. Grief would soon roar back into his life. On July 15, Graham's friend and frequent musical collaborator, the great guitarist and one time bird, Clarence White, was struck by a drunk driver while loading gear into his car after a gig. He died instantly. When Graham heard the news, he was besieged by grief. Clarence White's funeral was a staid Catholic affair, completely devoid of the soul and compassion Graham knew of his friend. At the reception after the service, Graham drowned his grief in alcohol at a local bar filled with friends. Among them was his now ubiquitous sidekick, Phil Kaufman. It was there that Graham and Phil made a pact with one another that no matter who kicked first, the other would make sure that under no circumstance would the dearly departed among them be Sent off in the soulless fashion foisted upon their soulful friend, Clarence White. Fuck that straight laced funeral jive, Graham said. Take me out to the desert in Joshua Tree, Burn my body up and set my soul free. A handshake and two shots of, well, tequila with coldschlitz chasers sealed. Gene Hackman was pissed. Learning your lines was hard enough. Getting into your character emotionally was another thing entirely. The distractions on a movie set were monumental to begin with. But now, with cops busting up a scene to arrest the biker who owned the house they'd arranged to shoot this scene in, the entire day would be shot to. Gene would never be able to get back into character now. Hackman and director Arthur Penn watched with a mix of incredulity and annoyance as the owner of the house, Phil, coughed. Kaufman was let out under the lowering boom and threw the film crew in handcuffs. The whispers started immediately. Kaufman burned the body, the one the newspapers have been talking about for the past couple days. The body of the desert. That junky country singer. The newspapers had it right. Kaufman did burn the body, and he didn't care who knew about it. And he'd do it again if he had to, to make sure that his friend Graham Parsons was honored in death the way that he had pledged to do for him in life. After Clarence White's funeral, Graham Parsons was focused. When GP Failed to set the world on fire, Graham was disappointed but undeterred. He was hell bent on making another great record. But first, Graham needed some rest. He headed back to Joshua Tree for some R and R, and he was happy. He had a strong feeling that when this new yet to be written album was released, the results would be different. The world would finally get hip to Gram Parsons and his cosmic American music. Hell, at least the local bar out at Joshua Tree had one of his songs on the jukebox. He made it a point to hang out as much as possible at his new local and to hit the stage whenever the mood struck him. One night, while sitting in with a local band and working their way through Merle Haggard's Okie from Muskokee, Graham took note of how the pedal steel player couldn't keep up with the rest. When they finished the set, Graham found out out why. The steel player's arms were loaded with track marks from shooting junk and were so badly bruised he could barely move them, never mind play steel. The sight of the track marks wet Graham's whistle. He'd been drinking most of the day and night and taking pills, but now he had heroin on his brain, that familiar junkie Jones kicked in. Subconsciously, he knew that no amount of booze, pills or promise of the future would stave off the pain for too long. Heroin, though heroin took it all away. So Graham and a couple friends he was traveling with split. They knew they could fix back at the hotel. Back at the Joshua Tree Inn, a local heroin dealer was arranged for Graham. When the dealer arrived, she had her 2 year old with her. Graham didn't mind. But he did mind that the dealer didn't come as advertised. She didn't actually have have any heroin. Instead she had vials of stolen government grade morphine sulphate. At this point, Graham didn't care. He could feel the saliva dripping down the inner walls of his cheeks. He could feel the giddy pitter patter of his heart picking up speed in anticipation of getting high. He needed to feel the rush of opiates blast up his veins and wipe away the coming hurt. Morphine was close enough and it would have to do. Graham. Graham would just have to take twice as much. So he did. And immediately things went south. Graham's overdose came quick. His breathing slowed. And then it grew, rasped. His two friends managed to get him up and into the tub with his clothes off. They jammed ice cubes into his, a home remedy almost as old as ice itself, which shocked his system and revived him. Graham was mumbling and semi conscious. But within no time, the morphine once again took control of his faculties. No frozen enemas would be able to help him this time. And then Graham felt next to nothing. Just warm bliss. His body went slack. His mind went black. No pain. No more grief. Then nothing. Graham Parsons overdosed and died in Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn on September 19, 1973. When Phil Kaufman heard the news, he was back in la. And he was pissed. Pissed that Graham had been so careless. Pissed that Graham's traveling friends hadn't known how to keep him alive. And pissed that he wasn't there to take care of his friend himself. He wouldn't let that happen again. The friend in Joshua Tree who'd called Kaufman to give him the news mentioned that authorities were taking his body away. So Phil moved fast. He made it to the Joshua Tree Inn from LA in three hours. Kaufman immediately cleaned out Graham's room, wiping away any trace of an illicit drug party. He then rounded up Graham's two friends and got them out of Joshua Tree and back to la, where they would be beyond the reach of the local police and therefore unable to be questioned. Kaufman knew how to Clean up a rock and roll message. But the job wasn't done. Once back in la, Kaufman called the Joshua Tree morgue to inquire about his friend's body. Graham's surviving family, upon hearing of Graham's death in the press, had made arrangements for it to be flown back home to the South. The body was chilling in an airport hangar at lax, waiting to be retrieved by Graham's stepfather for what would no doubt be a stale, religious, conservative southern funeral service. In other words, the exact opposite of what Graham would want. Kaufman, ever the fixer, had a friend who owned a hearse. He borrowed it, grabbed some other friends, a motley crew of leather clad, greasy haired rock and roll biker types who Kaufman knew could serve as impromptu illicit pallbearers, and then headed out to lax. On the way, they pounded bottles of Mickey's wide mouth grenades and shared pints of bean quivering. Servo and Jack Kaufman wheeled the hearse to the off ramp toward LAX and straight toward the shipping hangar. He and his band of rock and roll pallbearers bounded out of the car and headed into the office area. The square behind the desk was either scared, stupid or both because he bought the long line of crap Kaufman fed him. There were off duty funeral home workers there to move the body by private plane. Unbelievably, Kaufman was given clearance to grab the coffin. So he did. And he and his cohorts began wheeling it out of the hangar to their waiting hearse. Just then, a cop in a black and white on patrol pulled up to see what in the hell was going on with what must have looked to him like a drunken gang of biker body snatchers. Kaufman was quick with the bullshit. Officer, you're just in time. We're a man short. Not sure how we're going to get the coffin into the back of our hearse. Can you give us a hand? Remarkably, and without question, the officer did just that. Graham Parson's body was snatched. Next stop, Joshua Tree. But first they needed gas. So once out of LA and well on their way to the desert, they stopped off at a gas station and filled 5 gallons. Not for the car, mind you. Kaufman and his men drank the entire ride out. They were wasted by by the time they made it out to Joshua Tree national park, the area of the desert that Graham loved so much. The part of the world that allowed him to run free of his pain, to chase UFOs and to leave all the grief behind. At around 1am the hearse made it out to the part of the desert known as Caprock and stopped. The stars were electric. It was a beautiful night and coffin unfolded as drunken, greasy Jean clad legs to the desert floor walked round back with his crew. He pulled Graham's wooden casket from the back of the hearse and dropped it unceremoniously onto the desert floor. Kaufman popped open the lid and there was Graham, naked, dead and bloated, surgical tape covering the autopsy wounds. Kaufman wasted no time. He grabbed the gallons of gasoline and poured them all over Graham's body. He lit a match, dropped it in Graham's body, ignited into a fireball. His soul exploded into eternity in an overstated blast. It was so unlike him exploding. Graham Parsons was subtle. He was marked by deep emotional pain and engaged in a quiet but constant race to outrun his grief. Regardless of the manner in which Graham Parson's body left the this world, there was no mistaking it. He was now free. Phil Kaufman's friend Graham Parsons was at last liberated, separated from his pain. And Phil's other friend Charlie Manson was behind bars while his former bosses, the Rolling Stones had become the quote unquote world's greatest rock and roll band. And Phil Kaufman was sitting in his car now, an old man, a mangled shell of himself from back in those hazy days of lawless rock and roll. Graham was on his mind lately because Graham was on the minds of lots of people lately. Graham Parsons and the myth that Kaufman helped create was going through a resurgence of popularity among a new generation of snap buttoned pony tailed country rock n rollers. Sure they added the prefix alt to country, but still, if it walks like an eagle and sings like an eagle, it's probably a second rate version of an eagle. And that means it's a third rate version of Graham Parsons. The blatant mimicry bordering on disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, tik tok, Twitter and Facebook Facebook Disgraceland pod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rola He's a bad, bad man. New season, new chaos in college football. Big stage, big opportunity. This Labor Day weekend. Wildness lives on ABC, ESPN and the AllNew ESPN app. What a way to start. Featuring top 10 teams like Clemson, Notre Dame, Alabama and LSU. And Bill Belichick's debut at North Carolina. It's so special, these teams collide. Don't miss a lineup filled with electric matchups. Welcome back to College Football Kickoff Week, presented by Modelo. Labor Day weekend on ESPN and abc. Also available to stream on the all new ESPN app.