HGB Ep. 640 - The Life and Afterlife of Johnny Horton

Moment in Oddity - Snake Oil

Most people recognize the American English idiomatic term of 'snake oil' as being synonymous with fraudulent products, services or deceptive rhetoric. The origination dates back to the late 19th and early 20th century in reference to fake 'miracle cures' that traveling salesmen would offer to the public. The term really took off due to 19th century Chinese immigrants who were working on the American transcontinental railroad. The snake oil they introduced to Americans came from Chinese water snakes. The snakes were rich in omega-3 fatty acids which were very effective in treating joint pain. During the 'Salesman' Era of the 1890s, the most famous snake oil peddler was Clark Stanley, also known as the 'Rattlesnake King'. His snake oil was quickly purported as the 'cure all' for any ailment. 'Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment' debuted at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. To increase profits and minimize costs, Clark Stanley eliminated the use of any actual snake oils in his products that he sold. In 1915, a government analysis of his product revealed that it contained mineral oil, beef fat, chili pepper and turpentine. With the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, in 1906, legislation began mandating that all labels were required to be accurate. When Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment was found to be 'mislabeled', he was fined $20 and the term 'snake oil salesman' was solidified as an alias for fraudster salesmen and products. Snake oil being known as a good cure all and then becoming a product for hucksters to make all sorts of false claims about, certainly is odd.

Life and Afterlife of Johnny Horton 

Many of our listeners have probably never heard of Johnny Horton, but he was one of the best and most popular honky tonk singers during the late 1950s. His specialty were historically inspired songs. Johnny tragically died young in an accident and there is a chilling legend connected to that death. He had a premonition that came true. That wasn't the only paranormal thing. Horton may have come back. Join us for the life and afterlife of Johnny Horton.

[The song of his that I know best is "Honky Tonk Man" because Dwight Yoakam remade it. Kelly knows "The Battle of New Orleans" best. That has 57 million plays at Spotify.]

John Gale Horton was born in 1925 in Los Angeles, California, the fifth child of John and Claudia Hort. At this point, there were four Johns in the family, so he was called Gale. Gale's parents were both musical, playing guitar and piano and his mother actually gave music lessons to children for money on the side. Gale was the baby and doted on, but sometimes his siblings were upset about having to watch him and one time, he fell face first into a canal when he was three and he nearly drowned. Fortunately, one of his sister's finally paid attention and saved him. The family headed to Texas after having a tough time making it in California. One of the Horton's said their car, strapped down with everything they owned, resembled something out of "The Grapes of Wrath." The Hortons wouldn't settle long in Texas as the Great Depression and bad weather made farming in the state difficult. The family began moving back and forth from California to Texas often, because they were sharecroppers. The whole family got into music, playing various instruments and singing gospel and country tunes. When Gale was in his early teens, his father became an alcoholic and he would often have to babysit him. When his parents would head off to California seasonally, Gale started staying behind in Texas with family. Gale graduated from high school in Gallatin, Texas in 1944. He had been really good at basketball and earned a basketball scholarship that he used to attend Lon Morris Junior College in Jacksonville, Texas. Johnny transferred to Seattle University and then Baylor University in Waco, but his father's drinking was becoming more of an issue and he quit to take care of his mother, traveling to and from California with her. 

Gale got very interested in fishing and he started traveling around doing that, going as far as Florida. It was during these travels that Gale started writing songs. His brother Frank was also a song writer and the two supported each other in their efforts. Frank had set himself up in California and Gale joined him there and he found work in the mail room of Selznick International Pictures. This was the motion picture studio founded by David O. Selznick in 1935. "Gone With the Wind" came out of this studio.

At least, that is what everything says online and even a book about Horton, but that studio dissolved in 1943. It reconstituted as Vanguard Films, so that is probably where Gale was working because he was working there in the late 1940s. What matters about this point in his life is that he met a secretary at the studio named Donna Cook. She was immediately taken with him because he was handsome and nice - a good country boy. The couple began dating and Gale moved in with her and her mother. In 1948, Gale headed to Seattle University with his brother Frank to study geology, but Gale dropped out mid-semester. He decided to find adventure in Alaska and headed there to do construction and fish. he absolutely loved fishing. This stint would inspire him for future songs and he did do a lot of song writing in Alaska. Gale had never performed for anyone but family, but in Alaska, he started singing in a cafe. Alaska was fun, but the cold got to him and conditions were dangerous and he was expected to work no matter what, so he headed back to Seattle. And it was about this time that Gale started going by Johnny. Johnny had a sister named Marie and she heard about a talent contest being sponsored by local radio station KGRI in 1950. He won it, of course, that boosted his confidence and awarded him a tall ashtray. Frank often spoke of Johnny's natural charisma and Kelly Hagy wrote in her book "Finding Johnny Horton" that Frank said, "The most positive person I ever knew was John. John didn’t have a negative bone in his body. When he wanted to do something, he just did it. He loved everybody and if he didn’t, he would just grin at you. You would just instinctively like him. He had that ability and way about him." 

Johnny won another talent contest, did a commercial and earned his own show on KLAC about fishing called "The Johnny Horton Show." A music promoter named Fabor Robison took Johnny under his wing and took Johnny's show out to the public, calling him "The Singing Fisherman" and getting gigs singing at grand openings and in parking lots. 

Johnny's brother Fred put together some demos and Johnny was signed by the Cormac record label and they helped Horton record 10 singles before they folded in 1952. Faber Robison formed Abbott Records and the master recordings went to that. Johnny finally married Donna Cook in January of 1952. He was 26 and she was 24. Every country singer wanted to be on the Grand Old Opry, but it wasn't easy to break into that. The Louisiana Hayride featured acts and singers that wouldn't usually fit on the Opry, but if a performer hit it big on the Hayride, the Opry wanted them. Hoss Logan was the show's producer and emcee and when he heard Horton, he immediately liked him because he was distinctive. Horton was invited to perform on The Louisiana Hayride and he did just that in May of 1952. The audience loved him and wanted more, so Johnny moved to Shreveport so that he would be available to make appearances every Saturday night. Donna readily made the move with him and tried to be supportive, but she saw something in Faber see didn't like. Based on our research, Faber Robison was Johnny Horton's Colonel Parker, taking a huge bulk of earnings for himself. Robison also insisted that the couple hide that they were married.

The next big move in Johnny's life was getting signed with Mercury Records and he began recording for them with his first song being "First Train Headin' South" with B-side "(I Wished for an Angel) The Devil Sent Me You." That first song got good reviews. The band that backed him up on the recording was invited to tour with him and they took on the name The Singing Fisherman and the Rowley Trio. They would eventually become Johnny Horton and the Roadrunners.

Now Donna wanted to be supportive of Johnny's musical career, but no one would blame a woman for getting sour on it when your husband's manager treats you like crap and Johnny is fine with pretending he isn't married and having the ladies hang on him. He was off doing gigs a lot as well. This wasn't what Donna signed up for when she agreed to marry Johnny. This wasn't what she wanted out of a marriage. So Donna moved back to Los Angeles and asked Johnny for a divorce, which happened some time in early 1953. That same year, in January, Hank Williams had died. He left behind his widow Billie Jean Jones. On September 26, 1953, Horton married Billie Jean Jones. The couple would have two daughters, Nina and Melody. Robison didn't like the idea of Johnny getting married again and the two men parted ways. No one is sure who instigated the split. Some say Robison moved onto Jim Reeves who was a bigger star and others think Johnny got tired of Robison stealing money from him. Horton also parted ways with his back-up band, but he continued to appear occasionally on Louisiana Hayride. Kelly Hagy writes in Finding Johnny Horton, "While traveling for shows, they [fellow singer Claude King and Horton] would usually be out of money so meals consisted of sitting under a shade tree and eating Beanie Weenies. King described Horton as someone who embraced living and said Johnny could talk to a total stranger and they would give him anything he asked. He also remembered Horton having a strong interest in religion, and though he studied the subject, he 'hadn’t made up his mind.' 'He asked me one day what I thought about the way the world was going and all,' said King. 'And I said, ‘Well, it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.’ He said, ‘Well, you know what I think? I think that it’s getting to the point, and it’s going to be to the point, [where] the whole world is going sex crazy. I think everything is going to be about sex in the future.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ But he was right about that.'” 

Johnny's contract with Mercury expired in late 1954 and he got a one-year contract with Columbia Records. Horton traveled to Nashville in a borrowed car for his first recording session and he decided to take on more of a rockabilly style after becoming friends with Elvis Presley. He also started wearing a hat all the time because he was losing his hair and was very self-conscience about that. 

Columbia Records had told Johnny that he had two chances to make a hit record or his contract would end, so this recording session in Nashville was really important. On the way to Nashville, Johnny stopped by where Elvis was living and asked if he could borrow his bassist. Johnny recorded four songs on the first day in the studio and one of those songs was "Honky-Tonk Man." This would become a hit for Johnny and he was joined on that recording by Grady Martin, Harold Bradley and Elvis' bassist Bill Black. Billboard reviewed the song in their March 10, 1956 issue and they wrote, "The wine, women, and song attractions exert a powerful hold on the singer, he admits. The funky sound and pounding beat in the backing suggest the kind of atmosphere he describes. A very good jukebox record." The song peaked at number 9 on the Hot Country Songs. One of Johnny's friends and bandmates was Tillman Franks and he would sign a contract with Johnny to be his manager in 1957. Franks got lots of bookings after Honky Tonk Man and before long, Johnny had another television series that broadcast on Monday nights and was called "Horton's Hoedown." That venture didn't last long because one night the announcer was losing his voice so he asked Johnny to read a commercial. And this is what Johnny said, "Friends we are really proud to be sponsored by Holsum Bread. Holsum Bread is wholesome. That is why they call it Holsum. I want to tell you, friends, I eat Holsum Bread, and my manager, Tillman Franks, eats Holsum Bread. And what we like about it is that it is never touched by the baker's hands. They mix it with their feet." Well, the woman who owned the station called Franks and told him she didn't appreciate that sponsor read and that she would prefer they not appear again on the show. Franks told her they were going on tour anyway. And that was the last of TV for Horton.

Johnny was crossing over from country to pop and a fellow musician pointed out that he couldn't be wearing a cowboy hat while performing pop, so he helped Johnny get his first hairpiece. Johnny had another hit with "Springtime in Alaska," which was quickly eclipsed by probably his most successful song of all time, "The Battle of New Orleans." This was written by Jimmy Driftwood and was awarded the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 ranked number 333 of the Recording Industry Association of America's "Songs of the Century." 

The last songs that Johnny recorded before he died were for the 1960 John Wayne movie North to Alaska and that was the title song "North to Alaska" and "Sink the Bismarck." Despite his success, Johnny never really made much money. He would stop by his parents' place occasionally and give them a few dollars. His mother said that they were always so happy to see their "sweet boy." The success of Battle of New Orleans did allow him and Billie Jean to buy their dream home. But they almost went bankrupt a bit after that. Before we talk about the crash that took Johnny's life, we need to talk about his premonition. Kelly Hagy writes in Finding Johnny Horton, "Horton didn’t always explore his interest in the supernatural while on the road, mostly because he didn’t talk about it with everyone. However, Johnny Cash was one of the few people with whom he could confide. “He and Cash were involved in—and I don’t know what you would call it, and I don’t know how long it lasted—Spiritualism maybe?” said Jerry Kennedy. “I remember vividly up in Canada one night we went to a medium’s house where they were going to have a séance. And I was curious. I grew up Baptist, so I was kind of weirded out. That was not something that I ever heard anything about when I was a kid. “I went to this thing with Johnny and Cash, and someone else, maybe Tillman, I can’t remember. It was in someone’s garage apartment behind this house. I can’t remember which city this was. It bothered me. And I don’t know how serious Johnny was about that, how long it lasted, exactly what it was all about." Well, we think Johnny probably was pretty serious about this stuff because he predicted his death. He told his friend Merle Kilgore that he was going to die in a crash with a drunk driver. He then made a pact with Kilgore that he would send a message from beyond the grave if the vision came true. He also gave Kilgore his beloved stage guitar.

On November 5, 1960, Johnny was driving his Cadillac in the wee hours of the morning - around 1:30 a.m. He was driving back to Shreveport, Louisiana after performing in Austin and he had band mates Tillman Franks and Tommy Tomlinson with him. The group was on Highway 79 near Milano, Texas when 19-year-old Texas A&M University student, James Evan Davis, hit them. 

Davis had been coming the opposite direction and crossed the center line and hit the Cadillac head-on. Horton was thrown from the vehicle and suffered severe head injuries. He died on the way to the hospital. Franks suffered head injuries and Tomlinson had to have his leg amputated. Davis walked away with a broken ankle. He had been heavily intoxicated. Johnny's funeral was held in Shreveport on November 8, 1960 and Johnny Cash performed one of the readings, choosing Chapter 20 from the Gospel of John (Resurrection of Jesus). Cash took Horton's death very hard. When he heard about the accident, he locked himself in a hotel's barrooms and cried he later dedicated his rendition of "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)" to Horton on his album 2006 album "Personal File," which was released posthumously. Also on that album was a song the two wrote together called " Girl in Saskatoon." Horton was buried at Hillcrest Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Haughton (haw ton) in northwestern Louisiana.

So, did Johnny return in the afterlife? It seems he did and that he may haunt a couple of places. Before we explore those, we wanted to share some unique coincidences between Hank Williams Sr. and Johnny Horton. Obviously, both men had been married to the same woman: Billie Jean Jones. This was both men's second marriage. Horton heard about Hank’s death while driving near Milano, Texas–where he would die in 1960. Both of the men had their final shows at the same location, the Skyline Club in Austin. Hank died in the back seat of a Cadillac and Johnny was driving a Cadillac the night of his death. 

Johnny's friend Merle Kilgore was no slouch in the world of music, especially country music. He wrote "Ring of Fire" with June Carter Cash for Johnny Cash. (A little paranormal side note on that song is that Johnny Cash had a dream about the song in which he was backed up by a mariachi band. He went with it and created something not heard before this, making it a musical masterpiece. Kilgore embraced the paranormal as well, he wrote the song "The Bell Witch." Anyway, Kilgore was visiting a radio announcer named Bob Lockwood a few years after Johnny Horton's crash. Lockwood was calling a ball game and needed something to kill some time, so he introduced Kilgore to the audience and said that he had just finished writing a song that was recorded by Johnny Cash and they were going to play this new tune. Obviously, this was "Ring of Fire." After they played the song, they received a bizarre phone call. There was a woman on the other end and she claimed to be a medium from a spiritualist group in Greenwich Village, New York. The group had met the night before and held a seance with a Ouija Board. They connected with a spirit that identified itself as a cowboy named Wharton. Then they got another name through the board: Merle Kilgore. Nobody in the group recognized the name, but now the medium had heard Merle on the radio. She went on to say that she received a message from the spirit. That message was, "The drummer is a rummer and he can't keep the beat. Lockwood had no idea what this meant, but he saw a stunned look on Kilgore's face. Kilgore told him that he and Johnny Horton had made this pact and that like Houdinin did with his wife, they had a coded message that Horton would give him from beyond the grave. This was THAT message!

One of the places Johnny Horton haunts is the Texas highway where he tragically died. This was on the Highway 79 bridge and motorists and truckers have all claimed to see the spectral outline of a Cadillac. Some just see the headlights coming at them and then nothing. This happens most often on foggy nights. 

The last place he played, The Skyline Club, is also another place where his apparition has been seen, although this is now a CVS. That evening, Johnny refused to go in the bar because he believed so strongly that a drunk was going to kill him that night. People took to claiming the place was cursed because both Williams and Horton died after performing here. Johnny is also said to haunt his final resting place at Hillcrest Memorial Park. Fans and ghost hunters frequently report experiencing cold spots, hearing faint acoustic music or feeling his presence near his grave site. A story has circulated in trucking and CB radio subcultures that Horton's ghost has occasionally been heard breaking through on CB frequencies in the Deep South, transmitting cryptic messages or singing snippets of his hit songs like "North to Alaska."

Johnny Horton was another talent lost way too young. There were so many more songs for him to sing. Did he really know that he was going to die? How was he able to be so specific? Did he send a message from beyond the grave and does he haunt these various locations? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 619 - The Life and Afterlife of Janis Joplin

This Month in History - Queen Victoria Proclaimed Empress of India

In the month of January, on the 1st, in 1877, Queen Victoria was officially proclaimed as the Empress of India. This was done at the first Delhi Durbar (DUR-bar) ceremony. The term "Durbar" comes from the Persian language, meaning a ruler's court and was adopted from Mughal (moo-gl) traditions. Its purpose was to mark the succession or coronation of British sovereigns as rulers of India after the British Parliament passed the Royal Titles Act in 1876. Thus transferring power from the dissolved East India Company, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Delhi was chosen as the location due to its historical association with imperial power, even though Calcutta (now Kolkata Coal kah tuh) was the administrative capital at the time. There have been three major Delhi Durbars in history, the first in 1877 with Queen Victoria, the second in 1903 coronating King Edward VII and the third in 1911, coronating King George V and Queen Mary. The 1911 Delhi Durbar, announced the movement India's capital from Calcutta to Delhi. In essence, the first Delhi Durbar was a calculated act of political theatre designed to cement British imperial authority at a crucial time in India's colonial history.

The Life and Afterlife of Janis Joplin

Every one who loved her, called her Pearl. Janis Joplin was an energetic singer who lived life hard and fast. Her talent has been inspirational to generations of musicians. Imagine the heights she could've risen to if her life hadn't been snuffed out too early. Janis became a member of the 27 Club after injecting a potent very pure hit of heroin. The hotel where she overdosed is said to still be haunted by her spirit. Join us for the life and afterlife of Janis Joplin! 

Janis Joplin's life began on January 19, 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas at St. Mary's Hospital. She was the eldest child of Dorothy and Seth Joplin. Janis was raised in a Christian home and her parents worried as she got older and seemed to drift into a group of outcasts. These outcasts loved music and would sit around listening to blues music by Leadbelly, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Janis would sing along and really enjoyed it and she joined the choir at Thomas Jefferson High School. School was tough as she was bullied often and teased about her acne scarring. She graduated in 1960 and headed to Lamar State College of Technology for a brief time and transferred to the University of Texas in Austin. The hippie movement was just getting ready to emerge and wouldn't peak until the Summer of Love in 1967, so Joplin was a little different than the other women on campus. The campus paper even ran a story in 1962 on how different she was because she went around barefoot and wearing Levis. She also always had her Autoharp too. She formed a folk trio with two men, Powell St. John and Lanny Wiggins, and they called themselves the Waller Creek Boys.

In 1963, Janis decided she was done with school and hitchhiked to San Francisco. And she ended up in what would become hippie central in Haight-Ashbury. This area was having a growing issue with drugs, specifically speed. People think it was mostly psychedelics like acid that were a problem, but even Manson's group was way into the speed. LSD would come into play as well with the Manson murders, but speed was always involved and this is where Janis really got into that scene. Before long, she had the reputation of being a "speed freak." She also started drinking heavily with Southern Comfort being her favorite. Eventually, Janis would try heroin and get hooked on that. 

And while drugs and alcohol, unfortunately, are going to be a key theme in Joplin's life, her sister shared with the world in her book "Love, Janis" that her sister was highly intelligent and sensitive and that she was devoted to her family. She was articulate and no one can deny she was amazingly talented when it came to writing and singing music. That's why addiction sucks so hard. Drinking became a theme in some of her songs. She wrote and recorded the song "What Good Can Drinkin' Do" in December of 1962 while she was still at the University of Texas. This was her first recorded song and was a 12-bar blues song. Joplin claimed that she wrote the song in a drunken stupor. Joplin loved Beat Poets and enjoyed following that scene in the Haight and she started collaborating with other singers she met in the area. In 1964, Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen, who would become the guitarist for Jefferson Airplane, recorded some blues standards together. There were seven tracks and these wouldn't be released until after Janis' death as the bootleg album "The Typewriter Tape." It had that name because Jorma's wife played a typewriter in the background of one of the songs. Shortly before that effort, Janis got into trouble with the law for the first time. Her drug addiction led her to start shoplifting and in 1963, she was arrested. As she fell further into addiction, she started losing lots of weight, to the point that people described her as emaciated, and she had been a full-figured gal when she was in college. Within two years, she was skeletal. Her friends in San Francisco were growing very concerned and they knew she needed to get out of the Haight, so they encouraged her to head home to Port Arthur. They paid for her bus ride. For us, these seem like good friends, but Janis told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton in 1970 about that time, "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."

We can only imagine what Janis' parents must of thought when they saw their daughter get off that bus. They helped her to recuperate and she changed her life. She didn't drink or do drugs and re-enrolled in college at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas as an anthropology major. She would change to a social work major later. Austin had a growing music scene and Janis would commute there with her acoustic guitar and perform. Janis even started wearing her hair in a beehive if you can imagine that. 

She had also been dating a man named Peter de Blanc when she was in San Francisco and he had moved to New York while she was in Texas, so they were doing the long distance thing. Peter decided he wanted to marry Janis, so he flew to Texas to ask her father for her hand and the couple became engaged. Peter traveled a lot and perhaps that is why he called off the engagement a few months later. San Francisco was calling to Joplin again and she returned there in 1966. And it isn't surprising because of what we would learn from therapy sessions that Janis attended in Port Arthur. Janis hated the idea of not being successful with music and she feared being stuck working as a keypunch operator or secretary or just being a housewife. And she also thought she couldn't perform without drugs and alcohol. Her psychiatrist, Bernard Giarritano, told biographer Myra Friedman after Janis had died that she didn't think she could have a professional singing career without relapsing into drugs. He asked her to bring her guitar with her and would get her to sing and he tried to reassure her that she performed just fine sober. His reason fell on deaf ears, but Janis did lay down seven tracks with just her and her acoustic guitar in Austin before leaving for San Francisco. These included her original composition "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie, which would be released posthumously years later. 

On June 4, 1966, Joplin joined psychedelic rock band Big Brother and The Holding Company. This band was up and coming in the Haight and managed to get a record deal with independent record producer Mainstream Records. They recorded their self-titled album in 1967, but it wouldn't be released until they became more successful later. 

And that success came after they performed at the Monterey Pop Festival. The festival ran from June 16-18 in 1967 and people went crazy for the band and Janis in particular. Big Brother and The Holding Company and Janis performed Big Mama Thornton’s "Ball and Chain" with a barnstormer performance. Cass Elliot was captured on film in the crowd mouthing "Wow, that’s really heavy" during Joplin’s performance. Papers were talking about Janis internationally and Clive Davis, who was president of Columbia Records at the time, sought to get her signed. Albert Grossman, who was Bob Dylan's manager pursued Joplin as well. This was probably amazing for Janis because she had attended the festival in 1963 and got to meet Bob Dylan, who she considered an idol. She told him, "I’m gonna be famous one day!" Dylan responded,  "Yeah, we’re all gonna be famous." And they both certainly did become famous. It started for Janis right here at that very festival. Columbia Records did sign the band and they re-released their debut album with the songs "Down on Me," "Bye Bye Baby," "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo." The band's next album was called Cheap Thrills, which included a live version of "Ball and Chain" as well as "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime." Just eight weeks after release, Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart and stayed number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks.

Joplin tried hard to do life without drugs. When she first got to San Francisco, she moved into an apartment with a man named Travis Rivers who had been sent to Austin to bring her back to San Francisco. Janis made him promise that needles wouldn't be allowed in their apartment, but Travis eventually broke that promise when he left some friends at the apartment and Janis walked in to find them shooting up. A band mate who was with her, Dave Getz, later recalled that she went nuts and screamed at Travis when he returned "We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!" When Getz tried to comfort her she said, "You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!"

Joplin decided to break from Big Brother in 1969 and she formed a new band to back her up called the Kozmic Blues Band and they were the ones with her at Woodstock. They helped her produce her first solo album "I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!" with the songs "Kozmic Blues" and covers like "Summertime" and "To Love Somebody." The sound was a shift for Joplin from the psychedelic rock to more R&B and soul. The band appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on the night of July 18, 1969 and they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" and "To Love Somebody." Joplin had no idea what Woodstock was going to be. She figured it was just another gig and that's how she put it to her band mates. While Woodstock was supposed to be all about peace, love and happiness, it really was a shit show. Organizers had thought they would have around 200,000 people and they had half a million. Roads were blocked by abandoned cars, there weren't enough bathrooms, not enough garbage cans, limited food and water, rain left everything a muddy quagmire with mud and cow manure mixed together and then there was a ton of drugs. The schedule for performers were in a disarray and all the performers had to be flown in by helicopter. So here comes Janis on a helicopter,  with a pregnant Joan Baez sitting next to her, and she looks down and sees this horde of people below. She was really nervous when she saw that. Joplin had to wait for several other groups to play and this would be a downfall for her performance because she proceeded to drink and shoot heroin. The set Janis played was iconic and emotional, but it was hampered by her drunkenness. The performance was so ragged that Joplin made sure that not a single one of her songs was included in the original Woodstock documentary. She did engage the audience and her voice was powerful. She said from the stage, "I don’t mean to be preachy, but we ought to remember, and that means promoters, too, that music is for grooving, man, not for putting yourself through bad changes. You don’t have to take anyone’s shit, man, just to like music, you know what I mean? So if you’re getting more shit than you deserve, you know what to do about it, man? It’s just music, man. Music’s supposed to be different than that." The crowd screamed for an encore and she gave one. Pete Townshend of the Who watched her perform before the Who took the stage and he wrote in his 2012 memoir, "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible." Janis stayed at Woodstock until it was over.

At about the same time that Janis was with the Kozmic Blues Band, she started asking people to call her Pearl because she was tired of being Janis. Some people said that this was like Janis becomeing a split personality because she was under so much pressure. She really was the first woman to front a band of her own creation. Other women had been guest singers with bands, but this was Janis in charge of her own thing. She started drinking and drugging more  and the group just fell apart barely a year after forming. And Janis still had contract obligations. She met several Canadian musicians and Janis formed what critics say was her best backing band, The Full Tilt Boogie Band. 

Joplin toured Canada with Full Tilt and then they set off on a US tour. They also started recording Janis' next album. It would be while they were working on this that Janis would die. Columbia only liked two of the songs, so they scrapped the album, but Full Tilt wasn't going to give up on Janis. They worked on the songs and mastered them and convinced Columbia to agree to more songs. They also had a recording of Janis singing Mercedes Benz in front of a bunch of friends and they added that to the album. Columbia accepted the album and it was named Pearl for Janis' nickname. This would be the biggest selling album of Joplin's career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of "Me and Bobby McGee." Before dying, Janis also made two appearances on the Dick Cavett Show. In October of 1970, Janis was living out of the Landmark Motor Hotel while making the album Pearl. The Landmark was popular with rock stars because of its proximity to drugs and the management looked the other way with partying. Today, this is the the Highland Gardens Hotel located at 7047 Franklin Ave. Janis stayed in Room 105. Joplin had stopped her drug use temporarily when she traveled to Brazil in February 1970 and lived there for awhile. She apparently was romanced by an American tourist named David Niehaus and was happy and carefree. David hated drugs and this helped to keep her sober, but when she returned to America, she returned to heroin. David saw her shoot up once and the relationship was over. 

Returning to the heroin again began her rapid spiral towards death. Fellow bandmate Sam Andrew told biographer Ellis Amburn that "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all." 

The day before her death, Janis visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track of a song she planned to record the following day, "Buried Alive in the Blues." That evening, she drove her Porsche to the West Hollywood venue called Barney's Beanery and she met up with Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman. Janis ate a bowl of chili and downed several drinks. She left the club after midnight with Ken Pearson, the organist for Full Tilt, and they headed back to the Landmark Motor Hotel. When Janis didn't show up for recording the following day, October 4th, Janis' road manager and friend John Byrne Cook went to the hotel to check on her and he found her dead on the floor of her room. The heroin hit her quickly as she was still clutching the change in her hand from buying cigarettes. She was wearing a nightgown and had been dead for 18 hours. Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi conducted the autopsy on Janis and found that her death was due to a heroin overdose. She had also been drinking, which probably contributed. Several other customers of Janis' dealer also died that same weekend, so it is thought that this batch of heroin was more potent than usual. Joplin was cremated in the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Mortuary in Los Angeles. She wanted her ashes scattered and that was done from a plane that flew over the Pacific Ocean and along Stinson Beach. The album Pearl was released six weeks after her death. Janis would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. In 2005, she and was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame came in 2013. Peggy Caserta was a close friend of Janis and there are those who claim the two were lovers. Part of this belief came from a memoir that Caserta wrote in 1973, "Going Down With Janis," in which she wrote via a ghostwriter that the women were lovers. Caserta had owned the boutique Mnasidika in the late 1960s and Joplin shopped there for clothes. The two became fast friends and shared a heroin addiction. Caserta later disavowed the book and denied a romantic relationship. She wrote "I Ran Into Some Trouble" in 2018, to set the record straight. It is probably likely that Joplin was bisexual. 

Janice had a provision in her will that she wanted a party thrown for her in place of a funeral. That wake party was held on October 26, 1970 at The Lion Share, which was a legendary live music club in San Anselmo, California. Joplin had set aside $2,500 in her will for this party and it was a real blowout, with hashish laced brownies being passed around and the Grateful Dead playing. Joplin's closest friends were there, as was her sister Laura.  

Janis had joined her friend Jimi Hendrix in the 27 Club. He had died just 16 days before her. Jim Morrison would join the club a few months later. The 27 Club is an exclusive Rock & Roll club that no one actually wants to be a member of since it means you're dead at 27. What makes this club unique is the level of talent included within it. Robert Johnson is considered the first member. Amy Winehouse is probably the most recent. Brian Jones was a founding member of the Rolling Stones and died from drowning in his pool while under the influence of drugs and alcohol in 1969. Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson was a member of Canned Heat and died of a drug overdose in 1970. Founding member of the Grateful Dead, Ron McKernan, died in 1973 from internal bleeding due to cirrhosis caused by his heavy drinking. Kurt Cobain died in 1994 after shooting himself with a shotgun...maybe. And then Amy Winehouse overdosed in 2011. Was this some kind of curse that felled these 27-year-old musicians. Clearly, they lived hard and fast, but had they made a deal with the Devil? 

Whatever the case may be for Janis - and with her desire to get out of her small Texas town and the mundane life it offered we believe she would be a prime candidate for soul exchange - her spirit still seems to be here, especially at the hotel where she died. Her death was quick and possibly her spirit is confused about what happened and doesn't accept that she is dead. And she might be sticking around because Room 105 has been left mostly as she left it, with guests leaving messages for her on the wall in the closet. Guests and employees have reported unexplained sounds, a very heavy feeling and some have even seen her apparition. The lobby has pictures of all the famous people that have stayed here and it is said that if mention Janis' name in the lobby, some of the pictures go flying. 

Jen Danczak stayed in the room in 2024 and she found the duvet cover completely off the bed. When she reported it to the front desk, they double checked if the room had been cleaned and it had. That was when the person at the front desk told her that they won't go into that room at night. The manager told her, "Sometimes you have to knock [on the door] or she doesn't open the door. The other day these people checked in and then came down and said they couldn't get the door open. I asked if they knocked first and they said "no." I went to the door, knocked and it opened for me." There was a little EMF activity. 

Findadeath post on Reddit, "This guy I was talking to in the lobby, started telling me stories about various incidents that he believe are Janis, but only when someone says something about her. Those 8 by 10’s of celebrities that grace every single business in LA, fly off the walls. Doors slam shut, etc. Nothing too destructive, but again only when someone discusses Janis. One other incident involved the phone lines going nuts at 3 in the morning. Every single phone from every single room started ringing at the switchboard. The guy calls the owner, and the owner is just as dumbfounded. Then the owner says, 'It must be Janis.' Instantly the phones stopped ringing. A little creepy. Then as we’re talking, the phone starts ringing. He says, 'Good evening, Highland Gardens Hotel.' No one there. It happens again, and again, and again. At least 6 times. It wasn’t major creepiness, but it was kinda cool to think it just might be Janis." 

Strange RV Tours stayed there once and the very heavy closet doors opened on their own. They told the night manager that they just had something strange happen and he asked if the closet doors opened on their own and they said "yes." The manager said that this happens nearly every night and that this is Janis. The next morning they heard a knocking right in front of them on a cupboard in the kitchenette. It happened a second time too.

So Danny Bodaduce and his wife, Amy, stayed in Janis' room in 2019. Amy has a blog called The Clipboard of Fun and she wrote, "Earlier in the day, I had put a water bottle in the fridge. I went to get it several hours later and it was completely covered in slime. I’ve been in my share of skeezy Hollywood apartments (let’s not discuss my past) but I’ve never seen anything like this. I googled “slime paranormal activity” and it turns out this is a thing. I found a whole bunch of stuff about substances, like slime (ie “Slimer” from the Ghostbusters), denoting a spiritual presence. The other thing. Danny had situated himself in bed in a spot most conducive to watching TV. This left me in the predicament of either sleeping alone in the other bed or in the same bed but right next to the Janis death spot. What’s a girl to do? I was too spooked to sleep by myself but promised I wouldn’t, out of respect, touch or walk on the spot where she passed. So I was shaken when I woke up in the middle of the night with my right arm fully extended, hovering over the sacred spot." 

Janis had an incomparable talent. One can only imagine the heights she would've risen to had she not died so early. She lived life hard and fast and ended up dying alone in a hotel room. That's not how anyone wants to die. Is her spirit still here for that reason? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 344 - Haunted Music

Moment in Oddity - Paris' Open-Air Urinals Helped Defeat Nazis

Suggested by: Darren Koch

We are women, so we certainly are not experts in urinals or their usage. We don't know if it's typical for men to use them as a social gathering point. We're pretty sure though that they've only been used to turn the tide on an enemy during a war, once. The French came up with a creative idea to share military intel among themselves. In the 1830s, France installed open-air urinals, so that men would be able to relieve themselves easily without resorting to peeing on buildings or the street. Come on guys, we know you've all done this at some point. These urinals were used to pass information for the French Resistance during World War II. There were more than a 1,000 of these open-air urinals in Paris during the war and once the Nazis occupied the city, the Allies and the French Resistance would pass notes to each other away from the Nazis eyes. So these urinals are credited with helping to defeat the Nazi Regime and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Chris Cornell Born

In the month of July, on the 20th, in 1964, musician, singer and songwriter Chris Cornell was born. Cornell got into music from a young age, learning to play the piano, guitar and a snare drum. He also, unfortunately, got into drugs as a teenager. In 1984, he helped found the band Soundgarden. They found early success and quickly signed to an independent label and later moved onto to a major record label. Cornell had a unique style and sound and this would become what we know as grunge music. Soundgarden would be the first grunge band to be signed by a major record label. Cornell had an amazing vocal range and not only had success with Soundgarden, but his next band Audioslave. He was nominated for 16 Grammy Awards and sold over 30 million records worldwide. Rolling Stone named him on their "Best Lead Singers of All Time" list. Cornell battled with substance abuse for part of his life, but managed to get sober and help other artists to get clean as well. He had issues with anxiety and depression since he had been a kid and he would continue battling that until his death. He died on May 18, 2017, but the circumstances of his death are questionable. The cause of death was officially suicide by hanging and several prescription drugs were found in his system, but in therapeutic doses. His wife had talked to him right before he died and she said he had been slurring his words and told her he thought he took one too many sleeping pills. She became concerned and called security. Cornell had indicated to no one that he was suicidal and he was in a great place in his life. He was buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in a nice place by the pond, front and center of the main drag. Kelly and I both got to visit the grave in 2018.

Haunted Music

We've covered quite a few music related topics on the podcast. HGB has featured Ernestine and Hazel's Juke Joint, Bobby Mackey's Music World and the Cincinnati Music Hall and we've talked about the life and afterlife of Patsy Cline, John Lennon and Elvis Presley. Bonus episodes have featured haunted instruments, Gram Parsons and the Devil's Chord. We thought it would be interesting to do an episode on haunted music as a whole. This obviously won't be exhaustive, but we are going to delve into haunted radio stations, recording studios, buses and jukeboxes. We'll also look at the elements of music that lead to hauntings and curses. And wow, does music have some curses!

Music has been with humanity since the first beings probably figured out that two rocks hit together made a sound. And probably even before that, the pleasant strains of a bird chirping and singing were heard. Music has great power. A few strains from a song can transport us to another time, a moment in memory. Certain types of music can cause us to feel sad or exhilarated. Some music is relaxing, while other pieces can be downright unnerving. We obviously are going to focus on the latter. But before there were birds and before there were humans, there were angels. At least for some belief systems. These angels could sing and maybe even played instruments. There was one angel in particular that was the most beautiful, both in appearance and sound and that was Lucifer. Many people probably are familiar with him being described as beautiful, but did you know that he was basically a musical instrument all on his own.

The Bible says of Lucifer in Ezekiel 28:13, "You were in Eden, the garden of God.  Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz, and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings (timbrels) and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared." In the Hebrew, toph is the word for settings, which also means timbrel and that is a musical instrument. The Hebrew word for sockets is neqeb and that means hole or pipes. Isaiah 14:11 says, "All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps." So again, we have a reference to Lucifer being musical. Most Biblical scholars refer to him as the Director of Music in Heaven.

As most people are familiar with the story, Lucifer rebels with a third of the heavenly angels and they are cast down here to Earth with the humans. For those of us who study what is referenced as "fringe Christianity," this is the time when humans are going to make some big advancements in technology. For us, this is when the fallen angels teach humans about make-up, black-smithing, building, music and much more. While Ancient Aliens on TV presents the helpers in building megoliths and pyramids as aliens, we think of them as fallen angels. Although the movie Footloose doesn't present the evils of music coming from this, we believe that is why music ended up with a negative connotation, you know the whole, Rock & Roll music is of the Devil. No one knows what music is like in Heaven, but Lucifer got his talent and experience somewhere, which is why music as a whole is not of the Devil. But could there be some music that is of a more negative nature. Of course there is, because there is no light without the dark.

*And as a side note, irregardless of what the Church has taught for years, there is no consensus on whether Lucifer is Satan or the Devil and also that fallen angels are demons. These could all be constructs from the Roman Catholic Church. The Bible itself is quite unclear about any of these elements.*

We've all heard the tales of the musician selling his soul at the crossroads in exchange for musical talent. We'll look at this in a bit, but first, let's look at a brief history of music. We think everybody would be in agreement that drums and drumming is probably the most ancient of musical sounds, other than the voice. Nearly every indigineous culture on every continent that has humans, drums. And there is probably good reason because drums are like the beating of the heart. And you don't have to be able to carry a tune to sound good with drums. The Egyptians are credited with lots of firsts and many believe they were the first to design instruments. In 4000 BC, they started using flutes and harps and moved onto more complicated instruments like clarinets. An early form of the trumpet would be introduced in 2500 BC by Denmark. One of the first stringed instruments was created by the Hitties in 1500 BC and a few hundred years later King David comes on the scene and he was incredibly musical. The Bible describes him singing and dancing and playing the harp. During one such harp recital, King Saul tried to kill David. The Hebrews used music during daily life in Israel.

The Greeks would move music forward even more, developing Classical music in 700 BC. The teaching of music was a requirement in the schools and it would be the mathematician Pythagorus who would develop the octave scale when he treated music as a science. And this is a key element to focus on when it comes to talking about the paranormal connection to music. Can music be used as a form of alchemy? We'll discuss this further when we get to the Renaissance. Music was so popular in Greece that they regularly held musical competitions. Aristotle and Plato both believed that music was a wonderful leisurely pursuit that made students better learners. They believed it gave the soul freedom. But Aristotle also had interesting thoughts on the effects of music. Aristotle warned that certain modes of music shouldn't be studied because they stirred unhealthy emotions. He wrote in his work The Politics, "Rhythm and melody supply imitations of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and temperance, and of all the qualities contrary to these, and of the other qualities of character, which hardly fall short of the actual affections, as we know from our own experience, for in listening to such strains our souls undergo a change. The habit of feeling pleasure or pain at mere representations is not far removed from the same feeling about realities."

Boethius was a Roman senator and philosopher and he translated the works of Plato and Aristotle into Latin and brought the Greek musical notation to Western Europe. He also wrote about the idea of opera. The Common Era would see music moving forward at a rapid pace and can be broken down into eight eras. The first is Medieval and this was from 500 AD to 1400 AD. During this time, Guido D'Arezzo invented solfege, which is the vocal scale we were all taught by the Sound of Music: do, re, mi, fa, so, la ,ti, do. Also during this time, music moved away from the influence of the Church, like Gregorian chanting, and became more folk-like and the Church started looking at this music as pagan.

Next was the Renaissance Era from 1400 AD to 1600 AD. Renaissance means "rebirth" and it was as though music was being reborn, separate from the Church and music became more complicated with more moving parts. This found its footing in Northern Europe, in the future France, Belgium and Netherlands. Germany wrote a lot of organ pieces during this time. Music became more tonal. At this time, many alchemists started mixing music in with their alchemy. Michael Maier was a German physician and alchemist who wrote the 1617 hermetic book Atalanta Fugiens and in it he described fifty fugues, which are canonical with multiple voices on a theme that appears at the beginning of a composition and repeats several times throughout.  This symbolized the philosopher's stone, which was a legendary substance that could be used to turn base metals into gold and silver.

Next would come the Baroque Era from 1580 AD to 1750 AD and the first operas were written at this time. Composers like Vivaldi, Bach and Handel would come on the scene. The oboe, violin and double bass would appear. Baroque is derived from the Italian word barocco, which means bizarre and this was a time of experimentation. Melodies would be supported by harmony. The Galant Era would be from 1720 AD to 1780 AD and continue into the Classical Era that ended in 1820 AD. Sonatas would start at this time and music would get less complicated with the piano being the preferred instrument. Mozart wrote his first symphony at this time and Beethoven and Schubert would take music into the next era.

The Romantic Era would fall between 1800 AD and 1910 AD. This music would tell a story and composers during this time would be Johann Strauss II, Brahms, Wagner and Tchaikovsky. Literature and art were mixed with the music as well. The saxophone and flute would become more complicated. Nationalistic themes were developed and music started telling more stories.
The Modern Era would start in 1890 AD and go through to 1980 AD. The Postmodern would start in 1930 AD and continue to the present. With so many years, this covers a vast array of music from neoclassical to concert music to to impressionistic to electronic music to jazz and really, everything we know past Classical. An interesting instrument introduced during this time was the Theremin.

We mentioned that the music that broke away from the Church centuries ago was labeled as pagan. This was during the Middle Ages or Medieval times. The Devil's Interval or Devil's Chord was introduced at this time and it was considered so diabolical, that it was banned by the Church. The Devil's Chord was not harmonious like the other music of the time. Harmony has notes that flow together and share pitches and frequencies. There is a set timing to the harmony, like a waltz is 3:4 time and a march is 2:4 time and etc. The Devil's Interval is formally called the Tritone. This is the augmented fourth and the diminished fifth. According to Carl E. Gardner’s 1912 text  "Essentials of Music Theory" a “triad” in music is composed of three tones. These tones are a starting note plus the third and fifth tones found along its scale like C and then E and G. Most chords are independent, but a tritone is dependent and has “dissonant” or tense intervals. There is something about a dissonant chord that is disturbing to our spirits. If a composition ends with a tritone, it is uncomfortable. And in a singing composition, it is nearly impossible for any singer, regardless of talent, to sing. Thus, any piece of music with the Devil's Interval is thought to be creepy and chilling. Because of all of this, the church banned it and called it Diabolus in Musica.

John Sloboda, a professor of music psychology at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, was interviewed on NPR in 2012 and he explained how it is that the Devil's Interval is disturbing saying, "Our brains are wired to pick up the music that we expect, [and] generally music is consonant rather than dissonant, so we expect a nice chord. So when that chord is not quite what we expect, it gives you a little bit of an emotional frisson, because it's strange and unexpected." Many composers have used the Devil's Chord throughout history. Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde has the Tritone in its prelude. For this reason, it is sometimes called the Tristan chord. This incorporates the notes F, B, D sharp and G sharp. Wagner's "Gotterdammerung" also has the chord and some terrifying imagery which will also become a part of performances of the Devil's Interval. In this opera, there is a scene that has drums and timpani and feels evil with a scene playing out what seems to be a Black Mass. Beethoven has it in his Piano Sonata No.18 and "Fidelio." Michael Tippett's Second Symphony features the Tritone prominently. Camille Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre" was a salute to the dead coming alive at Halloween and first performed in 1875. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt used the tritone scale and images of devils playing violins and dancing in his Mephisto Waltzes.

And then there was Giuseppe Tartini’s “The Devil's Trill Sonata.” Most violinists claim that this is the most difficult violin piece in the world. Tartini himself claimed that the Devil had written it and that it was through a dream that it was delivered to him. The Devil was playing it on a violin in a ferocious, mad way. What Tartini put to paper he said was but a shadow of what he had seen in his dream. And yes, I'm having visions of the Devil Went Down to Georgia. There are different claims about when it was written. I saw both 1713 and 1740. The more formal name of the piece is Violin Sonata in G Minor. About a quarter hour in length, the sonata begins in a reflective mood, with gently flowing violin lines over harpsichord accompaniment; some performances replace the harpsichord with a modern piano. Frequent double-stops, requiring the violinist to play simultaneously on two adjacent strings, increase the technical challenges, even before the tempo quickens. After this languid introduction, the sonata charges forward with the violinist offering ever-new versions of earlier melodic fragments. Some variations are more overtly challenging than others, particularly those near the end of the piece, which are replete with not just double-stops but also trills, runs, and quick alternation of pitches high and low.

This brings us to Jazz, which was some of the first music in our modern era to be deemed "of the Devil." Jazzmen used the Devil's chord throughout the '40s and '50s and even had a hand signal to pay homage to what they called 'the flattened fifth'. This was a high five but with the thumb folded in to the palm and the musician would call out "Oolya Koo, man!" When singing the tritone jazz performers would sing with a false chord technique that came off as just a sound like a scream or growl. Metal singers do the same today. In our modern era, one can hear it in Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze," Black Sabbath songs, Rush's "YYZ," the song "Maria" in West Side Story, Busta Rhymes’s “Woo Hah!! Got You All In Check,” The Simpsons theme song and death metal music.

The Devil's Chord is not the only way that music has been made disturbing. Poland would introduce a type of music referred to as sonorism. This started in the 1950s and featured the use of traditional and nontraditional instruments to make eerie and disturbing sounds. We imagine this is how much of the foley for horror movies is produced today. There is no rhythm and no melody. One of the most famous composers to use sonorism was Krzystof Penderecki and his most famous piece of this sort was "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima." This piece has influenced a far amount of music we hear in horror movies, including Children of Men, There Will Be Blood, Under the Skin, Shutter Island and The Shining. In his later years, Penderecki focused on the tritone or The Devil's Chord. He just passed away in March of 2020. He had said of his music in an interview with Resident Advisor, "For some pieces, like the Threnody, I prefer young people to perform it, because they are still open to learn. This piece, even though it was written over 50 years ago, is still very fresh and new. Some notation that I invented at that time is now common, but there are still some special techniques, different types of vibrato, playing on the tailpiece of the bridge, playing directly behind the bridge. These things are unusual, even after 50 years."

Hungary has had some interesting music come out of it, starting with Hungarian composer György Ligeti. He created a piece for solo organ that is chaotic and disturbing called Volumina that caused an uproar. The first thing the listener hears is the performer's forearms across the keys. This is a long piece and the first attempt at recording it caught the organ on fire. People started saying that Ligeti was the destroyer of organs. Another Hungarian piece of music with a notorious reputation was blamed for causing people to commit suicide. This was Gloomy Sunday written by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress and is nicknamed the "Hungarian Suicide Song." It was written in 1933. The original lyrics were written as if the world was ending and reflected the despair about war and people's sins. Poet László Jávor wrote his own lyrics to the song, titled le Szomorú vasárnap (Sad Sunday). The protagonist wants to commit suicide because his lover has died. More people remember those lyrics. "Gloomy Sunday" was first recorded in English by Hal Kemp in 1936, with lyrics by Sam M. Lewis. Billie Holiday performed it in 1941 making it incredibly popular. Urban legends began claiming that people were killing themselves after hearing the song. Radio networks began banning the song. Here are the lyrics:

Sunday is gloomy,
My hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coach of
Sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thought
Of ever returning you
Would they be angry
If I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday

Gloomy is Sunday,
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I
Have decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles
And prayers that are said I know
Let them not weep
Let them know that I'm glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death I'm caressing you
With the last breath of my soul
I'll be blessing you
Gloomy Sunday

We've all heard the theory that one can sell their soul to the Devil in exchange for becoming proficient with a talent or gaining money or fame. There are many tales of musicians meeting the Devil at the crossroads and selling their souls to gain musical genius. This is the legend behind Delta bluesman Robert Johnson who seemed to know very little about playing the guitar. That doesn't make sense considering that music historians refer to him as the Grandfather of Rock and Roll. Johnson was a black man who was born in Mississippi around 1911 with little opportunities. He wanted desperately to be a guitar player in the juke joints and get the women to flock to him. But he couldn't play and no matter how many guitar pickers he pestered to teach him, he was not musically inclined. He left town for a year and when he came back, he was a better guitar player than anyone around and many rockers credit Robert Johnson as an influence. Rumors started flying that Johnson sold his soul to the Devil to gain his talent. Johnson would practice late at night in the cemeteries and then play mind-blowing riffs in the juke joints.

Johnson embraced the rumors that he had met the Devil and included the narrative in a song. He sang about Satan in six of his songs. One of his songs was titled "Hellhound on my Trail" and in it he claimed that an evil spirit was following him. Something did indeed catch up with him and he either drank himself to death or was poisoned with strychnine by a jealous man in 1938. He was 27 at the time and would be the first to start a legend about a special club for musicians known as The 27 Club. We'll talk about this club a little later, but we wanted to touch on another virtuoso whom people felt had sold his soul the the Devil for his talent too. This was violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. Paganini came from a poor family and none of them were musicians. People claimed that Paganini seemed to almost overnight become an expert on the violin. Even more stunning to listeners than just the music he conjured, it was the way in which he played. Like he was possessed. He writhed and flailed about, breaking strings as he violently played his violin. People claimed he sold his soul for his talent and that when he played, he was possessed by the Devil. And yes, the violin and fiddle definitely seem to be a theme with Satan here.

The 27 Club is an exclusive Rock & Roll club that no one actually wants to be a member for the simple reason that it means you are dead, at the age of 27. Clearly, rock stars have died at a number of ages and we could compile enough in each age category to have a club for each, but what makes this club unique is the level of talent included within it. Robert Johnson is considered the first and the last, as of the production of this podcast, would be Amy Winehouse. Brian Jones was a founding memebr of the Rolling Stones and died from drowning in his pool while under the influence of drugs and alcohol in 1969. Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson was a member of Canned Heat and died of a drug overdose in 1970. Jimi Hendrix choked on his own vomit after overdosing in 1970. Janis Joplin also died that year from an overdose on heroin that was bad. The same drug took Jim Morrison in 1971. Founding member of the Grateful Dead, Ron McKernan, died in 1973 from internal bleeding due to cirrhosis caused by his heavy drinking. Kurt Cobain died in 1994 after shooting himself with a shotgun...maybe. And then Amy Winehouse overdosed in 2011. Was this some kind of curse that felled these 27-year-old musicians. Clearly, they lived hard and fast, but had they made a deal with the Devil? We think this is mostly confirmation bias. If there is a curse realated to a rocker, it would probably be whatever curse is keeping Keith Richards alive.

Haunted Jukeboxes

Paul Seaburn wrote an article on the Mysterious Universe website about a haunted jukebox. This was a 1954 Seeburg Model HF100R owned by Richard Loban. Loban restored the jukebox, replacing a stripper plate and he added a collection of his own 45s. In slot G-5, he placed the song "If You Leave Me Tonight I Will Cry." Strangely, the jukebox started playing the song in G-5 all by itself. Loban replaced some old parts that he thought were causing the problem, but the jukebox kept playing G-5. The former owner told Loban that he thought the jukebox had been a prop in an epsidoe of Night Gallery. In this episode, a character pushes a button and the song "If You Leave Me Tonight I Will Cry" plays. Only the character didn't select that song. No matter what button he pushes, that song plays. The camera finally zooms in for one last song and the character pushes the G-5 button. Was this the jukebox from the television show? Whether it was or not, that is a really bizarre story and the jukebox does seem to have something paranormal going on.

The jukebox at Bobby Mackey's is reputedly haunted and seems to attract spirits. These include a ghost dog, a ghost without a head and a filmy white apparition. The jukebox turns on by itself. A police office responded to a security issue and found the jukebox on when he entered the empty building. The staff claimed that everything was off when they left. The craziest stories include claims that the jukebox plays even when unplugged and one staff member claims that the jukebox played without being plugged in, without a record on the spindle and the song playing was not on any record in the jukebox!

Haunted Tour Buses

Country musician Whisperin' Bill Anderson claims that he and his band toured for twelve days abaord a haunted tour bus. In the back of the bus was the state room and almost from the moment the band set off on their tour, they started hearing moaning coming from the state room.

Haunted Radio Stations

Radio stations have powerful transmitters. There was a time when getting a disc jockey to play your record could launch you into stardom. Is this why so many former and current radio stations are reputed to be haunted? The Wolf is a country station that broadcasts out of Tallahassee, Florida on 103.1 FM. A DJ there named Big Moose had a startling experience. He was alone one morning prepping the traffic report when he heard the voice of a little girl say, "Can you hear me?" He thought perhaps it was bleed through from another station, but the voice was really clear. And then he heard it again ask, "Can you hear me?" He shrugged it off until it happened again the next day at the same time. And then it happened again the next day. He had been experiencing doors opening and closing on their own before this, so he started to believe that the station was haunted. Then the station caught a weird orb zooming around the station on the security cameras. So what could be behind this? Big Moose did some research and found that a home had been in the spot where the radio station was now located. A brother and sister had been jumping on a bed on the second floor when the little girl was bounced out an open window and she fell head first to the ground. Could this be the little girl wondering if she can be heard?

Jennifer Waits wrote about her radio station in 2014 on the Radio Survivor website, "Luckily I don’t get the sense that the station that I call home (KFJC-FM) is permanently haunted, however there was one night when I wasn’t so sure. I was sitting in the KFJC lobby one evening when the front door knob started rattling for no reason. I have no idea if it was a ghost, but it happened soon after one of our DJs died tragically, so I assumed that it was him (Ken “Spiderman” Hamilton) making his presence known."

Tim King wrote in 2012 for Salem-News.com, "And it all began at that radio station, when I came in early to bring the AM signal up for the day. This “powering up” of the station was done in a narrow room in front of the DJ booth. We called this “the rack room” and that is a term often used in both radio and television stations, “racks” hold all of the broadcast equipment. Each morning when I arrived at the station, I always felt a little uneasy and better after reaching my office and turning the lights on. All night after they closed up at midnight, the place sat in total darkness. The first thing in the rack room was turning on the “plates” so they could warm up 15-minutes prior to starting the actual transmitter. Then a couple more switches, information entered in the legal documents on a clipboard, and the main switch is activated bringing the station to life. But it was always during that 15-minutes that strange things happened. It started with the uncomfortable feeling. It was always cold, hard to pin that on anything but living in Oregon during the colder months I suppose, but there were sometimes more goosebumps than usual. I felt like I was sharing space with someone and neither of us liked the other very much. There was never anybody else around during these hours of the day. I think now that the spirit if that is what it was and I had a very similar agenda, we both wished the other was long gone. As I activated those switches in the rack area, or waited the last minutes before doing so, I would often see what I would describe as fleeting images in my peripheral vision. I would turn my head, but there was never anything there. But there was something there, and I would have this happen every day. I became used to it eventually and I only discussed it with my wife. It caused no fear, and over time caught my interest."

Meximo70 wrote on the website Hot Dish Hell, "When I worked at local radio station KFMT, i started out on the 9pm to 5am shift. We were the only radio station around doing 24 hour live radio, the rest was automated. If you called me at 2am wanting to hear Brittany Spears, by God i’d get her “oops”-ing for you at 2am. When you work after 5pm at the station, you’re the only one there. The door gets locked and in order for anyone to get in if they don’t have a key is to press the doorbell which would set off a strobe light in my studio and i would come with the handy dandy studio key and let you in (if i liked ya). The FM studio’s control board faced a window looking out to a sheep pasture. At night you could see your reflection and everything behind you. Your back was to the door, which is a little unnerving when you’re at an empty studio by yourself in the middle of a sheep pasture. One night, while i had just put on the song of the second set, i heard rustling paper behind me and then i felt a cold breeze go by me. i always kept the studio door open since there wasn’t anyone else in the building. The strobe wasn’t going off, so i thought maybe the owner came in a different way and was doing some late night work. it was 1am. i walked around the entire radio station, knocked on Charles Woody’s office door, and looked out in the parking lot. i was alone. So i went back into the studio, did a commercial break and went back into the music set again. I went into the production studio and updated the weather report which would play on our sister station KSOM country. While i was in there, i heard a small knock on the production studio door. I believe at that point i shouted out an expletive. I ran for the FM studio, closed the door, and because of security reasons, the door does not lock; so i propped my stool against the knob. About an hour later, after i had announced upcoming events and went into a commercial break, I looked up and i saw a shadowy figure walk past the studio door window. I heard the papers rustling too. At 4:30am, morning show host Dark Cigar came in to start his prep. When he came into the studio he asked how things were. I asked him, 'Can I ask you something without you thinking i’m freakin’ crazy?' 'Sure.' he said not really sure if that was the right answer. 'Anyone ever…I don’t know…witness anything strange around here?' 'Oh, you mean the ghost?' 'What?' 'This place is supposedly haunted. Some DJ here i guess killed himself and supposedly walks around here and reveals himself to certain people. I’ve never seen him, but plenty of others have.'"

Haunted Recording Studios

As music moved out of the 1980s, glam rock faded into a shabby look incorporating flannel shirts and roughed-up jeans that came to be known as grunge. One of the pioneers of this music was Robert Lang. Lang set up a studio in Seattle in 1974 and many groups have recorded in the mansion that seems to jut out from hillside overlooking the city. Nirvana produced their final album here. Before the grunge groups recorded here, the blues men partied and recorded at the Robert Lang Studios. And somewhere along the line, the studios became a home for a spectre. The official website for the studios features a picture of the bassist from the group Drown Mary inside a sound booth with a misty white mass beside him. Robert Lang claims this is a ghost that he calls Dubby. Dubby was Lang's friend whose real name was Walter Westley Leonard who died after drinking too much and choking on his own vomit. Dubby had stashed a bunch of cash in a plastic barrel and buried it on the property where the studios were going to be built. Lang had no idea where the money was, but as they dug out the ground to build the studio, he found it and it was a lot of money that was poured into the construction. And that's why he thinks Dubby is here in the afterlife. Music groups claim to experience cold chills, doors open and close on their own and recording equipment goes on the fritz. The band Afghan Whigs had an issue with the tape recorder and they also watched as the lights flickered many times in what they described as a violent way. A member of the band called in a psychic friend and she encouraged them to work with the spirit, so that it would allow them to finish their recording session. She burned some sage and they got the recording done without further issues.

Chris Cornell was our subject for the This Month in History segment. One of the bands he performed with was Audioslave and one of the studios they recorded at was Rick Rubin's mansion in Laurel Canyon. Now Laurel Canyon just seems to be haunted like Hell, so it isn't surprising to hear that this place is said to be haunted. The reputation of this haunting had the drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chad Smith, so fearful that he would not stay overnight at the studio. The spirit is said to have been caught in photos taken for artwork for the group's Blood Sugar Sex Magik album. This was an orb with a face in it. The band Slipknot also experienced the ghost via several weird experiences. Drummer Joey Jordison claimed that he felt a spirit walk through him. Who could this spirit be? Before this was a recording studio, it was a wealthy family's mansion and the spoiled son of the owner as said to have pushed his lover from a balcony, killing her. This former mansion burned to the ground and then the current mansion was built. Many bands believe this studio has more than one ghost hanging around.

The former RCA Studios in Nashville are said to harbor the ghost of the King himself. Anytime someone would mention the name Elvis in the building, things would go haywire. Lights would act weird and strange noises would be heard. Some of those noises would be caught in the recordings and could only be heard during playback. Elvis recorded some of his hits here and that is why people think his spirit visits. But there have been lots of greats who recorded here that might want to return to a place of their creative greatness.

Music speaks to our very souls. It can bring back a tender memory or turn our calm countenance to anger. Music can push us to do that one more rep or inspire us to dance. Could there be something else within the strains of peculiar notes? Something disturbing? Something haunting? Are these curses real and could these locations be haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:

https://method-behind-the-music.com/history/history/

Matt Swayne's Books: Haunted Rock & Roll and Ghosts of Country Music