By Dan Sverdlin
After boarding my United flight to Milwaukee. I requested help from an attendant, “Would you please put my guitar in a the back closet at the rear of the fuselage?”
She copped an attitude,
“It will have to go down in baggage if it can’t fit under your seat.”
“The handlers toss loads around like they are pizza crust in a restorante window.”
“Sorry sir but the guitar must be secured below.”
“It has always gone in the closet before. Just lean it against the wall behind the coats.”
“I’m sorry sir.”
She was sorry: sorry the long-haired freak couldn’t be strapped down below with his Goddamned guitar. As my three pickup Harmony Rocket was hauled off I mumbled to Mister Nobody,
“I’m afraid my guitar will get damaged in the cargo bay.”
.
About the same time this happened my friend Uncle Bill Crawford got a 911 at his Ocean Front Walk apartment.
“Bill, help.”
“Where’s yas?”
“Oakland. Three bikers are holdin me prisoner.”
“Calls tha poleese.”
“I lied when I told you I’m 19.”
“You’s over 18 though?”
“Not for three more years. If I have to go back home, my step daddy’ll beat the tar outta me something terrible.”
Ten minutes later Bill was on a seven hour endurance run to Oakland.
I wanted to complain about the Flight Attendant discriminating against how I looked, but for all I knew it was company policy. A small crack on the guitar’s face had been there from the time it was purchased at a Hollywood hock shop. I chose to complain about that instead of her.
After the cardboard case came down the conveyor belt at Billy Mitchell Field Airport, I pulled the guitar out and made an ostentatious amount of noise over its condition. The following morning I filed a claim demanding compensation.
That Harmony had a natural distortion perfect for John Lee Hooker boogie grooves. The crack improved its funky flavor.
United apologetically forked up 300 dollars for damage they never caused, I got to keep the guitar as well.
On my return to California the same flight attendant greeted me.
“Let’s put your guitar in the closet this time.”
Her hand brushed against mine as she took hold of it.
While I’d bullshitted claims at United, Uncle Bill did sentry duty in Oakland. A “broomhandle” Mauser with eight exploding bullets in the chamber sat on the Caddie’s console. Its projectiles could destroy whatever they hit.
The 60-year-old Bluesman remained vigilant through the morning. Just past 11 three bikers opened their front door and began descending the first few of several steps leading down to the sidewalk. Bill’s “youngs White girrah” was flanked on both sides.
Sheltering himself behind his driver’s front fender he steadied the semiautomatic’s butt on the car, then yelled,
“Letis tha girrah goes.”
Bill’s N Carolina accent was handed down from Ugandan slaves. 60 percent of his words had improper plurals surrounded by abstract pronunciations and pickled syntax. While the outlaws deciphered his dialect, the girl yelled, “Uncle Bill came to save me!!”
A volley of bullets whizzed by the one-percenters close enough to part their hair. The burliest of the bunch expressed the groups conglomerate sentiments, “Take the bitch grandpa. We’re all done.”
After spending Thanksgiving thru the first week of January with my family, I returned to Venice. Uncle Bill caught me up on the Oakland caper. His pitch had risen an Octave and a half by the time he reached the final sentences:
“They was pinned down en not packin. I jus droves away with tha youngs White girrah.”
“Where’s the girl now?”
“I saves her life fum da Hells Angels en she done runs off oun me.”
(Bill used the gang’s name generically. Venice had three outlaw motorcycle clubs: The Straight Satans, Heathens, and Galloping Gooses. He called all of them Hells Angels :).
Uncle played a rare kind of country blues. Most weekdays he could be found furiously strumming up his magic on Ocean Front Walk. At that time the Venice OFW was desolate on weekdays in the winter. There were no buskers, we just played for the pleasure of making music.
“You knows Danny youngs people talks about sums Guru tellin ’em what’s up.”
“They teach about Karma mostly.”
“Ain’t no karma they iz jus tha Goldens Rule. I don’t do no preachin. Jus lives bys the rule.”
“I can honestly say that you’re a man who practices what he doesn’t preach.”
Uncle Bill Crawford was the only true hero I’ve ever known. He lent a helping hand to whoever needed one. If your car was broken he’d show up with his wrenches and refuse payment. If you were hungry he’d stake you to breakfast. If you needed a roof, he’d put you up for a few days.
During his army career Bill got assigned to a Presidential protection detail. He was issued special Identification proclaiming him tantamount to a royal guardsman. Some 23 years later local police were still honoring the credential as a professional courtesy:). As a result, Bill could spring friends from the local lockup quicker than a mousetrap in a candy factory.
“See here, tha mans you done locked up is workin ons a case. Lets him out o’ does I haveta gits tha DsOJs awn the phones?”
Not long after returning to town the guitar United Airlines had made me whole for was boosted by burglars. Around that same time Bill got tangled up in another extraction which, of course, involved “a youngs White girrah.”
There was no way to tell if this meant the same young White girl or a different one. Bill called every Caucasian woman under 30 without hair on their chest “a youngs White girrah,” (much as he called all bikers Hells Angels).
A girl named Nancy been staying with him. He alternately called her by race, gender and age or by his way of saying her name, which was “Nassy.”
One afternoon she asked to be dropped off at a house on 3rd Street downtown.”Nassy” called him four hours later and said she was planning to eat dinner down there and spend the night.
Two days passed and he heard nothing more. Instinct told him to go for a look-see. The place was a frat house for Gay women who never attended college. No one was about to make Uncle Bill a fraternal pledge but they were ready, willing and able to haze him.
“They tooks tha welcome mat aways when i shows up.”
Their club occupied the top level of a rundown three story mansion. When you reached their floor, the official entrance was at the end of a long dark corridor between the left and right walls. There were three doors on either side of the hall, all of which belonged to the club.
“Seez here Danny. Ah goes downtown looking for Nassy, sos I walks upstairs en sees a dar with lett’rin ons it.”
The front door read: The Lisbon Ladies Auxiliary, (They were alternately known as the Lesbians of L.A.). While Bill was squinting at their name plaque, an assailant clubbed him on his right shoulder. She had come out of one of the hallway doors behind him.
“I tries ta tern ‘roun’ but two big dykes comes outta tha front dar en starts ta hitting me on tha backs a ma head.”
Bill’s brawny build did nothing to dissuade the women who were swarming him from all directions.
The LLA’s entranceway was an architectural Venus Fly Trap masquerading as an ordinary passage leading to their clubhouse. Stranger’s walked in, but crawled out. Those who moved too slowly were tossed down the stairs or thrown out a window.
Nancy showed up and tried to end the ruckus, “He’s my friend. Stop it.”
One shouted back, “No men allowed!”
A small caliber gun went off temporarily freezing the action. Bill slapped the piece away from the shooter and tossed his car keys to Nancy.
“Goes ta tha glove box.”
She disappeared down the steps while four women were busy grabbing for the snub-nosed .38 on the floor. Bill still had two LLA’s (sometimes known as Ooh Lala’s) hanging on his back. They clawed his face like angry ocelots as a set of sharp teeth bit into his leg.
So many bodies were crammed into the area that it became difficult to tell where one ended and another began.
Nancy came running back. As she stepped over a kelp bed of tangled extremities the Mauser in her hands accidently triggered. An exploding bullet showered a storm of plaster down from the ceiling as the gun’s recoil knocked “tha youngs White girrah,” off her feet.
Some sweat hog fired the .38 as the two on Bill’s back leapt for safety. They bailed just in time to avoid a slug that grazed his cheek. Nancy tossed him his war relic. He caught it and in a seamless gesture blew the shooters left shin off. The combatant’s rushed to their fallen compatriot’s aid as Bill and “Nassy” slipped away.
Driving back to Venice Nancy tried to explain she’d been drugged against her will, but Bill waived that off mid sentence.
“I broughts Nassy a bus backs ta Texas. Them youngs White girrahs is da mo’ dangerous of da species.”
It took Uncle Bill months to recover:
One of his eyeballs was prosthetic. It had been ripped from the socket. A replacement could not be installed until his stitches seated themselves. Skin on his face began to fester where dirty nails and a bullet had excavated down to the hypodermis.
Being too proud to use a cane, Bill hobbled about with brutal bite marks dug into both legs. He looked decrepit but his music remained intact.
When I had first seen Uncle play, it was all by himself during a love-in. An auric glow framed him against the afternoon sky. He was the lowest volume performer of the day but received more undivided attention than Steve Miller’s Band.
While browsing bins at a local pawn shop one afternoon, I spied my guitar hanging up behind the counter. The owner was a broad, leather vested Jew named Max, I told him it was mine. He responded belligerently, so I went to the police station on Venice Blvd.
The Detectives Bureau filled the second floor. They had my initial report on file there. A pair of plain clothed cops drove over to Max’s while I waited at the station.
There was a blond-haired detective inside the bathroom who had packed his pecker back in too quickly after standing at the urinal. It left a splotchy wet area around the crotch of his brown suit pants.
I watched him sheepishly walk back to his office carrying an attache case in front of the stains. It occurred to me this guy might come in handy sometime, so I didn’t blow his cover. He tacitly shot a thank you in my direction.
Because the crack’s description matched my initial report, the two officers gave me a release slip when they returned. Max went ballistic after I showed it to him.
“That son of a bitch promised me the guitar was Kosher! I paid good money for it. You gotta at the least give that cash back.”
“No cash today. Who gave it to you?”
He refused to relinquish the guitar or reveal the culprit’s name. We went round and round so I called Detective Pee Pee Pants.
“I’d like to speak with a blond detective. He is around thirty and wearing a brown suit.”
They put him on and I said,
“My name is Dan. We shared the bathroom an hour ago. I’m wondering if you could help me out. The pawn shop on Windward is refusing to release my stolen guitar.”
After speaking with Lieutenant Pishenbritches Max begrudgingly gave back what was rightfully mine.
While walking home I had an epiphany; provoked or not, what I did to United was not cool. A second revelation told me that the guitar had been meant for Bill all along (even before I bought it or met him). I was merely a UPS driver there to cosmically conduit the instrument to where it belonged.
We ran into each other the next day and I said, “I’ve got something I need to show you at my pad.”
When Bill saw the Harmony it was like a man witnessing the birth of his first born. His good eye welled up with tears when I told him, “Congratulations, this is my version of The Nobel Prize for service beyond the call of duty.”
The GD59 Rocket became his trademark. I would not be surprised if he’d slept with it at night.
SIDEBAR: In 1975 Harmony went out of business but re-emerged in 2008. After seeing Green Day, Jack White and others gravitate towards the three-pickup wonder, they reissued a faithful version of Bill’s beloved 1959 Rocket, which is still available today.
The guitar I paid under fifty dollars for, is currently worth several thousand. When Bill passed away, it disappeared. If anyone reading this knows where it went, please share the information. I’d love to have it back.
Uncle Bill Crawford performing on a local cable show. Nobody did what he could do. His voice was uniquely high and crackly. Probably most of his education came in the Army.The accent that bewildered those who had never heard him speak before obscured his high level of intelligence.
Bill made no attempt to adopt a more mainstream method of communication. He enjoyed his dialect and without it the way he sang would have seemed like something was missing.
His “broomhandle” C96 Mauser. It had a long detachable handle (seen laying on the table). He picked up his “best friend,” as a WWII souvenir. A lot of stick-up artists and dangerous characters bit the dust from its exploding ordinance.
Bill was kind and mature in judgement. When not provoked, he had a heart that was as pure gold. His final year on Earth they cut him up many times at the VA. Our last time together he told me, “I’m ready for ma Lord ta comes en takes me.”
He’d walked the straight line and kept a clear conscious. That made Bill brave in life in and at peace as he left it.
Butch Mudbone here is handing Uncle Bill his Harmony Rocket GD59. Butch was a disciple of his. So were Janus Joplin, members of Canned Heat and many other notables whose lives he had touched.
This is a shot of Harmony’s GD59 reissue. The finish is deeper because instead of one coat of lacquered stain they applied three. In my opinion that could possibly have a negative impact on the sound.
They also fitted it with better tuning pegs, which is a plus.
The company unofficially came out of retirement in 2001.They produced a singular run of hundred GD59s before fully resurfacing seven years later.
I love those six white cupcake knobs along the contour. That switch under the pickguard allows all setting combinations of the Dearmond pickups (when used in conjunction with the volume knobs).
There are few guitars as perfectly suited for songs like Canned Heat’s, Goin’g to the Country.
