Speaker 1: The twenty seven Club is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Double Elvis Media. Jimi Hendrix died at the
Speaker 1: age of and he lived a life where every day
Speaker 1: was unlike the day before. I can give you twenty
Speaker 1: seven reasons why that statement is true. Three was his
Speaker 1: magic number, the holy trinity of the power trio guitar,
Speaker 1: bass drums that he would master briefly with the Jimi
Speaker 1: Hendrix Experience and again with the Band of Gypsies. Fifteen
Speaker 1: would be the number of miles that he'd ride and
Speaker 1: a stolen truck with Neil Young to get to Woodstock
Speaker 1: on time when they're playing landed at the wrong airport.
Speaker 1: Another eight would be the number of hours the jury
Speaker 1: in Toronto would deliberate in order to decide that the
Speaker 1: world's greatest guitarist would spend the next decade of his
Speaker 1: life behind bars. And one would be the number of
Speaker 1: years he'd have left to live after Brian Jones was
Speaker 1: found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool. All
Speaker 1: totally on this our seventh episode of season one. Magic numbers,
Speaker 1: stolen trucks, a dead rolling stone, and they always searching
Speaker 1: Jimmie Hendricks. I'm Jake Brennan. And this is the seven o'clock.
Speaker 1: Neil Young was searching for the helicopter, the helicopter man,
Speaker 1: their own personal chopper, the Woodstock Express, the bird that
Speaker 1: was going to get them from here to there? Where
Speaker 1: the hell was that bird man? Neil stood on the
Speaker 1: small regional airport tarmac, peppered with small charter jets like
Speaker 1: the one he had just flown in, on the sun
Speaker 1: beating down. He raised his flat hand to just above
Speaker 1: his eyes to provide shade from the glare, his ruffle
Speaker 1: dress shirts sticking out from the cough of his jacket.
Speaker 1: Where the funk are they? New York, Vermont, fucking New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: Damned if he knew the mescaline he had ingested on
Speaker 1: the plane was coming alive now, which made everything crystal
Speaker 1: clear and messed up all at once. Everything felt great,
Speaker 1: everything did not feel great. Jimmie Hendricks stood next to Nielia,
Speaker 1: similarly baffled and equally dosed, along with the other passengers
Speaker 1: from their little plane, attorney Melvin Belli and Nil's manager
Speaker 1: Elliott Roberts. Melvin, whose high profile clients included Jack Ruby
Speaker 1: and the Rolling Stones, was clear headed and unencumbered. He
Speaker 1: suggested the logical conclusion to their predicament. They have been
Speaker 1: dropped off at the wrong airport. There was no Woodstock
Speaker 1: helicopter coming to get them. Woodstock would have to start
Speaker 1: without them, and they were screwed sort of. Oh man.
Speaker 1: Jimmy laughed and looked at Neil. I was supposed to
Speaker 1: go on first, just me and my guitar. He let
Speaker 1: her repress giggle snort out from his mouth, and Neil,
Speaker 1: at a giant belly laugh run free. It was true.
Speaker 1: Woodstocks producer Michael Lang contracted Jimmy to open the three
Speaker 1: day outdoor music festival with a surprise solo acoustic set
Speaker 1: and then close it on Sunday night with an electric set,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy was now the highest paid rock star in
Speaker 1: the world. Here ago he was the highest paid performer
Speaker 1: at Woodstock, much to Laying chagrin, laying at the cap
Speaker 1: larger acts at fifteen grand due to a Favorite Nations
Speaker 1: policy and Jimmy's hard as nails manager Michael Jeffrey was
Speaker 1: having none of it. Jimmy would do it for fifty
Speaker 1: grand and you know what else, His name would be
Speaker 1: listed first on every print in Radiohead. His name would
Speaker 1: be bigger than everyone else's. He'd headline the gig. It
Speaker 1: was too much. Laying wanted Jimmy, but he couldn't meet
Speaker 1: Jeffrey at fifty grand. So Laying and Jeffrey came to
Speaker 1: an agreement that gave Jimmy the most money but didn't
Speaker 1: break lanks for Jimmy would play two sets for fifteen
Speaker 1: grand each, along with another couple of grand for expenses
Speaker 1: plus grand tour deal. The thing was, Jimmy wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: make the opening set. He didn't even know where he was.
Speaker 1: His mind was elsewhere, anywhere but upstate New York. All
Speaker 1: he could think about was the bust in Toronto, the
Speaker 1: impending trial for heroin and hash possession. It was four
Speaker 1: months away, and that almost made it worse. All this
Speaker 1: waiting around and obsessing over every last detail. What he
Speaker 1: could have done differently, what he should have done differently,
Speaker 1: What could have happened to him? What would happen to
Speaker 1: him this December, when you had to stare down years
Speaker 1: in a Canadian prison, his fate in the hands of strangers.
Speaker 1: Jimmy must have checked out for a moment, and the
Speaker 1: mescaline was starting to take hold. After all, because when
Speaker 1: he turned to look at Melvin. The attorney had taken
Speaker 1: off his shirt. It was pouring a cannon beer on
Speaker 1: his chest to facilitate the tanning process. The attorney yelled
Speaker 1: at him from across the term ac and Jimmy rubbed
Speaker 1: his eyes. It must be the must be the drugs.
Speaker 1: Neil was at the driver's side door of a pickup
Speaker 1: truck parked in the airport lot. Neil peaked inside, wide eyed,
Speaker 1: and then tried the door. It opened. He hollered at
Speaker 1: Elliott to keep an eye out, and then jumped in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat. Worked his hands beneath the steering wheel. Clanks, clunks, bangs, booms,
Speaker 1: The spark a couple of false starts, and the old
Speaker 1: truck roared to life. Neil knew that soon, very soon,
Speaker 1: they would be completely twisted, and there was no going back,
Speaker 1: no time to rest. Get in. He hollowed to the
Speaker 1: other three. Elliott, Melvin hopped in the cab with Neil
Speaker 1: and Jimmy. Knew that the obvious thing to do, the
Speaker 1: rational thing, was to jump on the hood of the
Speaker 1: truck and hold on for dear life. Of course, it
Speaker 1: was Neil put the truck in first gear and tore
Speaker 1: out of the airport parking lot, with Jimmy's body swinging
Speaker 1: from side to side on the hood of the truck.
Speaker 1: Elliott laughed, Holy Jesus, Jimmy scream from the hood because
Speaker 1: these goddamn animals, and he lay flat on his stomach,
Speaker 1: his hands dug into the under side of the hood
Speaker 1: near the windshield, holding on for dear life the sky.
Speaker 1: I because the dark and huge bats to take into
Speaker 1: the skies, diving all around the truck and nearly missing
Speaker 1: Jimmy with each dramatic swoop. Man, this is the way
Speaker 1: to travel in love and Holliday and reach for the
Speaker 1: volume nod on the A M radio. He cranked tones
Speaker 1: of the Fifth Dimensions, working on a groovy thing until
Speaker 1: the speakers crackled. You feel good, Jimmy thought, you fool. Wait,
Speaker 1: you see these goddamn bats. No point in mentioning. Poor
Speaker 1: bastard will see them soon enough, Jimmy thought. Hired to
Speaker 1: open Woodstock on Friday and close it out on Sunday night,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy never made it for Friday's commitment, laying panicked
Speaker 1: and persuaded Richie Havens to perform in his place, and
Speaker 1: Richie killed it, and Jimmy wasn't exactly sure what time
Speaker 1: he finally made it to old man Jaskar's farm, or
Speaker 1: what day he made it, or how he made it,
Speaker 1: for that matter, did he ride in the hood of
Speaker 1: the truck the whole way there? Everything was running behind schedule,
Speaker 1: set times were all screwed up. Bands would take to
Speaker 1: the stage hours after their originally scheduled performance times after
Speaker 1: waiting around in the mud and the rain drugs had
Speaker 1: worn off, or maybe the drugs they didn't intend to take.
Speaker 1: It started to kick in, and by the time Jimmy
Speaker 1: took the stage with Gypsy Son and Rainbows, his new
Speaker 1: band he had formed after the Experiences break up, the
Speaker 1: Monday morning sun would be rising on a decimated Woodstock crowd.
Speaker 1: Nearly half a million people would have already split. Jimmy
Speaker 1: stepped on the makeshift stage, stuck in the middle of
Speaker 1: the farm's backyard, more than ready to make a scene
Speaker 1: or whoever would listen. M ros Payne was talking down
Speaker 1: a kid in the trip tent when she heard it.
Speaker 1: Fuzzy and phased out, metallic and shrill, familiar yet completely foreign.
Speaker 1: She heard the first six notes of the National Anthem
Speaker 1: ring out from the stage. It gave her pause. She
Speaker 1: stopped talking. The sun had just come up over Jascar's
Speaker 1: dairy farm, and would stock New York Times stood still.
Speaker 1: Ros had been calmly helping a young boy get through
Speaker 1: a bad trip. He couldn't have been older than nineteen.
Speaker 1: He had no shirt. It was lost, forever, swallowed by
Speaker 1: the mud. Sometime after the rains came a sacrifice for
Speaker 1: the gods of peace and love. His jeans were wet
Speaker 1: and soiled with dirt, and the sweat from his forehead
Speaker 1: seemed to jump over to the inside of his glasses,
Speaker 1: which were all fogged up, and he panted, popped his
Speaker 1: eyes with wide shook his head, muttered under his breath.
Speaker 1: He had taken something, but couldn't tell Ros what it was.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was some of that brown acid that the
Speaker 1: festival organizers kept warning the crowd about on the stage.
Speaker 1: Stay away from the brown acid. Perhaps this kid didn't
Speaker 1: hear the announcement and took him anyway that he would cry,
Speaker 1: and then he'd shake with fear, and then he calmed
Speaker 1: down and fell out about it, and then you go
Speaker 1: through the cycle all over again. Roz sat with him,
Speaker 1: kept talking with him, positive things, riding it out together.
Speaker 1: You'd get through this bad trip and come out on
Speaker 1: the other side. He had survived a weekend of heat
Speaker 1: and rain, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of total strangers,
Speaker 1: and surely he'd survive this. He would see, he would
Speaker 1: be fine, just fine. Ros and the kid were one
Speaker 1: of the many couples inside the trip tent, kids on
Speaker 1: bad trips, side by side with the bad trip guides.
Speaker 1: Woodstock producers had hired a team of doctors, nurses, and
Speaker 1: e m t s to help over the weekend, but
Speaker 1: a group of citizen volunteers had stepped in to deal
Speaker 1: with bad trip rips, hallucinations, paranoia, anxiety. Instead of drugs.
Speaker 1: To combat drugs, they'd use good old fashioned human interaction
Speaker 1: and let the doctors deal with the foot lacerations and
Speaker 1: the seizures and the asthma texts. They did this all
Speaker 1: weekend freakouts each hour, twenty five bad trips each hour,
Speaker 1: and by Monday morning, the Woodstock site was a filthy
Speaker 1: ghost town. Only about forty thousand of the original half
Speaker 1: million festival goers remained. Everyone had gone home to get
Speaker 1: back to work, back to the real world, back to
Speaker 1: their families, back to their lives, tuned out, turned off,
Speaker 1: and dropped back into reality and the Monday morning, stragglers,
Speaker 1: refusing to give up the dream, walked through the wreckage,
Speaker 1: brushed their teeth, tens, umbrellas, shoes, and coke cans, all
Speaker 1: pressed into the muddy earth and left for dead spent trash,
Speaker 1: t shirts, condoms, watermelons, oranges, bras, mattress pads, maxi pads,
Speaker 1: cigarette butts. A skeleton crew served up hot breakfast for
Speaker 1: those who weren't passed out on the hoods of Sedan's
Speaker 1: for those who weren't nodding off on the ground are
Speaker 1: unknowingly coppying a serious, dangerous tan atop a blanket on
Speaker 1: a sodden expanse of firm lamp Ros was there to help.
Speaker 1: She showed up early before the music even began, help
Speaker 1: set up. She loosened up fencing each day to allow
Speaker 1: those without tickets to enter the festival grounds. And she
Speaker 1: was tight with Abby Hoffman and the Hippies, political pranksters.
Speaker 1: Sometimes their political pranks had unexpected results. Abby's face met
Speaker 1: the business end of Pete Towns his guitar when he
Speaker 1: attempted to interrupt the Who's confrontational set at five am
Speaker 1: on Sunday morning, ros helped found which the women's International
Speaker 1: terrorist Conspiracy from Hell to fight for social change and
Speaker 1: rail against the patriarchy. She was at the Democratic National
Speaker 1: Convention in Chicago, the Rank and Brigade Merge, anti War
Speaker 1: rallies at the Pentagon. She was everywhere wherever there was
Speaker 1: a fight, so hungry people could eat, Ros would be there.
Speaker 1: Roz was far enough from the stage Monday morning that
Speaker 1: she couldn't see Jimmie Hendricks flash of peace sign with
Speaker 1: his hand after that first six note run. She couldn't
Speaker 1: see his afro poofing out from the confines of his
Speaker 1: red bandana, or the white fringe from his shirt danced
Speaker 1: upon the top of his crushed velvet pants, or his
Speaker 1: long flat hand, dirty fingernails and all squashed down on
Speaker 1: a strats wimmy bar to make the sound drop like
Speaker 1: an anvil one moment and soar like a fighter jet
Speaker 1: the next. She did hear every note singed the human
Speaker 1: morning air, every trill, every hammer on, every pull off.
Speaker 1: The guitar was not a guitar. The national anthem was
Speaker 1: not the national anthem. It was all new. She had
Speaker 1: never heard a guitar. Before this moment, never heard the
Speaker 1: Star Spangled Banner. Before this moment, ros fought authority. She
Speaker 1: clawed at the establishment champion, the underdog marched for social justice,
Speaker 1: demanded change, orchestrated movement. She didn't follow leaders or watched
Speaker 1: the barking meters. The Star Spangled Banner was the theme
Speaker 1: song of American jingoism, of blind nationalism, of football games.
Speaker 1: But not today, never again, Now the song was hers.
Speaker 1: Woodstock was the debut of Gypsy Son and Rainbows, Jimmy's
Speaker 1: new thing. The Experience were no more disbanded. At the
Speaker 1: height of their powers, there was a change in the wind,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy blew along with it. He kept Mitch Mitchell
Speaker 1: on drums, but replaced Old Redding with his old army
Speaker 1: buddy Billy Cox. Another old friend and Nashville cat, Larry
Speaker 1: Lee was on guitar, and the group was rounded out
Speaker 1: by two percussion players, Jerry Vellis and Jima Sultan. And
Speaker 1: Jimmy held rehearsals for the group at Michael Jeffrey's rented
Speaker 1: house and show can, conveniently just down the road from Woodstock,
Speaker 1: a mansion made of stone with eight bedrooms and ten
Speaker 1: acres of land, a horse stable in a pool, and
Speaker 1: Jeffrey let Jimmy stay there, and the cook and housekeeper
Speaker 1: Jeffrey hired to keep Jimmy happy. It was just the
Speaker 1: cherry on top. The band got to Woodstock on Sunday
Speaker 1: and they waited and then waited some more, and the
Speaker 1: day saw sets from Joe Cocker and Country Joe and
Speaker 1: the Fish, and the night rolled on and it was
Speaker 1: the band Crosby Stills, Nash and Young and Shanna Now
Speaker 1: bands took the stage hours later than originally scheduled, and
Speaker 1: they hung around in the mud and rain, waiting, drugs
Speaker 1: wearing off, waiting, drugs kicking in, waiting day turn tonight, waiting.
Speaker 1: The festival organizers offered Jimmy and the eleven pm slot
Speaker 1: on Sunday night. Michael Jeffrey refused. Jimmy Hendrix was closing
Speaker 1: out Woodstock. He would be the last sound from the stage.
Speaker 1: He'd have the last say. Jeffrey could give a rat's
Speaker 1: ass what time that was. Jimmy collapsed off stage when
Speaker 1: a set was over, slept for days, and the two
Speaker 1: hours set was one of his longest, full of highs
Speaker 1: and lows, and when it was all said and done.
Speaker 1: Jimmy was just spent. It wasn't just Woodstock, wasn't just
Speaker 1: the hot and sweaty throngs, the mud, the drugs, the
Speaker 1: herculean amounts of patients took simply to endure the weekend,
Speaker 1: to wait around. It was the way the other kind
Speaker 1: of week w e I g h T. The band
Speaker 1: had just sung about it a few hours earlier. Was
Speaker 1: feeling about half past dead, the weight of it all.
Speaker 1: One band was ending, another band was beginning. One of
Speaker 1: his manager's chas Chandler out of the picture, while the other,
Speaker 1: Michael Jeffrey, was making moves to as certain more controlled
Speaker 1: and above all the weight of this Toronto thing, the
Speaker 1: drug bust. When he cleared his mind of all the
Speaker 1: other worries, the looming trial would pop into his brain
Speaker 1: and stress him out. What a drag. If only he
Speaker 1: could predict exactly what would happen when he walked into
Speaker 1: that courtroom in a few months, when he sat in
Speaker 1: the hot seat with the judge and jury in the
Speaker 1: eyes and pleaded innocence. We'll be right back after this
Speaker 1: word we were. Jimmie Hendricks was looking for an indication
Speaker 1: that the jury had reached a verdict. Even better, they
Speaker 1: had reached a good verdict, a fair verdict. A glimmer
Speaker 1: and when he closed his eyes and envisioned what would
Speaker 1: happen after the collective of white shirted Canadians returned to
Speaker 1: the courtroom, it didn't involve jumping out of the frying
Speaker 1: pan and into the fire, And it most certainly involved
Speaker 1: getting out of the hot seat and walking out of
Speaker 1: the courtroom door as a free man, of vindicated man,
Speaker 1: man who no longer had the weight of this trial
Speaker 1: clinging to his back, weighing down on him, privately consuming him.
Speaker 1: It had been hours since the jury had left to
Speaker 1: talk amongst themselves decide the fate of the most famous
Speaker 1: rock star in the world. And Jimmy sat on a
Speaker 1: bench in the lobby outside the Toronto courtroom, decked out
Speaker 1: in a square suit, blue blazer, gray pants. This Toronto
Speaker 1: defense attorney, John O. Driscoll sat by his side. Jazz
Speaker 1: Chandler paced back and forth like he was the bouncer
Speaker 1: for this party of two, holding their own quiet, meditative
Speaker 1: session a very exclusive bench prison. Ten years he'd read
Speaker 1: about a dealer bringing a quarter million dollars of grass
Speaker 1: and a Canada from Africa around the time he was arrested,
Speaker 1: and that dude just got fourteen years. Oh. Driscoll assured
Speaker 1: Jimmy that it wouldn't go that part. Still, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: shock anyone if the twelve clean cut male jurors wanted
Speaker 1: to make an example out of Jimmy Hendricks Wilts flower powers,
Speaker 1: so to speak, give his hippie dippy fantasies a big
Speaker 1: old dollp of normalized mainstream defiance. If they weren't twelve
Speaker 1: angry men, they were still twelve men with the power
Speaker 1: to make whatever decision they deemed fit. And the Crown
Speaker 1: Attorney had put the cops who arrested Jimmy on the
Speaker 1: stand and drove this point home. You should have seen
Speaker 1: these guys the experience. When they got out the plane,
Speaker 1: they didn't look like anybody else. You got a plane
Speaker 1: full of normal look at folk. They got slacks, it
Speaker 1: fitted shirts and the light and then these three moonbats
Speaker 1: pull up the rear with the chikis and sandals, beads everywhere,
Speaker 1: chewing gum like cow and it's cut this one guy
Speaker 1: is wearing his hair all poofed out like a black man,
Speaker 1: but he's white, and they're gonna dress like some bohemians
Speaker 1: with something to hide. We're going to treat him the same.
Speaker 1: And they were asking for it. And the proof is
Speaker 1: in the pudding. And the guy had drugs in his bag.
Speaker 1: Open and shut. Jimmy didn't deny that there were drugs
Speaker 1: in his bag. When he went through customs in Toronto,
Speaker 1: he denied that they were his. And Jimmy sat on
Speaker 1: the stand, raised his right hands solemnly swore. He recalled
Speaker 1: a girl he met in Los Angeles, Swallow on tour.
Speaker 1: She gave him something and when he complained about a headache,
Speaker 1: he said it was Bromo seltzer. He stucked it into
Speaker 1: his pocket thanks to take it. Then he was really
Speaker 1: just being polite. Strange ship from a stranger that was
Speaker 1: going in his pocket now would be dealt without a
Speaker 1: later time, and that was a problem with the future Jimmy.
Speaker 1: And then he probably forgot about it. He couldn't say
Speaker 1: where it might have ended up. It must have been
Speaker 1: the vial with the heroin packets. He just didn't look
Speaker 1: closely at it. He was giving random ship all the time, clothes, scars,
Speaker 1: love letters, instruments, teddy bears, hash brownies, pot cookies, tabs,
Speaker 1: and joints and bottles. Only half the time did he
Speaker 1: actually stopped to see what it was, and the defense
Speaker 1: put Sharon Lawrence on the standing back up the story,
Speaker 1: a United Press International journalist, Sharon was at the same
Speaker 1: party and saw the girl give Jimmy something, and they
Speaker 1: put Chaz on the stand and he explained how one
Speaker 1: of the main rules backstage was to never eat anything
Speaker 1: that was brought in by a fan. Maybe you'd enjoy
Speaker 1: some delicious cake, or maybe you get sick, or maybe
Speaker 1: you get high poisoned dead, or maybe you get arrested.
Speaker 1: Jimmy was open and honest about drugs. More or less,
Speaker 1: his answers in the hot seat were the kinds of
Speaker 1: answers you give to the doctor. When asked how many
Speaker 1: drinks a day you have? You know, on average? How
Speaker 1: often have you used cocaine? Twice? Jimmy said, how often
Speaker 1: have you dropped LSD four or five times? Have you
Speaker 1: smoked marijuana and hashish? Yeah? Have you ever taken heroin before? No, sir,
Speaker 1: But what about drugs? Do you still like to take drugs?
Speaker 1: I feel I about coron it he had outgrown it.
Speaker 1: If it would please the court. If the judge wanted
Speaker 1: to hear him say he didn't do drugs anymore, then
Speaker 1: that's what he'd say. The public at the time was
Speaker 1: blissfully ignorant when it came to what went on behind
Speaker 1: the closed doors of rock stars. Even in the case
Speaker 1: of a wild and crazy artist like Jimmie Hendricks. They
Speaker 1: saw the Paisley Prince and the psychedelic swirls, and heard
Speaker 1: the strangeness spilling from his records. They could draw their
Speaker 1: own conclusions. The noisy suggestions and tracks like the Gods
Speaker 1: Made Love e XP and if six were nine were
Speaker 1: far from sober, that was for sure. But suspicions and
Speaker 1: hunches aside. How little they actually knew. Even Jimmy's arrest
Speaker 1: had been kept a secret swept under the carpet. When
Speaker 1: Jimmy was now by the mountains at the Toronto Airport,
Speaker 1: his press agent, Michael Goldstein, didn't let the story hit
Speaker 1: the wires. He wasted no time. Goldstein picked up his
Speaker 1: phone and got the Associated Press editor on the horn.
Speaker 1: Played him like a fiddle, easy target. Look the other
Speaker 1: way on this Toronto thing. Okay, it's all trumped up anyhow.
Speaker 1: The Monty's met the band as they walked off the plane.
Speaker 1: They never do that, and Jimmy was fucking set up. Man.
Speaker 1: He'll beat it. He'll licked these charges easily and move on.
Speaker 1: No one ever remember it happened in here for your troubles.
Speaker 1: I'm having a case. The liquor dropped off. What's your
Speaker 1: favorite brand again? You're a bourbon guy, right? Did I
Speaker 1: go to your house or to the augets? The story
Speaker 1: oozed out just as Goldstein had planned. In its review
Speaker 1: of Jimmy's Mapelief Garden Show, The Toronto Star buried a
Speaker 1: reference to his being out on bail in the middle
Speaker 1: of the sentence. And when the full account of the
Speaker 1: bus finally did make the press, it was a month later,
Speaker 1: and it was in the pages of a sympathetic Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone magazine. Richie Yorke and Ben functorres didn't confirm what
Speaker 1: the drug was in their article, only what it was
Speaker 1: suspected to be, and they wrote about conservative Toronto in
Speaker 1: a very public display of humiliation by the Canadian authorities. Yet,
Speaker 1: despite their solidarity, they all speculated the years of jail
Speaker 1: time was a real possibility. Jimmy's pulse went through the
Speaker 1: roof when it was announced that the jury had reached
Speaker 1: a verdict. He sat his hands clasped together, a giant
Speaker 1: turquoise bracelet, rattling against the table every time he'd wring
Speaker 1: his hands. The courtroom was full of young kids, Hendricks,
Speaker 1: fans eager to see their hero walk out or freeman. Outside,
Speaker 1: wet snowflakes fell, and the twelve White Shirts entered the courtroom,
Speaker 1: along with the judge, whose gaudy powdered wig was regal
Speaker 1: overkilled to the max, a long distant salute to the motherland.
Speaker 1: It reminded Jimmy of London of all the swinging, Vaudevillian
Speaker 1: inspired fashion that was desperately missing inside this drab courtroom.
Speaker 1: And then the verdict not guilty on both counts. The
Speaker 1: fans in the courtroom stood and cheered. The snowfall picked
Speaker 1: up outside, and Jimmy walked out of the courthouse, splashed
Speaker 1: a peace sign with his fingers. Remembered how good a
Speaker 1: big ear to ear grin could feel. Got on a
Speaker 1: plane to New York, fat joint of how she she
Speaker 1: waited him. It wasn't gonna smoke itself. I gotta keep moving.
Speaker 1: Blues fallen down like hell on the plane back to
Speaker 1: New York. Tommy watched an older couple play a game
Speaker 1: of cribbage across the aisle, and the way of Toronto
Speaker 1: had been lifted, but his mind was still worried. And
Speaker 1: just because this one hurdle was clear, it didn't mean
Speaker 1: there weren't other hurdles left to face, bigger hurdles, bigger problems.
Speaker 1: And he watched the couple count the crib the cards
Speaker 1: shuffling in their hands, and he thought a tarot current,
Speaker 1: tarot card reading, and the rock earlier that year, a
Speaker 1: premonition come to life. He tried to suppress it, ignore him.
Speaker 1: That feeling came back, and that feeling that's settled in
Speaker 1: it made itself known. His days were numbered and he
Speaker 1: would die soon. He knew it. Jimmie Hendricks was dreaming
Speaker 1: of Brian Jones, his dirty blonde mop top obscuring half
Speaker 1: of his face, his smile, hesitant, patient, his stone eyes
Speaker 1: swimming with kindness and with something wicked too, The duality
Speaker 1: of a rolling stone and the dream. Brian was shouting
Speaker 1: at Jimmy, waving out, warning him something didn't feel quite right.
Speaker 1: Jimmy woke up in his bed before the dream could finish,
Speaker 1: he sat straight up, gasped, and got his bearings. He
Speaker 1: was alone in his hotel room in Morocco, to be precise,
Speaker 1: on the Atlantic coast of North Africa. Tapestries hung on
Speaker 1: the walls and dangled from the top of the bed.
Speaker 1: The dream felt so real, Brian felt so real that
Speaker 1: it couldn't be. Brian had been found dead at the
Speaker 1: bottom of his swimming pool only a few weeks before.
Speaker 1: He was just Jimmy and Brian were musical brothers, fashion brothers.
Speaker 1: Brian was the one who introduced Jimmy to the crowd
Speaker 1: at the Monterey Pop Festival, his first show with the
Speaker 1: experience in America. Brian's death hit him hard to have
Speaker 1: someone that close to him, a soul brother from another mother,
Speaker 1: gone so quickly and at such a young age. Brian
Speaker 1: had been transitioning, just like Jimmy, moving away from the
Speaker 1: rolling stones and looking to start something new. Some would
Speaker 1: call it a reburn, a change, and now he was
Speaker 1: gone in an instant, in the amount of time it
Speaker 1: takes to jump into a pool. A snap of the fingers,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy rubbed his eyes, still having a hard time
Speaker 1: believing Brian was gone, still having a hard time that
Speaker 1: the Brian and his dream wasn't real, and the hanging
Speaker 1: tapestry that ran along the edge of the bed started
Speaker 1: to wave a breeze maybe, but Jimmy had closed the
Speaker 1: window before he had fallen asleep, and the patterned fabric fluttered,
Speaker 1: waved again, swayed dramatically, and then there was a hand
Speaker 1: on the tapestry, pulling the tapestry aside. The hand was
Speaker 1: ashen smoky, translucent. Jimmy jumped from the hand, pulled the
Speaker 1: tapestry down the length of the bed and revealed Brian
Speaker 1: and jone and sitting on the corner of the bed,
Speaker 1: just a few feet away from Jimmy's legs. Brian sat there, silent,
Speaker 1: smoking a cigarette, right leg crossed on top of his
Speaker 1: left leg, Chelsea boots oversized scarf with the smoky whists
Speaker 1: from the end of his cigarette wafted into the air,
Speaker 1: as did the rest of him, his whole body like
Speaker 1: one big haze of tobacco smoke, gray and half formed
Speaker 1: and about to blow away. Jimmy couldn't move, couldn't speak.
Speaker 1: Brian started slowly motioning towards Jimmy like he had in
Speaker 1: the dream, waving his arms. He wanted him to leave,
Speaker 1: to go somewhere else, to avoid something. And then as
Speaker 1: he continued to wave his arms, he disappeared into thin air,
Speaker 1: just blew away. The smoky haze dissipated, the tapestry slipped
Speaker 1: back into its hanging position, and Brian Jones was gone.
Speaker 1: Jimmy had taken some friends up on a last minute
Speaker 1: invitation to visit Morocco in the summer. N It so
Speaker 1: last minute, actually, that he ditched Gypsy's son and Rainbows
Speaker 1: as they rehearsed for woodstock without so much as it
Speaker 1: could bye. His friend Dearing, how trust fund kid and
Speaker 1: heir to the Deering's family international harvester Fortune, invited him
Speaker 1: on a jaunt to North Africa, and their friends Collette
Speaker 1: and Stella were waiting for them. Carpe A d M
Speaker 1: was Deering's bag. Sure, Jimmy thought, why the Hell'm not
Speaker 1: in Morocco. Jimmy let it all hang out. He could
Speaker 1: be whoever he wanted to be. He could be himself
Speaker 1: completely anonymous, a black American man in Africa for the
Speaker 1: first time in his life, tapping into a new yet
Speaker 1: familiar culture, new aesthetic, breathing new air on a new
Speaker 1: strip of Atlantic coastline. The most famous rock star in
Speaker 1: the world, just another nameless face on the street, driving
Speaker 1: a beat up chrystler through the desert, blending in with
Speaker 1: the crowds along the faded blue and white architecture, A
Speaker 1: blissful nobody. It was the only real vacation he ever took,
Speaker 1: and he needed it. He was thinking about the pending
Speaker 1: trial in Toronto, about rehearsing to a woodstock. He couldn't
Speaker 1: get Brian Jones out of his head. He walked the
Speaker 1: streets in Morocco and saw Brian's face in the vendor's faces,
Speaker 1: and saw his mop top shag bounce along ahead in
Speaker 1: the crowd. He had thought about dying lately, premonitions, feelings,
Speaker 1: and this cloud of uncertainty would envelop him out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: an unshakable feeling his time was limited. He could feel it.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't live to be thirty. He knew it. Collette,
Speaker 1: Jimmy's friend Morocco. Her grandfather was a local tribal leader
Speaker 1: and his new wife a clairvoyant who worked for the king,
Speaker 1: and she asked if Colette and a group of friends
Speaker 1: that Jimmy included. Of course, wanted to have their cards read.
Speaker 1: She ran her hands along the lines of Jimmy's face.
Speaker 1: She wanted to see more, and she'd read him first.
Speaker 1: The group sat at a table in the hotel Dayle.
Speaker 1: Collette offered to translate, as the clairvoyant wife only spoke French,
Speaker 1: and she wore a bright scarf patterns, beads galore. It
Speaker 1: was like a neon day dream of Jimmy's preferred fashion ideal,
Speaker 1: A kindred spirit, no doubt. The first Taro card she
Speaker 1: drew from her deck was simple, innocuous. The Star card
Speaker 1: a silhouetted naked woman pouring water into a stream. Very
Speaker 1: athena esque or was it aphrodite, didn't matter, A beautiful goddess,
Speaker 1: a giant star in the sky above her, surrounded by
Speaker 1: galaxies other worlds. The clairvoyant rattled off a sentence or
Speaker 1: two in French, and Colette laughed and nodded her head.
Speaker 1: She lightly patted Jimmy's arm, as if to indicate that
Speaker 1: everything was all right so far. Then the clairvoyant flipped over.
Speaker 1: The second card slapped onto the table, face up. The
Speaker 1: Death card, A figure on a white horse, A skeletal
Speaker 1: figure wrapped in medieval armor, bodies at the horse's feet,
Speaker 1: the sun rising on the distant horizon. Jimmy's eyes went wide,
Speaker 1: his mouth gaping. The head of the skeleton was Brian
Speaker 1: Jones's head. Brian Joe was on the card. He was
Speaker 1: riding that medieval death horse. Bryan Jones was death. And
Speaker 1: Jimmy stood up quickly from the table, gasping for air.
Speaker 1: His knees knocked against the table's leg and the cards scattered.
Speaker 1: He got himself outside. He needed air. He stood there
Speaker 1: outside a hotel in the North African desert and spoke
Speaker 1: softly at the warm night towards the ocean, whispering, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna die. I'm Jake Brennan and This Club. Seven Club
Speaker 1: is scored and co written by me Jake Brennan. Zeth
Speaker 1: Lundy is the lead writer, editor and co producer. The
Speaker 1: Club is mixed and engineered by Sean Klein and Matt Bowden,
Speaker 1: both of whom led their considerable music talent to the
Speaker 1: scoring of this series, as well additional music and score
Speaker 1: elements Ryan Spreaker. The twenty seven Club is produced by
Speaker 1: myself for Double Elvis in partnership I Heart Radio. Sources
Speaker 1: for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot com
Speaker 1: on the twenty seven Club series page. The twenty seven
Speaker 1: Club is released weekly every Thursday. Season one future is
Speaker 1: twelve episodes on Jimmy Hendrickson. Season two will feature twelve
Speaker 1: episodes on Jim Morrison. If you like what you hear,
Speaker 1: please be sure to subscribe to the twenty seven Called
Speaker 1: on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get podcasts, and if you'd like to win a
Speaker 1: free twenty seven Club post or designed by the man himself,
Speaker 1: Nick Gonzalez, then leave a review for twenty seven Club
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or hashtag subscribe to twenty seven Club
Speaker 1: on social media and we'll pick two winners each week
Speaker 1: and announce them on the Double Elvis Instagram page that's
Speaker 1: at Double Elvis. You're gonna want to give you that
Speaker 1: a fallow, so we'll get out there and please spread
Speaker 1: the word about the twenty seven As always, you can
Speaker 1: find me blabbing about other crazy rock stars on my
Speaker 1: other podcast, Disgrace Land, and you can talk to me
Speaker 1: per usual on Instagram and Twitter at Space lam pod,
Speaker 1: one way or another. I hope to be talking to
Speaker 1: you suit. Let's tell that yeah, what's up for your ears,