Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Ba r ry Sp u n t
HEROIN AND MUSIC IN NEW YORK CITY
Copyright © Barry Spunt, 2014.
Acknowledgments ix
One Introduction 1
Two Jazz 19
Three Rock 65
Four R&B 103
Five Folk Music 127
Six Latin and Caribbean Music 151
Seven Conclusion 173
Notes 181
Index 229
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Ac k now l e d gm e n t s
This book has evolved over a number of years, and there are many
people I want to thank for helping me in completing the project. I
have to start with a very special thanks to both Olga Teploukhova
and Danny Kessler from John Jay. From the beginning you were
always there for me with ideas and then more ideas. I want both of
you to know how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me.
Many other John Jay colleagues provided all types of support
and encouragement as I was working on the book, especially Dave
Brotherton, Jock Young, Jayne Mooney, Lou Kontos, Bob Garot,
Andrew Karmen, Marcia Esparza, Ric Curtis, Ernie Drucker,
Kathleen Collins, and Josh Eichenbaum. Thank you all!
I want to thank Geoffrey Verheul, Pierre-Yves Linot, Efram
Thompson, and, especially, Chris Farhood for providing me with
what I think could best be described as emotional sustenance as the
months turned into years.
I also want to thank the John Jay graduate and undergraduate stu-
dents who helped me compile and also interpret much of the data:
Leo Dominquez, Sarah B. Rivera, Cory Feldman, Rob Romanski,
Angela Gates, and Tiffany Graves. All of you really did a very solid
job. A special “thank you” to Jim Hodgson.
I sincerely appreciate the comments of Charles Winick, Marc
Schuilenburg, and an anonymous reviewer, who reacted to the ear-
lier drafts of the manuscript.
And to the folks at Palgrave–Lani Oshima, Jeff LaSala, Mara
Berkoff, and Burke Gerstenschlager—thank you so much for your
guidance and faith in my work.
Ch a p t e r O n e
I n t roduc t ion
Drugs and music both play key roles in social life and have long been
interconnected. Drug use by musicians is commonly chronicled in
the mass media. Numerous popular songs are about drugs or con-
tain references to drugs—all types of drugs. Over the years politi-
cians and others have denounced what they see as the glorification
of drugs by the music industry.
Heroin is the one drug that is traditionally considered to be at the
“top of the illegal drug ladder,”1 the drug that sociologist Jock Young
recently described as holding the “pinnacle position in the pyramid
of decadence.”2 While it is well known that many musicians who
play different types of music have been heroin abusers, the nature
of the connection between heroin and music is not well understood
at all. That’s what this book is about. I use narrative accounts from
a sample of 69 New York City–based musicians from a variety of
popular music genres—all of whom were self-acknowledged heroin
abusers—to address these three main issues:
New York City is an ideal locale for a study of heroin and music.
It has been the heroin capital of the United States ever since the drug
was first manufactured and distributed (around 1900).3 Since that
time, there has always been a lot of heroin in New York—and there
2 / heroin and music in new york city
still is. The drug has long been the basis of an underworld subcul-
ture in New York, has had a major impact on crime in the city, and
has been a major public health concern, especially in recent years
due to injection-related HIV/AIDS.4
New York has also always been the center of the American music
industry. It has a huge, multifaceted music scene. In terms of record-
ing and performing opportunities, New York has always been the
place for musicians. Countless musicians from every music genre
have moved to New York to pursue a music career, and the allure of
New York remains powerful. All the big names in music—the top
national and international acts—play in New York City. Bandleader
Count Basie once recalled that whenever he played in New York,
“every morning when you woke up and realized that you were in
New York City, you felt a big thrill just from being there.”5
* * *
This chapter begins with a short history of heroin in New York City,
focusing on the users and dealers, and also a brief history of music in
New York, starting from about 1900, when heroin first came onto
the scene. The music history focuses on five major types of popular
music: jazz, rock, rhythm and blues (R&B), American folk music,
and Latin and Caribbean music. Following these histories, I review
what social science research has told us about the New York musi-
cian/heroin abuser. Then I present my theoretical argument and dis-
cuss the methodological approach I take in this study.
Long before heroin was first produced, New York had opiate
users. Morphine was a painkiller in common use by the medical
profession in the United States since the 1860s. Opium has been
known in the Western world since the Middle Ages and was a com-
monplace drug in the United States in the nineteenth century.
Americans learned about opium from Chinese workers brought in
to build railroads. The Chinese came to New York in the late 1850s,
and over time, opium smoking became a feature of life in the city; by
the 1890s, opium dens could be found not only in Chinatown but
also in the Tenderloin, a red-light district in Manhattan.9 Opium
smoking became popular mainly among entertainers, prostitutes,
and gangsters.
Before heroin, the typical opiate user was a middle-aged, middle-
class, white woman who had become habituated to opiates through
self-medication, as a result of the widespread medical custom of
prescribing opiates for menstrual and menopausal discomforts.10
Even without a prescription, opiates were easy to obtain. There were
countless patent medicines on the market containing opium or mor-
phine; opiates could be ordered by mail or picked up at pharmacies
and at grocery or general stores.11
In the late 1890s, Bayer Pharmaceutical Products, a German
company, introduced heroin and began marketing it heavily for
the treatment of a variety of respiratory ailments and as a cough
medicine.12 It was hailed as a wonder drug by much of the medi-
cal profession, not only for its very real therapeutic advantages over
other drugs in dealing with bronchial and pulmonary problems but
also—in the days before much was known about addiction—as the
long-sought nonaddicting substitute for morphine.13
Street (nonmedical) use of heroin took hold in New York dur-
ing or just before 1910.14 White opium users began switching to
heroin, and the drug gradually became the drug of choice for the
city’s recreational opiate users. As heroin came to be recognized as
yet another addictive form of opium, Congress passed the Harrison
Narcotic Act in 1914, preventing the sale of opiates for nonmedical
use and officially making heroin illegal nationwide. People who had
legal sources for heroin found that these sources were now closed
and they were forced underground to get what they needed. A
national black market centered in New York began to develop. The
4 / heroin and music in new york city
first major heroin dealers in the city were Jewish gangsters who had
been involved in bootlegging and saw the profit-making potential
of heroin; in the late 1920s, Italian dealers replaced these Jewish
entrepreneurs.15
By World War II, New York City’s heroin users were typically
working-class white males, many of whom were denizens of the
city’s underworld—hustlers, gamblers, and pimps.16 During the war
years it became difficult for traffickers to get heroin into the United
States; the limited amount that could be found was heavily “cut”
(adulterated). Addicts often had to go to pharmacies to stock up on,
boil down, and then inject paregoric—a tincture of opium, which
was a commonly used household remedy from the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.17
Things changed considerably after the war. New York crime fam-
ilies began importing heroin into the country again, and the city
became the center of the east coast heroin trade and perhaps the
largest heroin market in the world.18 In 1951, national publications
decried the heroin situation in New York with stories such as “New
York Wakes Up to Find 15,000 Teenage Dope Addicts” (Newsweek)
and “The Junkies: New York’s Traffic in Drugs” (Time).19 It was
during this time that the French Connection system—whereby
New York crime families established links with Corsican gangsters
in Marseilles to smuggle Turkish opium and manufacture heroin—
began to evolve.
In the 1960s, heroin use surged in the city, especially among poor
young African American and Puerto Rican men, who were trapped
in the city’s ghettos where heroin trafficking had become well estab-
lished and who were seeking escape from the realities of poverty
and despair.20 White teenage gang members were also among the
new users during this period.21 At this time, New York crime fami-
lies were “officially” withdrawing from retail heroin distribution,
enabling new entrepreneurs from inner-city neighborhoods to com-
pete for customers. By the mid-1960s, Harlem had become the cen-
ter of the city’s heroin trade.22
During the 1970s, heroin-related street crime was of huge con-
cern in New York. In the city’s two largest marketplaces—Harlem
and the Lower East Side—heroin was sold in an open fashion, which
shocked public officials.23 New users included many returning
introduction / 5
Jazz
During the first two decades of the 1900s, jazz, which was born in
and around New Orleans in the late 1800s, began to spread to New
6 / heroin and music in new york city
York and became increasingly popular. The very first jazz record was
made in Manhattan in 1917.34 The “stride” jazz piano style devel-
oped mainly in New York in the 1920s. In the late 1920s, the Cotton
Club was a major hot spot in Harlem, featuring top black orchestras
like those led by Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway (but because of
segregation refusing entrance to black patrons).35 By 1930, the city
was the principal location of jazz recordings and also the center of
jazz journalism.
In the mid-1930s, New York was starting to become the jazz capi-
tal of the world. Big band swing, which centered around a dancing
style that emerged from Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, brought jazz to
the mainstream of popular music; in 1938, Benny Goodman played
the first jazz concert at Carnegie Hall, the city’s “citadel of musical
respectability.”36
In the early to mid-1940s, jazz went from big band swing to
smaller combo bebop, which first emerged in New York, particu-
larly at after-hours clubs in Harlem such as Minton’s Playhouse and
Monroe’s Uptown House, where young beboppers came to jam and
experiment. Jazz then moved downtown in Manhattan to 52nd
Street between 5th and 6th Avenues—probably the most celebrated
block of jazz clubs, bars, and bistros of all time.
Through the late 1950s and the 1960s, New York was the world’s
major showcase for jazz, and the music thrived.37 After 1960, jazz
became very diverse, eclectic, and difficult to categorize, but it nev-
ertheless maintained a strong presence in New York. Free or experi-
mental jazz flourished, especially in the downtown Manhattan jazz
loft scene of the 1970s; noncommercial concert areas such as Studio
Rivbea were created in loft spaces to provide places to accommodate
the young jazz musicians who were moving to the city at a time when
many nightclubs were going out of business. The University of the
Streets, founded in 1969 as a venue for visiting artists, hosted (and
still hosts) jazz jam sessions.38 In the 1980s, a downtown jazz scene
associated with venues like the Knitting Factory began to develop, as
did the so-called neoclassical movement—traditional back-to-basics
New Orleans jazz—led by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.39
New York remains the world capital of jazz. There are dozens of
places to hear jazz—all kinds of jazz—ranging from larger venues
such as Jazz at Lincoln Center to small clubs. The city routinely
introduction / 7
Rock
Rock music in New York goes back to the birth of rock ’n’ roll.
In the mid-1950s, Alan Freed put on legendary rock ’n’ roll shows
at Brooklyn’s Paramount and Fox theaters—playing a crucial role
in popularizing this new music genre. In the late 1950s and into
the late 1960s, the Brill Building—actually a length of Broadway
named after one particular building in the stretch that had been the
center of Tin Pan Alley—became the place where young lyricists
and composers, some of whom were also performers, made hundreds
of hit rock records.40
In the city in the 1960s and 1970s, first proto-punk and then
punk happened, in small local venues like CBGB on Manhattan’s
Lower East Side.41 In the middle to late 1970s, alongside punk, New
Wave and No Wave first emerged. In the early 1980s, punk devel-
oped into hardcore; like punk, the New York hardcore scene cen-
tered around clubs on the Lower East Side.42 Also in the 1980s, New
York became (and remains) a major center for alternative or indie
rock; by the early 2000s, Brooklyn in particular had become a hub
for this music scene.43
Today, rock music—all forms of rock—is played in New York City.
Most of the city’s vintage rock venues don’t exist anymore; CBGB,
for example, officially closed in 2006. But there are literally hundreds
of places—ranging from large venues like Madison Square Garden to
small clubs holding 50 people—to hear rock in New York.
R&B
In New York City, music made by and aimed at African Americans
has a rich and varied past. An early form was blues music, a musical
source for much of black popular music. It was in New York in the
1920s that the first blues records were made, and blues performers like
Bessie Smith came to play in the city’s black vaudeville theaters and
in the clubs, restaurants, and cafes that emerged alongside them.44
In the Harlem Renaissance years of the 1920s and 1930s, the
Apollo Theater on 125th Street became the city’s apex of black
8 / heroin and music in new york city
popular music. By the early 1940s, this music had come to be called
“race music.” In the mid-1940s, New York music journalist and
soon-to-be record industry giant Jerry Wexler coined the catch-all
term “rhythm and blues” (R&B) to describe a broad range of differ-
ent but related black popular music styles.45
One vocal-based R&B style that developed after World War II
was doo-wop. New York City had dozens of doo-wop groups sing-
ing on street corners in African American neighborhoods in the
late 1940s through the 1950s.46 Soul music was a dominant force
in music by the 1960s; soul had many hub cities and New York was
definitely one of them. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, soul
was largely superseded by new urban styles such as funk, which had
a strong presence in the New York area. Disco extended and contin-
ued the soul tradition and had its world capital in New York in the
1970s. Electronic Dance Music—a descendant of disco with roots
in New York clubs popular among gay African American and Latino
men—was wildly popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s in New
York’s “underground community.”47
And, of course, New York was the birthplace of rap, which first
emerged in the Bronx in the early 1970s. The first hit rap songs—
1979’s “Rapper’s Delight” (the Sugarhill Gang) and 1982’s “The
Message” (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five)—were both
New York products. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was rappers from
Queens that helped take rap from an underground music to a main-
stream phenomenon.
New York remains a major base for R&B music styles. Doo-wop
over the years has had revivals and resurgences in popularity and can
still be heard today on New York radio and also sometimes when
you ride the city’s subways. New York–based soul/funk bands and
multi-night festivals are part of the city’s R&B landscape. As dance
music has become a dominant trend in American popular music, the
city scene is very active, with rave parties, commercial club events,
and dance music festivals in abundance. And New York is still the
major east coast center of rap.
Folk
The modern American folk movement dates to union activities of
the 1930s, when folk music became increasingly commercial and
introduction / 9
The tango, the rumba, Latin Jazz, and the mambo have all been
popular Latin genres in New York. Salsa dominated the city’s Latin
dance scene throughout the 1970s—salsa’s golden age. There were
hundreds of clubs that catered to audiences that wanted to hear this
music. The 1970s was also when Dominican merengue and Jamaican
reggae began to move into the city’s music mainstream.56 In the
1990s, bachata arrived with newer immigrants from the Dominican
Republic.
Today Latin music maintains a strong presence in the city. Spanish-
language radio stations are easy to find, and there are any number of
clubs where people can go to listen and dance to Latin music. Salsa,
merengue, and bachata remain popular among New York Latinos.
Various styles of Mexican music can be easily heard. The city is a
center for Latin Alternative—newer Latin music created by younger
musicians influenced by rock, rap, and dance music. Reggae and
reggaeton—a Latin urban music drawing on reggae, rap, and other
Caribbean styles—are favorites on New York radio, and stars from
both genres regularly perform in the city.
* * *
* * *
* * *
introduction / 13
Thus, little is actually known about New York musicians who abuse
heroin. Only one researcher—Charles Winick—has studied the her-
oin–music connection, but his research focused just on jazz, and he
did his work well over 50 years ago. No one has studied heroin and
music since Winick. In a real sense, the heroin–music connection
is uncharted territory. It is basic knowledge that we just don’t have.
This book addresses three of these issues: the reasons why musicians
use heroin; why heroin use is more common in some music genres
than in others; and the effects that heroin has on musicians’ playing,
creativity, and careers.
* * *
The idea that certain subcultures have values and attitudes that are
conducive to behaviors such as drug use and crime has a long tradition
in sociological thinking, beginning with the research of the University
of Chicago sociologists studying gang behaviors during the 1920s and
1930s.68 This notion was extended in the work of scholars such as
Albert Cohen, who linked delinquent subcultures with the “non-utili-
tarian, malicious, and negativistic” behaviors of juvenile delinquents,69
and David Matza and Gresham Sykes, who wrote about how certain
subcultural groups accentuate “subterranean values”—the search for
excitement and “kicks”—and disdain the workaday norms of formal
society.70 In the early 1960s, in Outsiders, Howard Becker explained
how marijuana users formed a subculture with developed rituals, slang,
and ways of behaving.71 About 10 years later, Jock Young argued that
drug taking must be explained in terms of the particular subcultures
to which specific drug-using groups belong.72
British social scientists from the Birmingham Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies studying working-class youth sub-
cultures that arose in England during the 1960s and 1970s not only
showed how the social context of subculture influences behavior,
but also showed how music can be a factor in the creation of subcul-
tures. In their view, youth form subcultures from shared interests,
including shared interests in specific types of music and clothing.
Subcultures, in other words, are expressed in the creation of styles.
British punk was seen as one type of youth subculture that was a
stylistic form of resistance against the social order.73
Subcultural theorists recognize that subcultures are a source of
identity. While “identity” has always been an ambiguous and complex
idea, with no clear definition,74 subculture theorists commonly view
identities as embedded in interpersonal relationships and shifting in
the context of these relationships, rather than as fixed and rigid.75
Alfred Lindesmith was the first sociologist to incorporate the con-
cept of identity into a major theory of heroin addiction. In the late
1960s, Lindesmith argued that addiction is established in a learning
process extending over a period of time. In his view, the universal
feature and source of addiction is a cognitive element—the recog-
nition that the distress of withdrawal is caused by the absence of
heroin and can be dispelled by another dose of it. As a direct result of
the recognition of the source of distress, the addict identity is formed
as one begins to think and speak of oneself as an addict.76
introduction / 15
* * *
History shows that many very creative people have used, and abused,
various types of drugs, including opiates, and that drugs have helped
in the creative process. For example, during the Romantic Age of the
early to mid-1800s, many artists, writers, and composers drew artis-
tic inspiration from opium.79 Actual research on the link between
drugs and creativity and artistic performance has focused primar-
ily on psychedelics such as LSD, starting with psychiatrists ask-
ing artists to illustrate their hallucinations.80 A basic finding from
this research is that psychedelics can improve both creativity and
performance.81
Journalist Michael Largo created biographical sketches of a wide
range of artists, including musicians, who had problems with vari-
ous types of drugs, including heroin. Largo concluded that, of the
500 artists examined in his book,
16 / heroin and music in new york city
As for the effects that heroin had on the performance and cre-
ativity of the New York–based musicians who form the sample for
this book, Winick’s study of jazz musicians from the 1950s plus the
anecdotal evidence noted just above suggest that there may be some
beneficial effects of heroin, but that, overall, the impacts are likely
to be adverse for musician-users from all the music genres and sub-
genres under consideration here. Similarly, while there may be some
positives to using heroin in terms of how successful some musicians’
overall careers were, it’s more likely that the adverse effects of heroin
will outweigh any potential positive effects.
* * *
To create the sample for the book, I started with a small group of
well-known New York musicians from various genres who were her-
oin abusers, and over time the sample snowballed from there. The 69
individuals who comprise the sample all met three criteria: they were
based in New York City;83 they were musicians;84 and they were self-
acknowledged heroin abusers at some point in their careers.85
A majority of the individuals who met the sample criteria are
either rock (30 or 43%) or jazz (19 or 28%) musicians, but the sam-
ple includes musicians from other major popular music genres; most
were (or are) major stars, but others had limited mainstream success
and some were virtually unknown to the general public. These 69
individuals are distributed within music genres as follows:
Rock 30 43%
Jazz 19 28%
Folk 9 13%
R&B 6 9%
Latin/Caribbean 5 7%
introduction / 17
The data for the book are taken from retrospective first-person
accounts—direct quotes and personal stories—from the individuals
in the sample. These accounts consist of these musicians’ percep-
tions of their use of heroin and how heroin has affected their music.
The data capture how these musicians experience their subculture
and what the lived reality of being a heroin-using musician is actu-
ally like.
To obtain these data, I mined publications by academics (sociolo-
gists, criminologists, musicologists, historians, and popular culture
scholars) and by music journalists and critics; musician autobiogra-
phies, biographies, memoirs, and interviews; and also a variety of
drug and music websites, blogs, on-line libraries and archives, music
magazines and fanzines, and newspapers.86
While developing the sample, I identified a number of other
New York–based musicians (n=30) who were users. It was not clear,
however, if these individuals had ever used regularly, or they were
acknowledged as heroin abusers by people who were in a position
to know about their lives and careers (fellow musicians, journalists,
friends) but who themselves apparently never talked about their
use—at least not publicly or for the record. These individuals may
have been intensely private people, or just reluctant interviewees;
heroin use is not something everybody would be willing to admit
to or want to talk about. In the language of Erving Goffman, these
individuals may be “covering,” that is, downplaying a disfavored
trait, in an effort to “keep the stigma from looming large.”87 These
30 musicians, while not part of the main sample for this study, are
included as part of the story of heroin and music in New York.88
The plan for the book is to study five major types of popular music:
in chapter two, the focus is on jazz; chapter three, rock; chapter four,
R&B; chapter five, folk; and chapter six, Latin and Caribbean. In
each chapter I examine what New York musician-users have said
about why they first used and continued to use heroin and how
heroin has affected their playing, creativity, and careers. I explore
the subcultural context of music genres and subgenres, particularly
the extent to which these subcultures contain values and attitudes
that support and encourage heroin use and members organize their
identity around heroin and music. I also scrutinize songs by New
York users (and nonusers) in which heroin is the central subject or in
18 / heroin and music in new york city
In the previous chapter, we saw that jazz first spread to New York
City in the early 1900s and became increasingly popular. In the
1920s, Harlem developed a dynamic jazz scene and by the early to
mid-1940s, New York City was the jazz capital of the world. Since
the 1960s, jazz has maintained a strong presence in the city. Today,
New York City is still a world capital of jazz.
In this chapter I examine the relationship between heroin and
jazz. Based on the narrative accounts of 19 New York–based jazz
musicians,1 who were self-acknowledged heroin abusers, I focus on
why these musicians used heroin; the effects heroin had on their
playing, creativity, and careers; and why heroin use was more com-
mon in some jazz subgenres than in others. Three historical jazz eras
are assessed:
and that it relaxed him while also keeping him clear headed.”10 It
“makes me feel good as gracious.”11
It relaxes you, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a
Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you’re with another tea
smoker it makes you feel a special kinship.12
There are still numberless Americans who equate music with mari-
juana, who feel that every jazzman is automatically a reefer smoker.
This kind of publicity has been very harmful to us musicians. It has
deprived us of many opportunities for good bookings.15
Now, some of the guys in the band, six or seven of them, smoked
tea every day of their lives. Some of them would smoke it like other
people smoke cigarettes and you never knew it. They could play bet-
ter high than straight. Cab used to tell them, “I don’t have anything
22 / heroin and music in new york city
against anybody smoking tea, but if you intend to bring it into the
theater, that will be your job.”17
* * *
In the 1930s, jazz evolved into big band swing, which was brought
to national prominence by clarinetist Benny Goodman, particularly
after his famous concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938. While many
of the musicians in his bands no doubt smoked marijuana, as did
two other prominent swing band leaders—Artie Shaw and Harry
James18 —Goodman was not a fan of the drug. According to Lionel
Hampton, the jazz vibraphonist, Goodman did not “fool around like
most jazz artists . . . No boozing or dope for Benny.”19 Such habits
may go for fellows in a little gin mill or hole in the wall, but it simply
doesn’t go for the musicians in the big band, if for no other reason
than they couldn’t hit the stuff and still keep in shape to play seven
hours a night, or do five shows in a day in a theatre.20
I don’t think I was exactly a failure, but on the other hand, I think I
could have been a lot more successful in the field.24
* * *
jazz / 23
Armstrong called heroin “the drastic stuff,” and he thought that peo-
ple who used it “were dirty-grimy all the time. Show most addicts
a bucket of water and they’ll run like hell to keep it from touching
them.”30
Cab Calloway believed that heroin was “a menace,”
* * *
But during the early years of jazz, heroin had a sustained underworld
following, which means it was available to jazz musicians, especially
in places like New York City, where many of the clubs they played in
were run by gangsters who were involved in the heroin trade.37 And
indeed there were some New York City–based jazz musicians who
used heroin. One was Sonny Berman, a trumpeter who played swing
in a number of big bands, who died from a heroin overdose in 1947,
when he was in his early twenties.38 According to the bandleader
Woody Herman:
Sonny was a happy young man . . . His potential was enormous, and
he might have fulfilled it if his heroin habit hadn’t cut him down.39
Getz didn’t feel very good about the fact that he used. Years after
he had quit, he had this to say:
I realize what I have done has hurt jazz music in general. To say I’m
sorry is not nearly enough. I can’t blame what I’ve done on the pres-
sures of creative music in the country . . . it’s pure and simple degen-
eracy of the mind, a lack of morals and personality shortcomings I
have . . . the really good musicians are too smart to mess with it, and
don’t need it anyway.43
* * *
He [her husband Simmons] kept all the drugs and gave them to
Billie whenever he felt like it; this was his way of keeping her in line.
John was one of those sick hustling street cats from Harlem who’d do
anything for money. . . . “Miles,” Billie had said, “that motherfucker
26 / heroin and music in new york city
John done run off with all my money. So you can loan me some to
get a fix? I need it real bad.” So I gave her what I had because she was
looking real bad by this time, worn out, worn down, and haggard
around the face and all. Thin. Mouth sagging at both corners. She
was scratching a lot.50
I wasn’t only in awe of her singing. I was in awe of her habit. She
didn’t cook up with a spoon. Man, she used a small tuna fish
can and shot 10 cc into her feet. Later, I understand she ran out
of veins all over her body. So she used those on each side of her
vagina. One sure thing, no narc was going to bust her for fresh
tracks.52
she would just sit quietly in a tub of the hottest water she could draw
and sit and sit, even if it took her all day and all night and all next
day. She’d say “I’m not getting out of this fucking tub until some-
body brings me some dope!”53
As for the impact that heroin had on her singing, record pro-
ducer John Hammond, who discovered Holiday and produced her
first record, thought that “by the mid-fifties [her] voice had been
ravaged by years of abuse, although her heart and her impeccable
musicianship were still in working order.”56 Holiday herself thought
that
Holiday was arrested more than once. One time, after being
arrested for possession, “she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent
to a hospital to take ‘the cure,’ but the judge noted that she was a
well-to-do entertainer and sentenced her to a year in jail.”59 Because
of her drug convictions, Holiday lost her New York City “cabaret
card,” which was needed to appear in a club that served alcohol. For
Holiday, this essentially meant that she couldn’t work in any of the
clubs in which she previously had headlined.60
Through it all, Holiday preached against using heroin. According
to one of her piano accompanists, Carl Drinkard:
Lady was the first to say that no one else should use stuff. She was
very emphatic about this; she could not endorse the use of heroin,
except by herself. She told the world she could not stand a dope
fiend; she took the attitude that “I’m the only one strong enough to
use stuff and everyone else is a low-life.” She would say, “Now look,
Carl, now don’t you use no shit. Don’t you go near it. Don’t you end
up like me.”61
Many jazz musicians from the early jazz era didn’t particularly
like this new music. Louis Armstrong had “little but disdain”66 for
bebop and thought that “their music was uncompromising in a way
that he saw as threatening to the public’s acceptance of jazz.”67 Cab
Calloway famously put down bebop by remarking that he thought
that bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie played “Chinese music.”68
Benny Goodman had, at best, very mixed feelings about bebop.
In 1949, he said: “The bop musicians I’ve known have been fine
musicians. They can read anything.”69 But, by 1953, his opinion
had changed:
Maybe bop has done more to set music back for years than anything.
Basically, it’s all wrong. It’s not even knowing the scales. The results
have got to be bad. What you hear in bop is a lot of noise—the
wrong kind of noise. They can’t play their horns . . . And they can’t
take direction.70
In this view, when bebop first came on the scene, it was gener-
ally met with a certain measure of hostility by music audiences. As
a consequence, many beboppers reacted by taking a drug that was
seen as very alternative and subversive—that is, heroin. Heroin usu-
ally helped to make the user feel “cool and detached” and simultane-
ously produce a form of music that was viewed in the same way.90
It certainly was not difficult for beboppers to find heroin. Shortly
after the war ended, use of the drug exploded among young men of
color trapped in city ghettos.91 Musicians particularly tended to be
surrounded by dealers and people who had easy access to the drug—
the neighborhood hustlers, gamblers, and pimps.92
According to the pianist Billy Taylor, heroin permeated the New
York City entertainment districts where beboppers played.93
One thing that may have made narcotics traffic easier in New York
then was that everyone was concentrated in one area. In the mid-
40s, it was 52nd Street with eight or ten clubs in two blocks, at least
two quartets in each club or trios or five piece groups and sometimes
three units in each club. It became easier for guys pushing chicks or
dope or whatever to find their easy marks.94
Heroin was also easy to get when musicians were touring. Out-
of-town connections in the drug world could be counted on to show
up. One bebop pianist put it this way:
Wherever [we] went, the pushers would be with us. The grapevine,
as far as drugs is concerned, is very quick, very swift; and as soon as
[we] hit town, someone would contact [us].95
* * *
I woke up one morning very soon after that, feeling terribly sick and
not knowing why. The panic was on.109
Everybody loved Bird and would put up with his bullshit. He was
the greatest saxophone player who ever lived . . . but he was also one
of the slimiest and greediest motherfuckers who ever lived in this
world, at least that I ever met. He was something.113
Parker once told a friend, while rolling up his sleeve and show-
ing his arm: “This is my home, this is my portfolio, this is my
Cadillac.”114 He told another friend:
I know it’s gonna out me one of these days, but man, I’m not a bad
cat, this is just my life and I can’t do without it.115
Parker had a host of physical ailments and died young, at age 34.
Shortly before he died, King Pleasure, a New York–based jazz vocal-
ist, had put words to a 1948 Parker composition, “Parker’s Mood.”
The lyrics foreshadow Parker’s death:
* * *
Like Billie Holiday, Parker did not advocate for heroin use. He
warned friends: “Do as I say, not as I do.”117 Despite this, a number of
New York City–based beboppers did, in fact, become users because
they wanted to be like Parker. One was trumpeter Red Rodney.
Rodney was originally from Philadelphia, and relocated to New
York City when he was well into his career. As for how he first got
into using heroin:
I heard Charlie Parker and that was it. That’s what I wanted to do
with the rest of my life.118
jazz / 33
When you’re very young and immature and you have a hero like
Charlie Parker was to me, an idol who proves himself every time,
who proves greatness and genius . . . that’s a hard word to throw
around. But you can’t say less. When I listened to that genius night
after night, being young and immature and not an educated person,
I must have thought, “If I crossed over that line, with drugs, could
I play like that?”119
Rodney has also spoken of how his first use involved a need to
connect with others: “You want a sense of belonging. You want to be
like the others. And so I tried it.”120 For Rodney, heroin was also a
source of identification:
Heroin was our badge. It was the thing that made us different from
the rest of the world. It was the thing that said “We know. You don’t
know.” It was the thing that gave us membership in a unique club,
and for this membership we gave up everything else in the world.
Every ambition. Every desire. Everything.121
When Bird found out that I was strung out, he was furious. . . . He
was disappointed in me. He was very sad, very angry. But he was
smart enough to know that once you’re involved, there wasn’t any-
thing he could say. So we shared. Now we were on the road together
and we shared all the time. He was great even that way. He was a
genuinely nice man. He was disappointed that I had gone out and
messed up, but once it was done, it was done.122
Not that all this is their fault, I’m not saying that. But they were doing
it, and Lady was an established idol, and Bird was the other coming
idol at that time. And, of course, most of the cats then were pretty
young, very young in fact, so they didn’t have the experience.124
We were the revolutionaries. We did what was new and hip with
no forethought of consequences. Heroin just became part of the
scene.125
it got to the stage where I told myself it just couldn’t go on. I was
spending up to $200 a day on smack [heroin], my kids were getting
their father’s addiction flung in their faces. So I fought it and went
clean.128
I was getting phone calls every day from pushers, and they were
approaching me in the street. “Aw, come on, Dexter, let’s swing . . . ”
I had to tell them over and over again that I was determined to kick
it.129
Like many heroin-using jazz musicians, Rollins used only for a few
years when he was young.
We started off with pot and then got involved with the heavier drugs.
We greatly admired Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday, and maybe to
some extent that affected us.131
Yet Rollins definitely saw heroin use as part of the bopper’s radi-
cal social stance:
Earlier in his career, Rollins believed that heroin changed his life
for the better:
When I was in New York and using drugs and playing my horn and
beginning to get recognized as a young, up and coming player, I was
really in a happy situation. I mean, before I got to the point where I
had to steal and stuff to support my habit. I recall telling somebody
that I would never stop using drugs because it felt good and it put
me in the place I wanted to be, mentally and physically. I remember
really being an advocate of drugs at one time.133
* * *
outside, but I can’t say that I really knew what was involved in it
[heroin] when I started using it. I just thought it was something else
that adults didn’t want high school kids to do. . . . It was just another
way of getting high, like drinking or smoking pot.134
in the Forties, times were harder than they are now. It was right
after the war, and the situation all over the country was pretty bad.
Everyone had trouble, and heroin made you forget your troubles. It
doesn’t make your life too realistic, but it relaxes you and tends to
takes things off your mind, troubles, you know. It doesn’t give you
hallucinations and make you think the world is a bowl of cherries,
but it does take your mind off your troubles.135
Drummer Art Blakey for many years led the Jazz Messengers, the
New York City–based ensemble, which was a training ground for top
young musicians. The main reason Blakey started to use heroin was:
because I liked it. There isn’t any other reason. It makes you feel
good. . . . Nobody ever found out about it, because I had a lot of
money. Money can cover up almost everything. Today I meet young
musicians who say to me, “It’s all right, Mr. Blakey, I’ll stop when I
want to” and I say to them, “you’ll stop when you have the guts or
when they bury you.” Even today, it’s a fight for me. It’s something
your body gets used to and you miss it. Look at it this way—if they
put me in a jail for a year and let me loose in a room full of naked
women, I’d have a hard time walking out of that room.136
At one time, drug use was the easy way out. I did it because I wanted
to have the experience. I thought I was strong enough to do anything
I wanted to, but I was lucky. I’m telling you, magilla is something
else! We call it “magilla gorilla.”137
of this. Snort some of this; you’ll feel better.” That was my first
introduction to snorting heroin.139
* * *
One of the young beboppers who idolized Charlie Parker was trum-
peter Miles Davis, who went on to become jazz’s first modern super-
star. Davis was a user in the early 1950s—what he called “a four-year
horror show”:140
I found myself for the first time out of control and sinking faster
than a motherfucker toward death.141
The first time I used heroin, I just nodded out and didn’t know what
was happening. Man, that was a weird feeling. But I felt so relaxed.142
I guess I might have been just waiting for his [Parker’s] genius to hit
me . . . [but] I wasn’t never into that trip that if you shot heroin you
might be able to play like Bird. I knew a lot of musicians who were
into that. That ain’t what got me into heroin. What got me strung
out was the depression I felt when I got back to America [after a
short stay in Paris]. That and missing Juliette [a woman he had had
a romance with there].144
really kicked [the] habit because of the example of Sugar Ray Robinson;
I figured if he could be as disciplined as he was, then I could do it,
too . . . I decided that was the way I was going to be, serious about tak-
ing care of my business and disciplined. I decided that it was time for
me to go back to New York to start all over again. Sugar Ray was the
hero-image that I carried in my mind. It was him that made me think
that I was strong enough to deal with New York City again.149
* * *
In 1944, when Davis had first arrived in New York City, one of
the places he checked out was Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem. One
bebopper who was part of that scene was the pianist Bud Powell.
Powell was born and raised in New York City, and as a teenager
in the early 1940s took part in the informal jam sessions at Minton’s.
In 1945, at another club, Powell got into an incident with a bouncer,
who smashed Powell in the head with a gun.150 After that
Bud started shooting heroin like it was going out of style, and he
was the last person who should have been shooting heroin because
it made him crazy.151
Powell was in and out of mental institutions over the next ten
years and received shock treatments, which, according to many,
impaired his musical effectiveness.152 He lived in Paris during the
last years of his life and apparently didn’t use heroin during those
years (although he continued to drink).153,154
* * *
jazz / 39
Clearly, then, there were various reasons why beboppers used heroin
for the first time. For some, but certainly not universally, first use
was about emulating Charlie Parker: If you shot dope, maybe you’d
be able to play as well as he did. For others, use was not so much
about Parker specifically but rather about a desire to connect with
and be like other hipsters, about a sense of belonging, as a way to
show brotherhood, as part of a social stance.
In either case, use by beboppers was clearly about subculture and
identity. In bebop subculture, heroin use was not only approved and
supported but it was also encouraged. Bebop identity was organized
around heroin use. To be seen and to see oneself as a “musician-user”
was, for these individuals, a very attractive and desired self-image to
have. Thus, heroin not only helped identify an entire subcultural
movement, but it was also part and parcel of musician identity in
New York.
And since beboppers who used heroin were constantly sur-
rounded by other users—some of whom were musicians, while some
not—this identity and lifestyle was easily developed and maintained
through social interaction with these fellow users. As the pianist and
journalist Leonard Feather puts it:
For the addict, the presence of a fellow user not only brings a mental
communion but ensures the presence at all times of a ready supply
of dope.155
At the same time, for some beboppers, first use seems to have
had little or nothing to do with Parker or the musician-user identity.
Some got into heroin for the same basic reasons that other people—
nonmusicians—start using: It helped you escape from your prob-
lems, it made you feel euphoric, and it helped alleviate various types
of stress—both the kinds of stresses any young person might be sus-
ceptible to, and also those stresses particular to being a young musi-
cian, for example, stage fright.
* * *
How did heroin affect the playing, creativity, and careers of bebop-
pers who used it? Charlie Parker believed that when he was playing,
heroin helped to quell or block out any “internal noise” so that he
40 / heroin and music in new york city
could concentrate better. “You do not play better with heroin but
you do hear better.”156
Red Rodney agreed that heroin helped the “internal noise” drop
away:
When a guy is loaded and at peace, he . . . could tune out the honking
of the world. And, “Hey man, I just figured this out,” and we’d try
it that night, and it was great.157
Rodney also agreed with Parker that, even though heroin helps
with concentration, the drug doesn’t actually improve your playing:
No. First of all, you have to be healthy to play well. And you’re not
very healthy using drugs. Nothing is working. Your cells are dead-
ened. It’s the greatest cure for the common cold there is. I didn’t have
a cold for twenty years. That’s about all I can say for it.158
can arouse you; it makes you concentrate very well. . . . There’s a cer-
tain concentrative power with smack because just of the existence of
an addict is—you gotta use your mind so much. It really activates
the mind to secure money and to find connections and sources of
supply and so forth and play your games, do your little movements
and all that shit. It was a very special way of living and also a special
milieu.159
Heroin doesn’t affect your musical ability as long as you can get it. I
felt that mental concentration was better with heroin than with any
other stimulant.161
Alcohol throws your talent out; your technique gets sloppy.
Marijuana makes you get plenty of ideas, but then your mind moves
too fast. You move off one idea to another. Heroin was a concentra-
tion drug. With heroin, you could zoom in on something and block
everything else out.162
It’s also a myth about playing better on heroin. Some people were
drug addicts and still couldn’t play. It’s a curious thing, and I can’t
fully explain why so many of the addicts were so great. If you can
concentrate better, you can work on things very meticulously.163
Jackie McLean has said that what he liked about being high on
heroin when he played was that
it relaxed me, as all opiates do. I understand that now. At the time I
thought it was, like, this relaxes you; no stage fright; just go on and
play. And of course when you’re relaxed you play better. But for that
minute you think the drug is making you play better, and you find
out later on that you were just relaxed.166
out there listening to me. Even my solos, my solo work and stuff like
that, I would be . . . I had to psych myself up, more or less, to do it.
But if you had some heroin in you, you were ready. At all times. You
just went on. The heroin took away the stage fright. In fact, it was
almost a must to have some.
* * *
For Parker, those who wanted to be like him, and in fact for most
other beboppers who used, heroin came with all sorts of down-
sides. According to Nat Hentoff: “Much of the time Bird was in a
panic, strung out, with no money.”168 He developed a reputation
as unreliable, and club owners grew wary of him. In jazz historian
Ted Gioia’s view: “On any given night, he might skip a perfor-
mance or arrive late.”169 “His behavior on stage could be erratic
or rude.”170 Parker even “came to be considered persona non grata
at Birdland, the premier jazz club that had been named in his
honor.”171
The percussionist Jose Madera recalled the Charlie Parker record-
ings with the Latin musician Machito in the 1950s.
They would start those sessions at 9 a.m., and Charlie wouldn’t show
up until 11 a.m. Charlie would show up in his pajamas and stuff.
He didn’t know where his horn was, they’d have to go find the horn.
And then Norman would have to buy heroin for him to shoot up,
and then they would record like that.172
I never ripped Miles off. I never ripped off Monk or Bud Powell.
Ripping off is something I did, but only to guys who couldn’t play,
guys you might consider to be squares. I only ripped off people that
were outside our life.178
I think it was just an idea. It was such a stupid thing to do. But it
wasn’t like I was one of the guys sitting down and planning it. I was
sort of the dumb guy who was just going along. I was the big dope
who took the gun. I didn’t really know anything about guns. I have
never fired a gun in my life. So, being a big idiot, I took the gun and
we went downtown and of course we got nabbed. Fortunately I did
not shoot or kill anybody. [He was convicted and spent 10 months
in Rikers Island jail.]179
Rollins has also talked about the difficulties of trying to get and
stay clean:
I was constantly worried about going back to using dope . . . with all the
drug dealers [at the clubs] offering me drugs, free drugs . . . the tempta-
tion was so great. I fought it, man . . . Once you are addicted, it is not
easy to quit it even if you want to. You just can’t walk away from it.180
The years with Bird would have been the best period in my life if I
hadn’t been addicted. I just got to the point where music was nothing
more than the means to support my habit. My progress stopped—
and I could have learnt so much then. At first, when I’d be under
the influence, it seemed to inspire me to practice and create. But this
was a deception, as I found out after about a year. The more addicted
I became, the less I practiced or did anything new. All I was enthu-
siastic about was getting high.181
Gruber, who came up in the New York bebop scene and was very
active on 52nd Street during the late 1940s, said:
Miles Davis spoke about how his heroin use affected the jobs he
chose to take:
jazz / 45
because of his erratic working pattern, Davis often came to the stu-
dio with his lip in poor shape, and they would only be able to make
one—or at most two—takes of each number. This was responsible
for the sense of hurried informality and the limitations in his range
on sessions such as the quartet side Davis made for Blue Note in
March 1954.185
* * *
Miles Davis led his Quintet from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s,
with frequent personnel changes over the years. The other four mem-
bers of the earliest manifestation of the Quintet—John Coltrane
(saxophone),186 Philly Joe Jones (drums), Paul Chambers (bass),
and Red Garland (piano)—became famous while working with the
band. And all four were heroin users.
Coltrane was one of the most influential jazz musicians of the late
1950s and 1960s, and a user in the early part of his career:
for candy and other sweets, and even seemed to improve his ability
to concentrate on his music.187
Coltrane was fired from several bands in the early 1950s. In 1955,
Davis brought him into his Quintet, but then fired him for what
Davis called his “junkie shit”:
He was definitely high on junk, of that I’m sure. We were sitting near
the rhythm section while the leader was taking a long piano solo. It was
almost time for Coltrane’s solo, and as I turned to look at him I noticed
that he was nodding out, holding his horn in his lap. Before I could do
anything the leader happened to look up from the piano, saw Trane’s
condition, and screamed, “Coltrane . . . Coltrane!” What happened next
was so amazing I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Trane was suddenly
on his feet, playing in perfect cadence and following the piano solo as if
nothing had happened. He played a pretty good solo, and when he was
finished he sat down again and went back to nodding out.189
The music critic and lyricist Gene Lees recalled this conversation
with Coltrane after he had cleaned up about how tough staying clean
can be:
One night John and I were discussing a gifted musician who was
working for him. The musician had narcotic troubles. Now he was
jazz / 47
making a sincere and valiant fight to lick it and had been clean for
six months. “It’s so hard for anyone” John said, “and it’s even harder
for a musician, because there’s so little to look forward to. It’s such an
uncertain business. If only somebody could give him a little encour-
agement, you know, give him a lift.” He paused for a moment . . . then
said gently, “I think I’ll give him a raise.”191
* * *
Well, that was a phase of my life. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t play-
ing bad when I was getting high. . . . But I feel now that I would have
played better, and I think that I’m playing better today than I’ve
ever played.194
Your social life, your health, your reputation, all of that was a drag.
The side-effects and after-effects are devastating, and the social
48 / heroin and music in new york city
effects are worse! The physical effects are another thing. It messed
me up for seven years.195
As for how Heath felt his heroin use affected his career:
I was recording with the good guys but I wasn’t a leader. This is what
using drugs did to my career.196
I think it was a blessing that I went away to get straight. I just thought
four and a half years was too long, man. It definitely stifled my career,
but it also saved my life. My career I could get back. My life . . . I got
to have my life. . . . So being in Lewisburg was a blessing in disguise. I
learned from that never to do that again, and I didn’t.197
Early in his career, Heath had worked with the trumpeter Howard
McGhee. In the late 1940s, McGhee was generally recognized as
a leading bebop musician; in 1949, he was voted as “top trumpet
player” in a jazz magazine poll.198 But the next year he began his
“slide into addiction”199 and the decade was largely a waste for him:
When I was voted top trumpet player in 1949, I figured that I might
get to working regular. But I didn’t. So I hung around with the other
cats and got bored. Then someone would say, “Come on, man, let’s
get high.” So we got high. And that’s how it started.200
It was six years ago when I quit using the stuff. I’d been on it for
seven years. I was spending a hundred dollars a day, every day. It was
insane . . . So I quit . . . I was broke. I had no place to go. I had sold my
home, my furniture, a big record collection that went way back. So I
made up my mind. I spent four days locked in a friend’s room—no
food, no drink, no sleep, no stuff.201
New York City–born pianist Elmo Hope was also a heroin user,
and his career took a hit because of his use. For many years he was
not visible on the city’s club scene in any prominent way,202 and he
“never achieved recognition outside a small circle of jazzmen and
aficionados.”203 Just before fatally overdosing in 1967, Hope com-
mented on the impact of his heroin use on his career:
jazz / 49
* * *
a new composition he called “Five Will Get You Ten.” He was an effec-
tive composer, and his tunes were welcome at most sessions. However,
this one he’d stolen from Thelonious Monk. He had probably seen
the sheet music or heard Monk working out the tune on the piano
at the Weehawken, New Jersey, home of the Baroness Pannonica de
Koenigswarter, who routinely made her home a rest stop and club-
house for jazz musicians . . . Monk called the tune “Two Timer”; Clark
gave it a new name so he could claim composer’s royalties.207
That same month, he [Clark] cut two classic Blue Note albums
under the leadership of saxophonist Dexter Gordon, “Go” and
“A Swinging Affair.” When Clark died five months later, Gordon
remembered these sessions in a letter to Blue Note impresarios Alfred
Lion and Francis Wolff: Clark had “almost totally given up” on his
life, Gordon wrote.208
In 1963 Clark played his last gig at a New York club called Junior’s,
where he died of an overdose in the early hours of January 30. To
avoid bad publicity and to preserve their liquor license, the owners
moved his corpse to a private apartment before calling the police.209
* * *
jazz / 51
The physical toll of using heroin can be severe. This was certainly
true for trumpeter Fats Navarro. According to Miles Davis:
Fats Navarro was a real bad junkie, pitiful. Fat Girl’s wife, Lena, was
worried about him all the time . . . He was a jolly kind of person, short
and fat before the drugs got to him. But by now, he was skin and bones,
walking around with this terrible cough wracking through his body
all the time. He would literally shake all over every time he coughed.
It was sad to see him like that. He was such a beautiful cat, man, and a
great trumpet player. I really loved him. I would hang with him some-
times and shoot up with him, too. . . . He never did make it.211
Fats was a real sweet guy B.H.—before horse, is what I mean. He was
jovial and always laughing; he was typical of his size. He was really
big before he got on the stuff. You should have seen him. They called
him “Fat Girl” because he was sort of a cherub, big fat jaws and a
big stomach, and he was so young, in his early twenties. He was still
in his twenties when he died. I hear he was down to something like
between 102 and 110 pounds, and he used to weigh 170–75 at least,
and he wasn’t tall, just fat, you know. He developed TB, which is
how he died, and he wasted away to nothing.212
* * *
We were crazy people. Max and I were close. I loved and admired
him. He has a special gift that’s given to very few. The life? It was
all music and drugs. When we weren’t asleep, we were doing one or
the other. We went to Harlem for dope and played on 52nd Street.
That’s what we did. . . . Though Max was a junkie for a period
of time, he somehow always was cool. He dressed well, was very
polished, spoke beautifully. He played whatever game had to be
played.218
Roach recalled that Dizzy Gillespie and his wife, a nurse, helped
him go through withdrawal from his habit:
been through the whole mill. I’ve done everything everybody else
did. I don’t know if it was my parents’ prayers or what, but I gave up
jazz / 53
everything a long time ago. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I’m trying
to take care of myself in my old age.220
* * *
I never had any desire to use hard drugs, a drug that would make
you a slave. I always shied away from anything powerful enough to
make me dependent, because realizing that everything here comes
and goes, why be dependent on any one thing?222
This particular night there must have been eighteen coke dealers
in the club, and Dizzy let one of them, a guy called Dog, sit in on
congas during the first set. Dizzy went off with Dog, and when
we go up to play the second set, Dizzy is wobbling. He starts the
first tune and collapses face forward, busting his horn. I jumped up
from the piano and turned him over, and he says, “It’s beautiful,”
and passes out.225
Drugs didn’t make you creative. All the junkie boppers weren’t
worth a shit. . . . You had to work to be creative. Inspiration was a
great and holy gift, but you had to push and pull and work to shape
it.227
54 / heroin and music in new york city
And Horace Silver, who with Art Blakey co-formed the Jazz
Messengers, did not use mainly because of what he experienced early
in his career with the Messengers—many of whom were users:
I left [the Jazz Messengers] because of the drug addiction that was
prevalent among the band members. . . . Almost everywhere we
played, the vice squad came to check us out for drugs. I was always
worried that they would catch one of the guys holding and we’d all
get busted.228
. . . the Jazz Messengers were often late for gigs because the guys
had to cop some shit. When we were late, the club owner would
deduct money from our salary. I was getting a bit fed up with this
situation.229
Sunday night was pay night at Birdland, and all the musician junk-
ies in town knew this. . . . You had to face all these junkies outside
the club at four AM, asking you for money. They would always say,
“Can you loan me five or ten dollars until my check comes in? I’ll
pay you back.” I knew I would never get paid back if I loaned them
any money, but I would usually give them something anyway. They
were a pathetic lot, and I felt sorry for them.230
In the years since bebop, heroin has had a strong presence in New
York City. I noted in the previous chapter that the late 1960s and
early 1970s saw a significant increase in heroin use. While heroin was
largely supplanted by crack cocaine in the 1980s, there was an upturn
in heroin use beginning in the mid-1990s. Currently in the city, heroin
is inexpensive, widely and easily available, and of very high purity.
Yet all the evidence suggests that, since the end of the bebop
era, the number of New York City–based jazz musician users has
decreased considerably. One factor likely involved in this decline
is the image of beboppers held by jazz musicians from the “after-
bebop” years.
By the mid-1950s, as bebop’s heyday was coming to an end, what
trumpeter Clifford Brown called “a new atmosphere” was apparent
among younger jazz musicians:
A lot of our most talented jazz musicians are dead. And the younger
guys know that narcotics might not have been the main reason for
their deaths, but it led to most of the deaths.233
Thus, in the era after bebop, heroin was not something that was
supported and encouraged in the jazz subculture or community. The
newer jazz musician would therefore be much less likely to consider
an identity as a “bebop hipster” a desired one. While the newer musi-
cian may very well recognize the musical genius of Charlie Parker,
he would be more likely than a musician from Parker’s generation
to view heroin use as self-destructive, and less likely to believe that
heroin might make you play as great as Parker did. As a result, he
56 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
At the same time, there were definitely New York City–based jazz
musicians from the post-bebop era who were heroin users. One was
pianist Mal Waldron.
Waldron grew up in New York and had roots in hard bop, but over
time got active in post-bop and free jazz. He was Billie Holiday’s last
pianist and also worked with John Coltrane and Charles Mingus.
Waldron began to use in the 1950s. He felt that, in those days, using
was a “career necessity”:
If you didn’t shoot up in the afternoon, you would probably not play
on the record date that night.239
jazz / 57
The whole set-up in America was very, very, very bad. The police
would stop the musicians and search us as we came out of the clubs
after work. We had to turn our pockets inside out. After awhile, the
musicians thought . . . well, if you have the name you might as well
have the game.240
* * *
Bill didn’t talk about it. But he did say his addiction had started
before joining Miles’ sextet. Bill said he came to heroin on his own.
It was around the time he joined Miles but it wasn’t through Miles.
It happened in New York, with a group of musicians he was close
with. It may have been a very acceptable form of behavior for musi-
cians at that time. Bill had other friends who were musicians. Some
were experimenting. He joined in on it.244
When Billy came down, when he kicked it, which he did on numer-
ous occasions, the world was—I don’t know how to say it—too
beautiful. It was too sharp for him. It’s almost as if he had to blur
the world for himself by being strung out. I had that impression all
the time.246
The effect was to set back the development of his career through
circumstantial complications and the continual short-term need for
more money to pay for increasing amounts of heroin. This alone
made it hard for the fledgling trio he was trying to establish to pay
its own way, and he became a less attractive proposition for first-rate
managers and agents. It would take years to resolve these matters
satisfactorily and for Evans’s career to flourish internationally in the
way it should have done much earlier.247
* * *
Drummer Elvin Jones was another heroin user from the era after
bebop. Jones moved to New York City in the mid-1950s. According
to music writer Ben Ratliff, Jones was “one of the most prodigious
heroin users in jazz to live through the 1950’s and 1960’s.”249 One
music journalist put it this way:
jazz / 59
Away from music, his interests at that time were liquor, drugs, and
women. He could drink a quart a day, shoot up six bags of heroin and
scream for more, and walk out on his wife as quickly as a groupie might
spend a set or two hanging around his drums and then ask, “Elvin, can
you fuck a woman like you’ve been fucking those drums all night?”250
* * *
Waldron, Evans, and Jones were musicians from the earlier years of
the “after bebop” era. Three users from the later generation of musi-
cians from this era were the guitarist Emily Remler, saxophonist
Michael Brecker, and pianist Kenny Kirkland.
Remler—born in New York City and raised in New Jersey—was
a folk-rock guitarist before becoming a jazz musician. She died sud-
denly on tour in Australia in 1990; her death was officially listed as
heart failure, following years of heroin use.251 British guitarist Martin
Taylor toured with Remler, and in his autobiography recalled:
public . . . but I knew he was a lot unhappier and troubled than most
people knew. I was worried about him.
. . . when Mike finally got clean, in 1981, as far as I know he never
relapsed once and he never looked back. He went to meetings reli-
giously and put a lot of effort into helping other people who had
addiction problems get clean as well. He was very sincere in his
motivations, he never judged you, he only wanted you to find the
same relief that he had found.
. . . his solo career really took off after he got the proverbial monkey off
his back. And look at the results: 11 Grammies, stellar performances
with the world’s top artists, etc. Not to mention a nice family with
two kids. I think it’s a great thing that after he conquered his demons,
he was able to have such a clear, focused, and productive . . . life.254
knew something about his drug use, but thinking about Kenny
Kirkland and drugs is like thinking about a family member. With all
the other shit that happens to people, you just think that won’t hap-
pen. And when it does happen, you still don’t want to believe it.256
him; that is, heroin would make you a better musician. But use was
not just about trying to be like Parker: the reality is more nuanced. For
some bebop users, first use was not so much about Parker in particular,
but rather about a sense of brotherhood and belonging, about a desire to
connect with, and get closer to, fellow musicians who were seen as part of
the bebop subculture. For both groups, use can be seen as being related
to the subcultural identity of the musician-user; this was an attractive
self-image that could be validated through using heroin and maintained
through interaction with other heroin-using beboppers.
Other bebop users said they used for the first time for reasons
that did not seem to be related to Parker or to wanting to be seen as a
hipster. Examples cited were that heroin was seen as just another way
of getting high; because heroin made you feel good; and to cover the
hurt and depression of losing a girlfriend.
The fact that there was considerably less use from the era before
bebop and also from the era after bebop can likewise be understood
as a matter of subculture and identity. Before bebop, heroin was
available, but marijuana was the main drug used by jazz musicians.
Older, conservative jazz musicians of this era, by and large, held
negative views of heroin, and had nothing like an anti-square hipster
image to emulate. As a result, heroin was not likely to be used.
In the era since bebop, heroin has been readily available in New
York. But jazz musicians from this era are quite likely to be aware
of the devastation heroin caused many beboppers. While they may
strongly admire Charlie Parker’s music, they would probably be less
likely than beboppers to idolize him, or want to be seen and come
to see themselves as like him. They certainly would not be likely to
begin to use heroin in the hope they could play like him.
* * *
The jazz musician users in the sample—from all three of the main
eras of jazz—reported a variety of ways that heroin impacted their
playing, creativity, and careers. Most of these users’ statements were
about the problems and troubles their heroin use led to, although
some musicians thought there were positive aspects to their use.
There was very little sense from these musicians that their heroin
use helped them to play better or made them more creative in their
music. For many of the users in the sample, heroin led to periods of
62 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
Pianist Randy Weston, who grew up and lived most of his life in
Brooklyn and at one point ran a restaurant that many beboppers
jazz / 63
used to eat at, used to snort heroin when he was younger. Now in
his eighties and still performing, Weston had this view of the general
impact heroin had on the generation of young bebop musicians:
* * *
Overall, the findings from this chapter support the thinking of oth-
ers who have written about the impact of heroin on jazz playing and
creativity. Thus, it was Winick’s belief that
* * *
the jazz life that wasn’t necessarily in tune with each musician’s
metabolism.”260
* * *
He was able to sit down and think about himself and his music.
After a few weeks in isolation he emerged into “population” to begin
writing profusely, broadening his outlook to include “popular” num-
bers and a major religious piece . . . Tadd rekindled his enthusiasm for
composing after the recent, lost years of heroin-induced lethargy. He
used the various [Lexington] bands to try out his own new composi-
tions and also those of others, many of whom had never composed
or arranged before. He encouraged everyone to write.263
Ch a p t e r Th r e e
Roc k
The dirty secret is that heroin is useful for rock musicians. On tour,
it evens out the excitement of playing to exuberent, enthusiastic
crowds for an hour or two a day, and the boredom of the “hurry
up and wait” that takes up most of the time on the road . . . [It] is a
way of getting privacy, and on tour privacy is at a premium. Heroin
draws you into yourself, pulls a curtain around you, creates a private
jet. . . . And if touring is stressful, how do you handle life off the road
after constantly touring for many months or years?4
these musicians used heroin; the effects heroin had on their playing,
creativity, and careers; and why heroin use was more common in
some subgenres of rock than in others. I also look at songs by these
musicians that are about or make reference to heroin to see what the
songs are saying about the drug. In this chapter, rock subgenres are
grouped into four general categories: (1) classic rock, hard rock, and
heavy metal; (2) punk, including protopunk and hardcore; (3) new
wave, no wave, and noise rock; and (4) alternative/indie rock.
The last few years of the ‘70s got a little out of control around my
place, and it really wasn’t that much fun. The career was a good orga-
nising principle for something that was pretty chaotic in other ways.
But eventually that didn’t work either, and when the dust had settled
its was 1980 and it was time to clean up my act, so I ended up coming
here [Hawaii] because I wanted a complete change of pace.8
Steely Dan had at least two songs about heroin: 1975’s “Dr. Wu,”
and “Time Out of Mind,” from 1980. Like many Steely Dan songs,
rock / 67
But then things become much more cryptic, and one begins to wonder
what the story is really about. Donald Fagen explained it this way:
[A] girl meets somebody who leads another kind of life and she’s
attracted to it. Then she comes under the domination of some-
one else and that results in the ending of the relationship or some
amending of the relationship. The “someone else” is a dope habit
personified as Doctor Wu.10
* * *
* * *
West was lead guitarist for Mountain, the New York metal band
formed in the 1960s. He used heroin for about six years, “skinpopping”
68 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
Lennon wrote one song that was definitely about heroin and one
song that might have been. “Cold Turkey,” from 1969, is about his
attempt at withdrawal:
Lennon, who claimed he never injected heroin, said it wasn’t, and that
the song was just a reaction he had to a gun magazine he had seen
that had the phrase “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” on the cover.22
Keith Richards has been much more open about his heroin use
than Lennon, having talked and written about it quite a bit, espe-
cially in his recent autobiography, Life.
Richards doesn’t clearly recall the first time he used heroin:
I think it’s maybe to do with working on the stage. The high levels of
energy and adrenaline require, if you can find it, a sort of antidote.
And I saw smack as just becoming part of that.24
I never particularly liked being that famous. I could face people
easier on the stuff, but I could do that with booze too. It isn’t really
the whole answer. I also felt I was doing it not to be a “pop star.”
There was something I didn’t really like about that end of what I was
doing, the blah blah blah. That was very difficult to handle, and I
could handle it better on smack.25
For all of its downside—I’d never recommend it to anybody—
heroin does have its uses. Junk really is a great leveler in many ways.
Once you’re on that stuff, it doesn’t matter what comes your way;
you can handle it.26
No, the whole delicacy of mainlining was never for me. I was never
looking for that flash; I was looking for something to keep me going.
If you do it in the vein, you get an incredible flash, but then you
want more in about two hours. And also you have tracks, which I
couldn’t afford to show off . . . I used to shoot it up in the muscles.27
During the height of Richards’s use, in the late 1960s to early 1970s,
the Rolling Stones recorded a number of classic albums—including
70 / heroin and music in new york city
Exile on Main St. a double album. But Richards didn’t see much of a
connection between his use and his producing music:
I might have changed a few chords, a few verses here and there, but
I never felt any diminishment or any extra lift as far as what I was
doing was concerned. I didn’t look upon smack as an aid or a detrac-
tion from what I was doing. . . . in certain cases it helps you be more
tenacious about something and follow it further than you would
have, than if you just threw up your hands and said, “oh, I can’t fig-
ure this one out right now.” On the stuff sometimes you would just
nag at it and nag at it until you’d got it.28
But even though Richards thought heroin may have helped him con-
centrate to finish a song, he said, “this is not a recommendation. . . . It’s
certainly not the road to music genius or anything else.”29 In fact,
I did get to a point where the music was secondary. I was devot-
ing most of my time to scoring and taking dope. I was completely
out of it, and Mick had to cover for me. He took over completely. I
managed to make gigs and write some songs, but Mick took care of
everything through most of the seventies.30
* * *
The Velvet Underground was probably the ultimate New York pro-
topunk band. Formed in 1965 and disbanded by 1970, it started life
as part of a touring Andy Warhol performance group, with dancers
and a light show, called the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.36 While
there was definitely heroin use in the band, the Velvets were prob-
ably more notorious for their songs about heroin than any use by
band members.
Lou Reed was the guitarist and main singer and songwriter.
Until he cleaned up in the early 1980s, he was a multiple drug user,
although speed (which he liked to shoot) and alcohol were his favor-
ite drugs. Heroin was part of his drug menu, although he was never
a full-blown addict:
I had a toe in that situation. Enough to see the tunnel, the vortex.
That’s how I handled my problems. That’s how I grew up, how I did
it, like a couple hundred thousand others.37
John Cale, who cofounded the band with Reed, played viola and
many other instruments. Before he met Reed, he had used plenty of
drugs but had never injected heroin:
While there is debate about whether some Velvet songs were actu-
ally about heroin, there was no debate about two songs: “Heroin” and
“I’m Waiting for the Man,” both from 1967. Reed wrote “Heroin” as
a student at Syracuse University, during what he called a very “nega-
tive, strung out, violent, aggressive” period in his life.39
very close to the feeling you get from smack. It starts on a certain
level, it’s deceptive. You think you’re enjoying it. But by the time
it hits you, it’s too late. You don’t have any choice. It comes at you
harder and faster and keeps on coming. The song is every thing that
the real thing is doing to you.41
It was built around this story that I wrote about this scene of total
debauchery and decay. I like to think of Sister Ray as a transvestite
smack dealer. The situation is a bunch of drag queens taking some
sailors home with them, shooting up on smack, and having this orgy
when the police appear.44
* * *
And then there was Nico. Never a full member of the Velvets, the
German model and actress was added by Warhol to their first album
mainly as a “pretty front.”45 After that she began a career as a solo
artist. A heroin user for many years, Nico has been characterized as
“something of a celebrity in narcotic circles. Queen of the Junkies.
rock / 73
She was famous within a limited milieu, i.e., heroin users and those
who thought self destruction a romantic vocation.”46
Nico began to use “because I had too many thoughts” and heroin
“made my good thoughts run slower and my bad thoughts go away.”47
She was introduced to injection through her “artistic friends,” and
“like everyone who starts, I did not expect to be addicted. I thought
I was strong in these matters.”48
After New York, Nico moved to Manchester, England, in the early
1980s. When she first got there, her new manager “was shocked to
learn that she was reduced to the state of a 40-year-old junkie with-
out a penny to her name, sleeping on other peoples’ shabby floors.”49
She toured off and on; one of her band members recalls:
She didn’t have many accessible veins left. They were becoming
harder to find, collapsing (or cowering) beneath the surface of the
skin. Now she was injecting into her hands—a very conspicuous act
for a celebrity junkie. She would cover up her scars with bits of rag,
especially if the audience was close to the stage.50
* * *
I didn’t have any reservations about junk. It was just the ideal state
as far as I was concerned. Not only did it physically make you feel
as good as you possibly could—after all, it’s a painkiller—but it felt
74 / heroin and music in new york city
like the fulfillment of all my fantasies, the way you got to dream but
direct your dreams like a movie director . . . 55
Sticking a needle in my arm felt adult, like I was really in charge of
myself finally, running my own destiny, out from under. It was more
independent than any other choice I’d ever made.56
Lloyd also has spoken about the pleasure he got from heroin:
You could do dope, and then you could drink all night, and you
wouldn’t shake at all, you wouldn’t get drunk, nothing would hurt,
you could play guitar like you’ve never played before, you could fuck
for six or seven hours, straight—you know, like a machine.57
whole local blocks, in the course of a year or two, morphed from dwell-
ings into darkness into drug hives. Hordes of junkies slipped money
under hallway doors in abandoned buildings, and tiny taped-shut glass-
ine envelopes were slid back . . . The best brands would draw crowds of
shoppers in lines that wound down tenement stairs and halfway up the
burned-out block, in a single file kept orderly by the dealers’ crew.62
In the morning you would see people lined up, like for a hit movie—in
a line fifty feet deep—with people that sold the dope running up and
down the line saying, “Have your money ready, we’ll be open in ten
minutes.” You know, “No singles, you gotta have fives or tens” . . . And
they would have a menu, like, “Today we have brown dope, white
dope, and cocaine.” You know, “Got somethin’ special today, you’re all
gonna be real happy” . . . I mean, you’d be talking to your neighbor, like
reading the newspaper, waiting for the dope house to open . . . I used to
like to go between sets—run out and do dope and come back.63
Hell, who stopped taking drugs in the mid-1980s, has also writ-
ten about the impact heroin had on his career. He recalls his tour of
England with his band at the time, the Voidoids:
I was horribly junk-sick for nearly all of the tour except the days in
London. I hadn’t experienced serious withdrawal before and I didn’t
know how to handle it. I was sleepless, in full-body pain, and sweat-
ing and vomiting and spurting diarrhea.64
He felt that it got to the point where the Voidoids were just “limp-
ing along, essentially on standby— . . . my drug addiction and general
loss of initiative were part of the problem for them.”65 He eventually
came to feel that “I let my band disintegrate.”66
Hell opined on the effect of addiction on an addict’s work:
* * *
The Dictators was another of the New York protopunk bands who
were favorites downtown. Handsome Dick Manitoba, the frontman,
was a user for about 10 years.68 The following is his view of heroin:
Best drug ever. No matter what drug they invent, what I might have
missed . . . I went out with a World Championship ring on my finger.
I went out winning the World Series and I retired in 1983. Heroin
was the granddaddy of them all.69
76 / heroin and music in new york city
But along with it being best-feeling drug of all time, it was probably
the worst choice I could’ve made. I was in my teens, trying to figure
out how to negotiate life—this was the opposite of what I needed in
order to survive. Resilience and toughness are tools you need to get
by in life; heroin smooths it all out and gives you the feeling that
everything’s all right, even when it’s not.70
* * *
Quine never injected drugs, but this was an injection and one con-
taining way too many bags of heroin to have been accidental. By his
own avowal, he’d survived a similar try this past winter. He didn’t
want to live after the completely unexpected death by heart attack
of his wife, Alice, last August. They’d been together since the mid-
seventies.72
* * *
The New York Dolls stood at the crossroads of protopunk and punk.
Basically a glam rock band, playing “high-energy, sluttish Manhattan
rock ’n’ roll,”73 the Dolls debuted in 1972 and fell apart in 1975.74 They
never achieved much mainstream success and, in fact, were described
by Punk Magazine as “one of the greatest rock and roll bands in the
history of un-popular music ever.”75 Two band members—guitarist
Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan—were among the most
notorious heroin users over the years in the New York protopunk and
rock / 77
It was a drag being on the road and they couldn’t cope. As long as
they had stuff, everything was OK . . . John and Jerry would have to
go back to New York and score. It got kind of ridiculous. By the end,
in some redneck outpost in Florida, it was, like, this is impossible.
Let’s not do this any more.77
I tried it and liked it, and in some ways I don’t regret ever having
used it. I . . . I loved taking drugs, right? I thought I was having a real
good time, taking drugs and playing rock and roll.78
Jerry Nolan became the Dolls drummer after the original drum-
mer (Billy Murcia) died of drowning/choking in a bathtub after
a night of partying that involved mixing alcohol and Mandrax,
a British quaalude. Nolan spoke of when he first starting using
heroin:
[It was] back at Max’s Kansas City. My roadie in the Dolls said,
“Jerry, someone just gave me some heroin, would you like to try it?” I
had never done it, so we went in the bathroom and did a little snoot.
It didn’t affect me so much, didn’t leave much of a memory. I didn’t
do it again for months.79
78 / heroin and music in new york city
no matter how sick I was, no matter how much energy I lost, when
we got on that fucking stage I got it together. The only thing I could
do was play drums. I could whack them so hard I surprised myself.
Sometimes the sticks would break in half and go flying. I had such
pride that I had such power in my skinny little body. Its a great
feeling.81
we were all sucked into the lifestyle to varying degrees and it took
quite a few years of adjusting before I got back into a semblance of
normalcy. I was lucky to have landed a few alternative lifestyles to
sort of replace the ones that were too damaging. I also was fortunate
enough to get a job and actually enjoy the stuff I was doing on Wall
Street.85
Lure wrote two classic New York dopefiend songs: “One Track
Mind” (with Richard Hell) in 1977 (“I got tracks on my arms, tracks
on my face”);86 and “Too Much Junkie Business” from 1982:
rock / 79
Referring to the latter song, Lure says that “Johnny would just stick
his name on it years later because he liked it so much and he wished
he’d wrote it, even though I actually had.”88
Lure recalled some Heartbreakers shows when Thunders was very
high:
would’ve dropped a horse. I was doing a match head and that was
enough to get me fucked up. Johnny just snorted the whole thing up
and he said, “Thanks, man, that was great.” Well, within a couple of
minutes he was reduced to a drooling pile of shit. He was sitting in
the chair, and his chin was on his chest, and he can’t talk because he
had no tolerance, he’d been detoxed.91
Matlock, the original Sex Pistols bassist, met the Heartbreakers for
the first time at rehearsals:
They looked very New York, dressed up like Italian spivs. Musically
they blew us away with how tight they were and everyone was gob
smacked by the guitars . . . there hadn’t been heroin on the punk
scene until The Heartbreakers turned up.93
* * *
By most accounts, the Ramones was one of the two most important
bands in punk rock history (the other was England’s Sex Pistols).
One music journalist described them as “arguably the band who cre-
ated, or at least first articulated, New York 70s punk.”96 In English
punk rocker Marco Pirroni’s view: “The Ramones were just bril-
liant. They really did invent their own punk style and they gave
punk its speed . . . It was the Ramones who took everything one step
further and simplified it even more. Apart from that, they wrote
great songs.”97 The Ramones stayed together as a band (with various
drummers over time) for well over 20 years.
Bassist Dee Dee Ramone, a founding member (in 1974) and one
of the band’s two major songwriters (the other was frontman Joey),
was the only one of the original band members who was a heroin
user. He first used in high school in Germany:
rock / 81
There were lots of dealers around the Bahnhof Zoo area. They
would fill the hypodermic needles from big plastic bottles of liquid
morphine. The German dope was strange, but it was fun. It felt like
you were getting an electric shock when you shot it up. Then you
went completely numb.98
It was heroin that would get me through the day. Early on I could
sense the big problem with narcotics was that they tended to lead to
crime. If you use heroin, you catch a habit and end up a slave to the
drug. Sooner or later you start to lead a double life and lie for drugs
and dollars until you eventually become consumed by the whole
experience and take on a new identity as a criminal misfit.100
According to Walter Lure, Dee Dee had written it, with Richard
Hell adding a verse. While the Heartbreakers had no problem record-
ing or performing the song, the Ramones wouldn’t, because they
didn’t want any songs about heroin.104 Johnny Ramone explained it
in this way in a 1977 interview:
singin’ ’bout killin’ people and beating ’em up. I mean, heroin kills
people. You gotta draw the line somewhere.105
Johnny was not shy, however, about drug songs, especially songs
about inhalants, a punk favorite, including 1976’s “Now I Wanna
Sniff Some Glue”106 and 1977’s “Carbona Not Glue,”107 about
a brand of cleaning fluid. The Ramones eventually did record
“Chinese Rocks” in 1980, although the Ramones version was called
“Chinese Rock” (no “s” on the end).108
* * *
I did some great shows behind it. They were good shows because
they were just so laid-back that they were soulful, not because I was
smacked out . . . Then I saw, like man, What am I getting into? It’s
like some comic book—it’s like getting off, getting on stage, then
coming back, getting off, going to sleep.109
* * *
The protopunk and punk bands that have been the focus of dis-
cussion so far were, by and large, homegrown in New York. But
many proto/punk rockers who were fixtures in the New York scene
during the heyday of the 1970s and who were heroin users started
their music careers in well-known bands from other cities and then
migrated to New York. Of these, Iggy Pop is probably the best
known.
Iggy was frontman for the Stooges, formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. He is legendary for his copious drug use, including a full-
blown heroin habit and his outlandish stage performances. He got
into heroin because it brought “welcome ease”:
I always felt the group could work harder . . . I always felt it incumbent
on me to do certain things for everyone, and there was a resentment.
It became a weight. And a great excuse. And it’s only an excuse.
Honestly, there were tensions at that time, the amount of acid I was
rock / 83
The Stooges’ stage shows were legendary for Iggy’s energy and
intensity. But not all of their shows were like this. Danny Fields,
the Stooges’ manager, recalled the time when before going on stage,
Iggy was
waiting for his dealer, to cop, intent on getting his shot of heroin
before he went on. But he had no money. So he went to the VIP
booths one at a time and explained the situation . . . He got more
than enough money. He stood off to the side and shot up. The lights
went down, the music went up, he stood onstage and collapsed.
Without a note being sung. He’d OD’d in front of everyone. And
had to be carried off.111
Iggy sang and wrote (with David Bowie) 1977’s “China Girl,”
considered by some to be a “heroin song,” as “china white” has long
been a type of heroin, and the lyrics speak to the addict’s need for a
morning “wake up” shot:
Others say that the song is about an Asian woman Iggy fell for at
the time he was recording the song. Nile Rodgers, who produced
the song, suggests that if the song is about drugs, it might be about
speedballing—combining heroin and cocaine—since cocaine has
often been referred to as “girl.”113
Iggy cleaned up many years ago and has produced music steadily
since the mid-1970s as a solo act and with the regrouped Stooges.
Interviewed recently in The New York Times and asked about his
health, “considering your longtime heroin abuse and your various
accidental and self-inflicted performance injuries,” Iggy said that he
was
a little bit damaged in about 15 different ways, and it’s been nice that
no particular damaged area has become a major issue. I’m a more
than moderately healthy 65 years old male who has gotten away with
a lot of stuff.114
84 / heroin and music in new york city
Cheetah Chrome was the lead guitarist and Stiv Bators was the
frontman of Cleveland’s Rocket from the Tombs, which morphed
into the New York–based Dead Boys and became stalwarts of the
CBGB scene. Cheetah was a user for many years:
Life became a constant chase for drugs. I couldn’t play without them,
and if I had to rehearse but couldn’t find any dope or any money for
dope, well, I just didn’t rehearse.116
There was something like thirty different dope spots on one block,
open from 7 am to 10 pm. Some were in apartments, where the look-
outs let you up and you slid your money under the door. Some were
in “social clubs,” where you could go in fifteen at a time and buy
from a guy at a table. The dope came in glassine bags with different
colors of tape on them—black, red, yellow, and blue. It was all very
convenient and only about three blocks from CBGB.117
Bators left New York in the early 1980s and kept making music
until 1990, when he was killed by a speeding taxi driver on the
streets of Paris.118 Evidently, he never had the same kind of problems
with heroin as many other New York punk rockers; according to one
music writer, he “never got reduced to pitiful junkie state . . . and was
never too fucked up to perform.”119 Perhaps one reason he went a
rock / 85
* * *
Sid Vicious, the Sex Pistols’ bassist with the iconic punk look, must
be part of the story of heroin and punk in New York, even though
he lived in the city for only a short while, having relocated after leav-
ing the Pistols. He had used speed but not heroin until he met up
with Thunders and Nolan of the Heartbreakers when they came to
England as part of the Anarchy Tour.121 According to Nolan:
One time I shot Sid up backwards, pointing the needle down the
vein rather than up. He didn’t know you could do that. It scared the
shit out of him, but he didn’t want to say nothing.122
You can’t get comfortable and you sweat. You’re boiling hot and you
pour with sweat and your nose dribbles and all of a sudden you get
the colds and the sweat turns to fucking ice on you and you put a
jumper on and then you’re boiling hot and you take it off and you
get cold again. Like, you just can’t win. You lie down, you sit up. It
drives you insane.125
Famously, Sid was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy
Spungeon in the Chelsea Hotel in New York in 1978. “There were
no witnesses to the killing, but evidence pointed to Sid, who was
duly arrested and charged with her murder.”126 The circumstances
of what happened have never been clear, but theories abound: a
86 / heroin and music in new york city
violent squabble over drugs, a drug deal gone wrong, drugged out
thieves, a suicide pact gone awry?127 Sid managed to get bailed out of
Rikers Island jail, but then got rearrested on an assault charge. At a
party to celebrate his release on bail from that charge, he overdosed
and died. Perhaps, like Dee Dee Ramone, Sid accidentally took too
much heroin after being clean—in his case, following two months
of enforced withdrawal in jail.128
Cheetah Chrome remembers when Sid was out on bail:
We did some dope in one of the dressing rooms. It was the only real
conversation I think we ever had—Nancy had dominated any oth-
ers. “He is a really nice guy,” I was surprised to find myself thinking.
He was filling me in a bit on how his case was going, and I asked
him at one point if he thought he’d done it. He looked me right in
the eye and said, “I don’t know.” And I could tell he didn’t. The poor
schmuck never had a clue about anything. I never saw him again.129
* * *
Two New York punk rockers who came up after the original punk
era but who were true to its spirit and who were users were GG
Allin and STZA. Allin, singer/songwriter of the Murder Junkies,
was known for his bizarre performances and stage antics such as
defecating and chasing the audience with clumps of feces in each
hand and claiming he would kill himself on stage.130 He died in his
sleep in 1993 apparently from an accidental heroin overdose after a
gig. Allin recalled a show in New York in 1989:
I had done, like, tons of heroin. About 2 in the morning I got up and
tumbled down a flight of stairs and broke my ribs, got on the stage
and completely passed out. I was just pretty disgusted with myself
at that performance. And a lot of people thought it was the classic
moment. I was pretty disgusted with it because I just wanted to do
better.131
and became legal owners.132 To STZA, both are related to the issue
of freedom:
* * *
Hardcore was 1980s’ punk: faster, louder, and more aggressive than
early punk. The hardcore scene developed first in Washington and
Los Angeles, and then in the mid-1980s in New York. Like punk,
New York hardcore was centered on the Lower East Side, at clubs
such as CBGB and A7 and later around ABC No Rio. New York had
dozens of hardcore bands. The Beastie Boys started out as a hardcore
band before becoming a rap group. The Cro-Mags, who began in the
early 1980s and still perform, typify hardcore in the sense that they
have been much more explicitly political than first-wave punk bands
from the 1970s, in their case with members who were practicing Hare
Krishnas and often singing about Krishna Consciousness.135
Hardcore, by and large, denounced the heroin lifestyle of early
punk. According to Roger Miret, vocalist of Agnostic Front, a semi-
nal New York hardcore band, New York hardcore kids liked PCP:
“Angel dust was THE drug. We were street kids. We were livin’ in
the street and were totally whacked.”136
John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, who grew up in the Lower East Side in
the 1970s and who used plenty of drugs, especially cocaine,137 recalled
how he got turned off to heroin as a kid. One day he was hanging out
with his “older junkie friend” Mikey, who shot up and said to Joseph,
“Never try this shit kid. You might like it,” then passed out:
But there was heroin use among New York hardcore musicians.
HR, lead singer of the Bad Brains, a Rastafarian hardcore band
formed in Washington in the late 1970s that relocated to New York
in 1980, was a user in the very early stages of the band’s develop-
ment.139 He “dallied with hard drugs, including heroin,” after drop-
ping out of college.140
I was fiending for drugs. I had been shooting up heroin since I was
16. It was a very private life, as heroin use tends to be, but I started
getting into drugs too heavy . . . the Rasta faith provided a spiritual
basis for kicking heroin.141
That’s when I realized, “You know what? Living like this is way more
dangerous than I ever imagined.” At first you’re like, “I’m only snort-
ing or I’m only smoking” then it’s, “I’m only skin-popping, I’m not
mainlining.” But you end up getting to a place where you think it’s the
bottom, and there’s always one step lower. When Hal hung himself,
I said, “You know what? Making music is getting me more excited
than doing dope.” And we started straightening ourselves up.145
* * *
choice, straightedgers were turned off to the drug and alcohol use
of their friends and siblings. They thought drugs were an outcast
thing, for losers.146 Many also became vegans, and some swore off
casual sex—seen as another self-destructive behavior.147 According
to one straightedge musician:
Straightedge is not just not taking drugs or not drinking. It’s an out-
look on life. In the sense that you want to be in control of your body
and yourself, you want to have a clear view of what’s going on.148
As Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye once put it, in regard to what
he called “the eternal quest to get fucked up”: “That’s entertain-
ment? Fuck that. I was not interested.”150
I was completely out of my mind. I was into junk, I was really fucked
up . . . I wanted to blank out my mind and whole sections of my life.152
90 / heroin and music in new york city
it was the time. It was all over the place [1980s]. At first we felt that
it might have been political [to take heroin]. Yeah, I know . . . [giggles
and shakes head] It was everywhere and it really had a lot to do with
the end of Vietnam and the fallout from that . . . It was very notice-
able; it was everywhere.154
According to Stein:
Harry was once asked in an interview: “Do you think people take
it [heroin] for inspiration?” In response, she said that she gets “much
better inspiration when I’m straight. I’m much more creative. I have
better ideas. Everything is brighter when I’m straight. It’s a trap. It’s
really stupid. It’s even a waste of money.”156 Harry has also pointed
out, as was the case with the Dictators, that Blondie’s management
had no problem with cocaine use, but once heroin entered the situ-
ation, the label dropped the band, and management backed out—
with most of their money.157
* * *
New York was the birthplace of No Wave, which began in the mid-
1970s and was centered in the Lower East Side and also Soho. It
never found a wide audience and was more or less over by the early
1980s. No Wave was not so much a clearly definable musical sub-
genre, but rather a scene made up of various groups of downtown
rock / 91
New York musicians with disparate styles who rejected punk and
New Wave for being too conventional.158
Given the era and the locale, it is hardly surprising that heroin
was part of the No Wave scene. Adele Bertei, who played keyboards
in the Contortions, one of the original No Wave bands, recalled the
late 1970s:
A lot of smack started to flood the Lower East Side . . . All of a sudden
it was everywhere . . . I remember a time when almost every woman
I knew had a copy of William Burroughs’ Junky next to her bed and
was shooting up.159
When the interviewer asked, “what would the James Chance I’m
speaking to now say to the James Chance of 30 years ago?” Chance
responded:
Haha! I would say “Take it easier! Don’t start so many fights and
take a few less substances. Good advice for most of us, I’d say, . . . Just
less, though! I don’t mean don’t take any.”163
convinced me to take a hit. Small toke like your first joint. Knocked
me flat on my ass. Passed out to wake up and puke. He stood over
me laughing. Said it was the usual first response. That I’d get used
to it. Learn to love the vomit. I told him to fuck off. It was my first
and last experience with that shit. Never touched it again. Glad I did
it though. Cured my curiosity.165
* * *
I’d been offered [heroin] a lot of times before I’d ever done it. Then
one time, for some reason, I just did it. The thing about heroin is,
you’re taught that it’s this evil drug and that it’s a really heavy-duty
thing. Then you try it, and it’s actually mellow. You don’t lose con-
trol of your body or your mind; it’s not a severe thing, like doing
angel dust or speed. You think, “I can handle this.”167
It is also worth noting that the New York Noise Rock scene pro-
duced a band whose name sounds like a slick reference to a junkie’s
to-do list: Cop Shoot Cop. They had at least one song about heroin,
1990’s “She’s Like a Shot”:
Alternative/Indie Rock
The alternative/indie band movement emerged in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. It featured lesser-known bands from a variety of related
rock styles that didn’t have a major record label backing them and
instead were recorded and distributed by a network of independent
companies.170 These bands typically could be heard only on col-
lege radio because tightly controlled FM formats kept new music off
mainstream radio stations.171 Indie music stayed beneath the radar of
the “corporate behemoths” until Nirvana’s huge album Nevermind
in 1991, when the mainstream music business took notice and indie
music became big business.172 Since the indie movement started,
New York has been a major center, home base for a number of bands
and record labels; in recent years, Brooklyn especially has been fer-
tile breeding ground for indie music.
Some well-known indie musicians from the New York scene
have been users. One was Albert Hammond, rhythm guitarist of
the Strokes, probably the most popular group to come out of the
New York scene. Hammond came through rehabilitation recently
and talked about his use:
When you start, it’s cocaine. I was 23, 24 years old. Then I’d take
opium pills, and before recording “Yours to Keep,” I was on heroin.
Mix it up with the rest . . . You don’t even realize it anymore.173
when you’re angry with yourself and you’re ingesting a lot of drugs,
it doesn’t help any sense of dialogue and you just feel isolated . . . I
was full-on junkie by the second solo record . . . I’ve definitely seen
the dark part of my soul.174
* * *
Mike Doughty, now a solo artist, was frontman and guitarist of Soul
Coughing, a 1990s New York–based indie band. He talked about
life in the band (he was not happy) and his heroin use at length in
his book The Book of Drugs.175 Doughty was turned on to heroin by
a hipster girlfriend, initially sniffing just one bag. It eventually got to
the point where he was “sniffing $300 worth of dope daily.”176
94 / heroin and music in new york city
Doughty also talked about the effect that his heroin use had more
generally on his song writing:
The only thing I discovered about not doing drugs is that I actually
don’t need drugs to write, which is really the most painful fallacy of
the whole thing. I kept going, “I can’t give this up! What will I write
about?” It’s just fucked up. When you start thinking that your music
comes from a substance.182
* * *
rock / 95
Ryan Adams and Steve Earle are both southern-born, “alt country-
rock” singer/songwriters and guitarists who made New York City
their home base and who were users. Adams said that he
did speedballs every day for years . . . I always outdid everybody . . . It’s
a miracle I did not die. I was running the risk of becoming one of
those people who talks to himself all the time. I was about to walk
over this line that there was no coming back from, and I could feel
it. I was seeing ghosts and hearing stuff. Having horrible night-
mares . . . 183 There was intense loneliness, end-of-the-world stuff
going on in my mind, bottomless depression.184
Earle was an abuser for many years, but had cleaned up by the
time he moved to New York. He first used in high school, in Texas,
with his uncle Nick:
I liked to get high and watch television. I mean, it was a total shut-
down thing. I don’t shut down very much, I run kind of wide open
all the time. It’s my natural tendency. And it did shut me down.187
Earle got so into heroin in the early 1990s that he just wanted to
stay high, so he stopped performing and recording for four years and
took what he called his “vacation in the ghetto,” moving out of sub-
urbia (after having lost his house) into an inner-city neighborhood
“to be closer to the dope,” living off of royalty checks:
I felt like I was standing outside my own life. It was really fuckin’
lonely, it was really painful. I didn’t think I was coming back, I
didn’t think that was possible.188
96 / heroin and music in new york city
we’d go and do a show and he’d be nodding off in the van with a
cigarette in his hand and everybody was worried about whether he’d
burn us out of the van or what was going on. As fucked up as he was
he still did brilliant shows, which always amazed me.189
Earle wrote at least one song that spoke to his feelings about her-
oin, 1996’s “CCKMP” (Cocaine Cannot Kill My Pain):
* * *
them deal with tensions in their band or with the difficulties around
their band’s breakup. Still others used because heroin helped them
wind down after being on stage, or because it helped them deal with
the fact that they were “famous.” Heroin not only helps you “handle
things that come your way” (to paraphrase Keith Richards) but also,
at least according to how Richard Hell sees it, heroin reduces your
problems: “A person actually has fewer problems when addicted . . . in
that any problems are subsumed into the supreme problem of get-
ting enough drugs not to be sick that day.”192
Yet across subgenres, musician-users had primarily negative
things to say about the effects heroin had on their playing, creativ-
ity, and careers. The classic/hard rockers in the sample spoke about
how over time heroin “makes you feel horrible” and “fucks you up”
and about how life with heroin can become chaotic and music can
become secondary.
Punk musicians were more specific about the heroin negatives.
Some couldn’t rehearse or play without heroin, or were too high
on heroin to play, or passed out from heroin while on stage. Others
spoke of how heroin reduces productivity, how it leads to the dis-
integration and collapse of bands, and how management abandons
bands when it finds out that band members are using. There are also
the perils of being junk sick while on tour, and always running the
risk of overdosing after being clean for a while.
Other musician-users in the sample had strictly negative things
to say about how heroin impacted their music. Some thought that
heroin dampened their inspiration and creativity and ability to write
and play. One thought that heroin perturbed the dialogue within his
band, and another told of management problems because of band
member use.
Very few of the rock musicians in the sample had anything posi-
tive to say about the effect heroin had on their music. Keith Richards
thought heroin helped him concentrate and be more tenacious when
working on a song, which maybe helped him finish the song. John
Cale thought that heroin opened up communication between Lou
Reed and himself, which created the right attitude for the band.
Johnny Thunders thought he played great with heroin—although
he also thought he played great without it.193
* * *
98 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
Rock ’n’ roll was the basis of a youth subculture that fundamen-
tally was about rebellion against conventional society—the world of
one’s parents—that was seen as sterile and passionless.197 As Richard
Hell put it:
During the early years of rock ’n’ roll the figure of the “male rock
rebel” emerged.199 This was the free-spirited, alienated, sensitive
outsider, at the fringes of polite society, who had a defiant attitude
and effortless cool, who lived fast and died young. Three famous
mid-1950s films had central importance in providing the proto-
type and basic contours of the rock rebel.200 These were The Wild
One, starring Marlon Brando; Rebel Without a Cause, starring James
Dean; and Blackboard Jungle, in which the song “Rock around the
Clock”201 by Bill Haley & His Comets debuted. The song, which
became a rock ’n’ roll standard, helped bring rock ’n’ roll into the
mainstream, and was “guaranteed to arouse adolescents while stir-
ring revulsion in teachers, ministers, and parents.”202
The characters in these movies, especially Brando’s and Dean’s,
provided the new youth subculture with an enduring cultural mod-
el.203 This was all part of the cultural apparatus around which rebel-
lious rock and rollers molded their identities. And for the cool rebel
rock musician—heroin fit right in. What better drug to express
rebellion? Heroin was the ultimate rebellion. This was nothing
new—serious drug use, including heroin taking, “has been associ-
ated with the rebel image and with music-making since well before
the first bohemians walked the boulevards of Paris.”204
* * *
Like the new youth rock subculture that developed in the 1950s,
punk celebrated rebellion; as one writer put it, “rebellion is one of
the few undeniable characteristics of punk.”205 But punk took 1950s’
rebellion to another level. Punks hated conformity. They were antag-
onistic. They were about refusal, defiance, and contempt.206 In one
100 / heroin and music in new york city
Heroin may not have been New York punk’s main drug, but it
was definitely one of them. Many New York punks thought it was
cool to be a junkie. Since the punk subculture had a much stron-
ger element of rebellion than did the 1950s’ youth subculture, it is
hardly surprising that there may have been a stronger push toward
heroin in punk than in rock more generally or among rockers from
other subgenres.
The fact that there was less heroin use in hardcore punk in com-
parison to the protopunk and punk years of the 1960s and 1970s can
also be understood as a matter of subculture and identity. The con-
traction in heroin use was at least to some extent due to straightedge.
Straightedge subculture and identity was also about rebellion, but it
was rebellion without drugs; for rock musicians not to use drugs or
rock / 101
* * *
She [Nancy] convinced him that heroin was the way it should be.
To be a true star, you must mess about with dangerous drugs. So
he eventually bought the whole rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. He absolutely,
thoroughly believed the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed thing, that
whole approach to life, that drug commitment. It never occurred to
Sid that it was just an image, that they were not necessarily living it
themselves. Sid got into being a heroin addict as an observer. “Gee
whiz, there must be something good about it. All these great, deca-
dent New Yorkers.”216
Ch a p t e r Fou r
R&B
Since at least the early 1900s, New York has been a focal point for
music made by and aimed at the African American audience. By the
1920s, blues had a base in New York because optimal studio record-
ing conditions prevailed, and Bessie Smith, the greatest of all blues
singers, had made New York City home.
By the 1940s, records made by and for African Americans were
called “race records.” In 1945, Jerry Wexler, at the time a writer
for Billboard Magazine and later to become a music business titan,
coined the term R&B (rhythm and blues) as “more appropriate to
a more enlightened time.”1 R&B became the recognized term for
black pop music, and, over time, it has encompassed a variety of
related musical styles.
This chapter focuses on heroin abuse by New York musicians and
performers from the main R&B-derived styles: doo-wop, soul, funk,
disco and electronic dance music, and rap.2 Why did these individu-
als use heroin, and how did their use impact on their playing, cre-
ativity, and careers? I show that there were musicians and performers
who were users from all of these subgenres, with one exception: rap.
I examine why this might be the case, and also show that, despite the
lack of use, heroin clearly plays a role in New York rap music.
Doo-wop
Doo-wop—a vocal-based R&B style developed in African American
communities—achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and
early 1960s. During its heyday, there were literally hundreds of New
York–based doo-wop groups. Two New York City doo-wop per-
formers who sometimes shot heroin together (and who later became
rock stars) were Frankie Lymon and Dion DiMucci.
104 / heroin and music in new york city
The Ebony interviewer suggests that even after getting clean, one
reason Lymon was having trouble finding success as a solo performer
was that few people believed he would stay clean:
Promoters, night club and theatre owners, aware that few addicts
succeed in permanently shaking the monkey off their backs, are
openly reluctant to book an entertainer whose cravings may cause
him to miss performances.8
* * *
The more musicians and singers I met, the more I realized how
much smack was a part of the scene. We shared a gig with [Frankie
Lymon and the Teenagers] . . . He’d come down to the neighborhood
at night sometimes and the two of us would get a couple of dime
bags and do it up together. . . . We’d talk about music, trading licks,
and building castles in the air.13
In the early 1960s, after Dion and the Belmonts broke up, Dion
pursued a solo career, but his heroin addiction “forced him out of
the business for the next five years.”14 He eventually cleaned up in
the late 1960s, and has been performing since. He explained the
reasons for the Belmonts’ breakup in this way:
Soul
Doo-wop was an important antecedent to soul, which blended blues
and gospel music. Soul originated in the 1950s and was at its peak
in the 1960s. It is well known that Ray Charles, one of the fathers of
soul, was a user for a number of years in his youth. James Brown—
the other person most closely associated with soul’s beginnings—
wasn’t a user, but he did express his view of heroin in a song— “King
Heroin,” from 1972. (“ . . . the white horse of heroin will ride you to
hell!”)16 This was one of the songs Brown wrote addressing social
concerns, black pride, and community action, and for a period of
time the song made Brown a national antidrug spokesman.17
New York was one of soul’s centers. One member of the New
York scene was Sam Moore, originally from Miami and half of
probably the most successful soul duo of all time—Sam and Dave.
Moore’s heroin abuse, which began in the late 1960s and lasted until
the early 1980s, wiped him out financially. “Everything I ever had,
I shot up.”18 A main reason he used was that he
* * *
Rudy Lewis was a vocalist for the New York–based Drifters, one of
the most successful soul groups of all time. The group had formed
in the 1950s and had a number of hit records over the years with
different lead singers; Lewis was lead vocalist on “Up on the Roof”22
and “On Broadway.”23 Lewis would have sung lead on “Under the
Boardwalk,”24 an even bigger Drifters hit, had he not died on the
night before the recording session.25 He was found dead in his motel
room bed. It has never been clear exactly how he died, as no autopsy
was done. Some accounts say the cause was a heroin overdose, as he
had been a user since his late teens and he was found with a needle
in his arm;26 or it may have been a heart attack, or, as a binge eater,
he may have choked to death in his sleep (or as one Drifter put it:
“asphyxiation after a particularly large supper”).27
Funk
The sounds of funk began emerging in the early 1960s. This R&B
subgenre had clear roots in soul (and also in jazz, blues, and gospel
music). New York was the main base for funk music, and the music
endures to this day; rap artists, for example, regularly sample funk
tunes.
New York had its share of funk musicians who were heroin abus-
ers. Perhaps the most well known is Dr. John, who was born and
raised in New Orleans but who has lived in New York City since the
mid-1970s. The funk pianist, a user for well over 30 years, kicked
heroin in the 1990s. In his autobiography he recalled when he first
started using:
* * *
left my penthouse on the Upper West Side and found myself out of
my mind . . . After I left the building—bam! It was as if the whole
city smacked me in the face. The noise, the people-people-people,
the light, the busy-busy, the light, that crazy New York energy, the
r&b / 109
* * *
I was walking towards the Sugar Shack, and George was coming up
the street. He started telling me the problem he was having. He says
to me, “Yeah, Sam, I don’t know what the hell’s happenin’ with these
guys, they’re fuckin’ up. They gettin’ high, man, they ain’t making
the shows on time.”36
prior to ’59, somebody had come through there with real dope. The
Man with the Golden Arm cured me of ever thinking about heroin as
being recreation. Even with all the acid and the stuff we were taking,
heroin or angel dust never appealed to me at all.37
* * *
To summarize thus far: we saw in chapter one that in the 1960s and
1970s, heroin became a huge problem in New York, especially among
youth from the city’s ghetto neighborhoods; Harlem became one of
the city’s largest heroin marketplaces. In this user subculture, heroin
was a route to gaining street status and becoming a “somebody,” and
the addict identity was a favored one. Some of these youth undoubt-
edly became doo-wop, soul, and funk musicians and performers, as
these were also the years that these forms of R&B music were most
popular.
Some white New York–based R&B heroin users—such as Dion
and Dr. John—also first used in their teens and even earlier, before
they got to into R&B music. For Dion, using heroin was about feel-
ing courage, freedom, and confidence. For Dr. John, heroin was
attractive because famous musicians he’d heard of were users, and
using was a way for him to turn away from parental control.
Other New York–based R&B performer-users began to use only
after they found success in the music business. Chaka Khan started
using as her band Rufus was breaking apart. Sam Moore felt that his
first use was related to his feelings about success and being respected
by his peers.
By and large, heroin had a negative impact on the careers of New
York–based doo-woppers and soul and funk performers who were
users. Even after he got clean, few thought Frankie Lymon could stay
clean, which had the effect of reducing his opportunities to perform.
Dion thought that heroin enhanced his stage performance, but at
the same time it was a factor in the breakup of the Belmonts, and it
put his career on hold for a number of years. Sam Moore thought
that at some point heroin started to run his life, and, like Dion, his
career was set back because of his use. Dr. John thought that heroin
didn’t affect his playing, but life became miserable because he and
his user-musician pals were constantly being hassled by the police.
r&b / 111
Nicky would be in the booth, and you would see him going into
one of these deep, deep nods. Then you would hear a little crash on
the floor, which was the sound of Nicky falling. The record would
be down to the last grooves, and somehow or other he would force
himself up, reach for a record, and mix it in flawlessly . . . Then he’d
manipulate the treble and bass controls and the whole crowd would
go, “aaagggghhhh!” [Other DJs] would all sit in the booth taking
notes, waiting for Nicky to pass out so they could jump over him to
get to those turntables.47
His heroin problem was worse, his spinning had grown more erratic,
and it became increasingly difficult to find gigs. Many people began
to notice that Larry was losing touch with his crowd, something that
often happens when a DJ is too high to really connect with what’s
happening on the dance floor.50
* * *
Rap
While funk and disco were “catalysts in the developmental stages
of rap,”54 rap “had roots in black popular music as far back as you
were willing to stretch them.”55 Rap first emerged in the Bronx in
114 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
Drugs have been an integral part of New York City rap ever since
the beginning. Marijuana has dominated the scene. An untold
number of New York rappers have proclaimed their love of the
drug in their songs, going back at least to the early 1990s with
Redman’s “How to Roll a Blunt” (“ . . . first you get a fat bag of
ism . . . [then] purchase a Philly, not the city of Philly silly punk,
I’m talking ’bout the shit called the Philly blunt”).62 Songs like
these continued through the years, for example, Busta Rhymes’
“Get High Tonight” (1997);63 50 Cent’s “High All the Time”
(2003);64 Styles P’s “Blow Ya Mind” (2007);65 and ASAP Rocky’s
“Roll One Up” (2011).66
New York rap and cocaine (both powder and crack) have been
linked in a variety of ways over the years. To begin with, a num-
ber of New York rappers—including the rap pioneers Kool Herc,
Grandmaster Flash, and Flavor Flav—have gotten seriously caught
up in using the drug,.
r&b / 115
My father had died, my music was declining and things were chang-
ing. I couldn’t cope, so I started medicating. I thought I could han-
dle it, but it was bigger than I was.68
Flavor Flav, the “hype man” (the backup rapper/singer who “hypes
up” the crowd) from Long Island’s Public Enemy, was a crack user
for over ten years:
* * *
116 / heroin and music in new york city
50 Cent was on the streets selling crack at about the same age.
Some of his family was immersed in the crack trade, including
his mother, who was also a user and who was murdered when he
was eight. In a recent documentary about the War on Drugs—
How to Make Money Selling Drugs—he details how his mother’s
dealer friends supported him as a young boy and brought him
into the drug business.79 Mainly he sold “nicks”—$5 vials of
crack.80
I hit the streets for the same reason a lot of other kids do: I wanted
money and excitement and loved the idea of cutting myself loose
from the rules and low ceilings of the straight world.83
r&b / 117
Jay-Z said he felt that getting into crack dealing was “natural . . . It
was normal. And at some point, you become addicted to the feel-
ing. The uncertainty and adrenaline and danger of that lifestyle.”84
Over time, Jay-Z expanded beyond his Brooklyn neighborhood and
“entered the rap game with hundreds of thousands of dollars.”85
* * *
Not surprisingly, cocaine has also been a central subject in New York
rap songs almost from the beginning of rap. One of the first cocaine
songs was 1983’s “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”86 by Melle Mel, who
had been the lead rapper and main songwriter for Grandmaster
Flash and the Furious Five until their breakup. Based on the song’s
title and lyrics, for example, “Either up your nose or through your
vein . . . with nothin to gain except killin your brain,” it’s easy to
think the song is anti-cocaine. Yet the song apparently was writ-
ten as a celebration of the drug, and the “don’t do it” message was
added for commercial reasons.87 According to Melle Mel, during the
recording, “everybody was high and coked out.”88
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the height of the crack era in
the city, a number of New York rappers released songs with strong
anti-crack messages. Two examples were Public Enemy’s “Night of
the Living Baseheads” from 1988 and De La Soul’s “My Brother’s
a Basehead” from 1991. In the former, rapper Chuck D belittles a
basehead,89 who “ . . . stayed all day in his jeep. And at night he went
to sleep. And in the mornin’ all he had was sneakers on his feet.”90 In
the De La Soul song, rapper Pos refers to baseheads as “the lowest of
lowest of all elements that exist,” and the fact that his brother was a
user now meant that, “ . . . from me you lost all respect. Said yo need
to put that shit in check.”91
The next generation of New York rappers took a different stance
toward cocaine in their music. Beginning in the mid-1990s, crack dealing
came to be celebrated in song. As might be expected, given their dealing
backgrounds, B.I.G., 50 Cent, and Jay-Z, all had songs about deal-
ing crack. For example, 1997 saw B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments”
(“I been in this game for years, it made me an animal, there’s rules to this
shit, I made me a manual”).92 Six years later, 50 Cent released “Blood
Hound” (“I love to pump crack, love to stay strapped . . . ”).93
118 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
The connection between heroin and New York rap is much differ-
ent from the cocaine–rap connection. While clearly there were New
York rappers who used cocaine/crack, I was not able to identify a
single New York rapper who was a self-acknowledged heroin user.
This makes sense in light of what I noted earlier (chapter two)—
that among African American males who grew up in New York
in the 1980s and 1990s, heroin use had a terrible image. Many of
these youth had intimate experience with the variety of problems
that afflicted older family members and relatives as a result of their
involvement with heroin. Given the AIDS epidemic and the War on
Drugs, these youth stayed away from the drug.97
New York rappers from this generation gave voice to this view
of heroin. According to 50 Cent, “All I’ve ever seen it [heroin] do is
make people nod off like walking zombies.”98 Jay-Z saw heroin users
as weak and dependent, the type of people who could never be suc-
cessful in the dealing game: “Weakness and dependence made you
a mark, like a dope fiend. Success could only mean self sufficiency,
being a boss, not a dependent.”99 He remembers as a youngster in
the 1970s: “Heroin was still heavy in the hood, so we would dare one
another to push a leaning nodder off a bench the way kids on farms
tip sleeping cows.”100
Flavor Fav used plenty of cocaine but would not use heroin. A
main reason was that his father was a user:
getting locked up for it, too. It wasn’t just him doing it, either. A lot
of his friends were dope addicts. That was the thing, then, just like
crack was the thing in the 1990s.101
One man had a huge swollen leg covered with sores and pus from
poking himself with needles. Nasty. Another guy had a huge, swollen
arm and no fingers except his thumb and his pinkie. They called him
“the human claw.” In another room, a lady was shooting dope into
her veins in her neck, tapping a syringe that was sticking out of the
side of her head . . . I gotta tell you folks, I don’t scare easy, but that
experience really marked me for life, naw’mean? I was really, really
scared. I knew I didn’t want to have anything to do with a needle.102
There were times when I was around people who stuck themselves
with a needle and never woke up. The next time I saw them, they
were in a suit, in a coffin. I’ve seen too many of my friends overdose
on heroin.103
* * *
New York rappers, by and large, grew up in the crack cocaine gen-
eration, which came after the heroin generation of the 1960s and
1970s. If they dealt drugs as youth, it’s much more likely they would
be dealing crack, not heroin. The heroin trade was never far away,
but, for these youth, heroin was in the background.
There was some heroin dealing, however. 50 Cent’s small-scale
dealing operation in southeast Queens was basically just him and a
friend selling crack, but they also sold a little heroin.104 Heroin had
been part of the drug scene there starting in the mid-1970s, when
drug distribution networks controlled by Mafia families flooded the
neighborhood with heroin, and it was still part of the scene when 50
Cent was growing up there.105
* * *
120 / heroin and music in new york city
Despite the lack of use and minimal dealing by New York rappers,
heroin has been pervasive in New York rap songs, going back to the
very beginnings of the subgenre. In the years just before rap and when
rap was starting to emerge, “Spoken Word” was popular in the black
community. This art form, with roots in poetry from the Harlem
Renaissance of the 1920s, was basically a word-based performance,
sometimes with music. These performers’ “raps,” which typically
spoke to the need for radical action in the black community and in the
nation as a whole, included those clearly condemning heroin. Two of
the most prominent New York–based Spoken Word performers with
these types of songs were the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron.
The Last Poets—a changing group of New York area poets and
musicians formed in the late 1960s who are still around—were
among the most militant of the Spoken Word artists of that era.106
They had at least two songs that portrayed heroin users as lamentable
people: 1970’s “Jones Comin’ Down,” which follows the thoughts of
a user as he prepares to score (“Day break, got the shakes, nose run-
nin’, feelin’ bad, pawn my brother’s do rag, to cop me a transparent
thin bag”);107 and “OD,” from 1971 (“ . . . pulled out the tiny trans-
parent bag, the one filled with the chalk white powder the junkies
call scag, he sighed as he hit the big vein in his arm”).108
Scott-Heron, frequently called the “godfather of rap,” “estab-
lished much of the attitude and the stylistic vocabulary that would
characterize the socially conscious work of early rap groups like
Public Enemy.”109 While in his later years he “struggled publicly”
with crack cocaine,110 in the early 1970s Scott-Heron recorded songs
that maligned heroin use: “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” from
1971 (“Home is where I live inside my white powder dreams, home
was once an empty vacuum that’s filled now with my silent screams,
home is where the needle marks try to heal my broken heart”);111
and “Lady Day and John Coltrane,” also from 1971 (“Ever felt that
somehow, somewhere you lost your way? And if you don’t get help
you won’t make it through the day. You could call on Lady Day! You
could call on John Coltrane! They’ll wash your troubles away”).112
Over the years, as rap as a music style developed, various New
York City rappers wrote songs in which heroin was either the
main subject or, more typically, was referenced. Occasionally, a
song would damn the drug, for example, the Beastie Boys’s “The
Negotiation Limerick File,” from 1997 (“Don’t let me begin about
r&b / 121
heroin, living six feet deep just ain’t the move”).113 More frequently,
however, songs glamorized heroin and portrayed it in an almost
reverential way.
Cam’ron, a Harlem rapper who founded the group the Diplomats
in the late 1990s with his childhood friend Jim Jones, has recorded
a number of songs that mention heroin, for example, 2000’s “Losin
Weight” (“Her mom died, heroin overdose stuffed her wrist”);114
and from 2009, “Cookin Up” (“They bitin’ like Tyson, worse than
that Dracula, your Mom’s buy heroin, with no hands I’m smack-
ing her”).115 But in one song—2010’s “Child of the Ghetto”—he
comes close to venerating the drug (“Stand in the lobby, Cam and
his posse, steak and cheese sandwich from Heaugies, they come to
heroin, the biggest of Dons”).116
50 Cent’s “A Baltimore Love Thing,” from 2005, is a bit more
complicated. The song refers to the heroin problem in a city that in
recent years has had very high per capita rates of use, once earning
the title, “heroin capital of America.” The song is also about a love
relationship with a girl that could be understood as similar to a rela-
tionship that someone could have with heroin. Equally interesting
is that the song seems to be written from the point of view of the
drug, that is, as if 50 Cent were heroin and heroin were telling the
story (“Girl, I’m missin’ you, come and see me soon, tie your arm
up, put that lighter under that spoon, now put that needle to ya arm
princess, stick it in”).117
Jay-Z has recorded a number of songs that reference heroin and
put the drug in a very positive street light. In 2006 alone he released
“Lost One” (“fame is the worst drug known to man, it’s stronger
than heroin”)118 and “Hollywood” (“Don’t lie, go on fly, you’re
addicted to the lights, without the fame, how you gonna survive? It’s
like livin on heroin, you so high”).119
In the following year, Jay-Z released his American Gangster con-
cept album, inspired by the movie of the same name starring Denzel
Washington as Frank Lucas, a top heroin dealer in Harlem in the
early 1970s.120 The movie depicts the Lucas character as an under-
world Horatio Alger and an innovator, and Jay-Z could relate:
As soon as the movie came on, it was like familiar, things that my
pop seen and my uncles seen and you know, different things like
that, things I’ve seen growing up.121
122 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
Recently, New York rappers have been producing songs that speak
to “purple drank” or “lean,” an opiate-based concoction popu-
lar mainly among rappers from the South. This is a mixture of a
prescription-strength cough syrup containing codeine, with a soft
drink (often Sprite); sometimes a Jolly Rancher candy is added for
flavor. ASAP Rocky lauds the brew in his 2011 single “Purple Swag”:
“Purple swag, purple swag, I’m in the zone, I’m getting throwed.”128
Other New York rappers have referenced “purple” in their songs,
for example, 50 Cent in “Happy New Year,” from a 2011 mixtape:
“Codeine in my cup, look I don’t give a fuck.”129
r&b / 123
Early New York dealer role models included “Superfly,” from the
1972 “blaxploitation” film of the same name. The main character is
a big-time Harlem drug dealer, who “has all the material possessions
he wants”:133
Many gangsta rappers leave the drug game and enter the music
game, where they don’t have to worry about cops or jail. In the music
hustle, they can get rich quickly, be famous, and have all the women,
just for speaking their minds on an album. In other words, they real-
ized that rap music was the new hustle.140
* * *
For rappers, it’s all about being king of the streets. And in the street
subculture, the image of the successful heroin dealer as hustler
remains strong. The status and respect and street credibility that a
successful crack dealer might have gotten could also be earned from
being good at dealing heroin (even though few New York rappers
may have actually ever sold the drug). The successful heroin dealer
shouldn’t use the drug, because use is seen as a sign of weakness and
you can’t be a successful hustler if you are not seen as strong and in
control.
One way to grasp the stature that heroin has in the street culture
of New York rap is to think about slang. “Dope” has been a common
street slang for heroin for years. But in the rap subculture, dope has
126 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
James Taylor’s career as a folk musician, and his heroin use, began
when he moved to the Village in the mid-1960s. In March 1971, he
was on the cover of Time magazine, touted as the originator of the
“singer/songwriter era”—“the first self-professed heroin addict ever
to appear on the cover of Time.”16
Taylor, who cleaned up in the early 1980s, has talked extensively
about his heroin use. As for when he first started using,
I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get
a drink17 . . . The places I was living, the people I was spending time
with—everybody was experimenting with everything all the time.
So it was just a matter of time18 . . . Drugs were always around. Being
folk music / 129
a musician and working late hours in a lot of bars, you’re going to see
a lot of drugs consumed. It started out recreationally, the rule rather
than the exception. At least where I was.19
Heroin, it deadens your senses. You don’t think. You take all your
problems and trade them in for one problem . . . A lot of creative
energy comes out of a very painful place.23
Taylor wrote at least two songs about his use. “Fire and Rain,”24
from Taylor’s second album, was partly about his efforts to kick her-
oin in England before returning to the United States:
“Another Day,”25 from 1997, took him “13 years to finish . . . [it’s]
about experiencing withdrawal and making it to morning, when the
sun comes out and you believe in the fact of yet another day.”26
“Rainy Day Man,”27 from Taylor’s first album, is commonly
thought to be about heroin:
I’ve heard people suggest that the Rainy Day Man is a heroin dealer,
and that’s a good call. That would be a reasonable interpretation of
it, and certainly at the time I was dabbling. But I didn’t really have
130 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
The Mamas and the Papas are remembered as one of the great
California folk rock bands from the late 1960s. But the band mem-
bers were products of and found each other through the Greenwich
Village folk scene.29 The Village became somewhat hostile to folk
artists who embraced the electric guitar and other rock trappings,30
and in the mid-1960s Los Angeles and its surroundings became a
haven for emerging folk rock musicians, including those who formed
the Mamas and the Papas.
Two band members—John Phillips and Cass Elliot—were users.
Phillips got addicted to heroin in the mid-1970s, when a heroin-us-
ing musician friend moved into his apartment in London, where he
had been temporarily living. Phillips thought this was a particularly
vulnerable time for him: “I had been so depressed. I was turning 40,
and I felt a lot of pressure about my work and age.”31
Phillips said that for two years he was shooting up heroin (and
coke) every fifteen minutes.32 During this time he had attempted
to record his “comeback album” with Keith Richards, but it didn’t
work out, and he understood he had no one to blame but himself: “I
had sabotaged the greatest break of my career since the Mamas and
the Papas.”33
According to her biographer, Cass Elliot was “never quite so zeal-
ous in her embrace of drugs as John,”34 but she was clearly a heroin
user. According to David Crosby, “We did heroin together a lot.”35
Yet another friend thought that
Cass wasn’t an addict. She was not somebody who had a dependency
that she had to service every day . . . She was too powerful and had
too much class and too much sense of her duties to have given in
that way. She might have missed a rehearsal or she might have been
late or frustrated people because she wouldn’t do exactly what they
expected her to do, but I don’t think that she was, in my recollection,
ever incapacitated.36
Once though, after her first Las Vegas show, Elliot told her boyfriend
folk music / 131
that she had indeed shot up with heroin before going onstage and
those with her at the time had little doubt that this was what had
happened. Missed cues, fluffed whatever lines she had managed to
learn, and forgot lyrics.37
* * *
Bob Dylan is the biggest star to have emerged from the Village folk
scene of the 1950s and 1960s. His early repertoire was almost exclu-
sively folk.38 Dylan lived in the Village from 1961 to 1964; in his
view, New York City was “cold, muffled, and mysterious, the capital
of the world.”39
For years there have been claims and rumors that Dylan had been
a heroin user. Many “Dylanologists”—superfans who are passionate
about Dylan and especially his lyrics—are convinced he was a user,
citing a variety of clues, such as,
I kicked a heroin habit in New York City. I got very, very strung out for a
while, I mean really, very strung out. And I kicked the habit. I had about
a $25-a-day habit [roughly $200/day currently] and I kicked it.45
A fair question to ask, however, is: Was Dylan telling the truth
here? It is well known that Dylan has had a contentious relationship
with the press and has not always been forthcoming in interviews.
In fact, as one music journalist put it: “Dylan has been telling jour-
nalists wild lies about his past since the earliest days of his career.
He was particularly prone to fabricating stories in the mid-Sixties.”46
This journalist then goes on to note that in another 1966 interview
with Shelton:
* * *
After his Greenwich Village years, Dylan moved with his family to
Woodstock, about two hours north of the city in the Catskill moun-
tains, a community that “has long been home to artists, writers,
and composers escaping the stress and congestion of urban life.”48
Here, Dylan worked with The Band, the Canadian-American rock
group. They backed Dylan on tour and they recorded together and
collaborated over the years.
Band drummer Levon Helm was a user. Helm recalled that in
the late 1960s,
folk music / 133
heroin came into the scene around then. We got into it because
it was there, and it was free. People were always wanting to do us
favors, turn us on, and some of the people we liked to hang around
with were doing it, so it came our way—no charge.49
Being a musician, you couldn’t avoid it . . . I’m here to tell you that it’s
a crying shame to see what success can do to some people. I’m sure it
wasn’t the best thing that could have happened to the band.50
Helm has also spoken about how his consumption changed once
he started using:
It was more of a shared thing back then, but of course after you use a
little of it, you start to want all you can get. Later I started to main-
line heroin, and that experience would last a couple of years. Once
I got into it, it took me a little while to get a handle on myself, and
eventually I did.51
Rick Danko, The Band’s bassist, was also a user, especially later
in life.52 In 1996, while touring Japan, Danko was arrested and sub-
sequently found guilty of receiving a package of heroin mailed to
him by his wife from the United States.53 (He received a suspended
sentence and so didn’t go to prison.) Danko said he had asked his
wife by telephone to send him some “medication,” presuming she
would understand he meant codeine, for which he had a prescrip-
tion, and that he was “just very surprised that she did something
that stupid.”54 When the judge in the case urged Danko to follow
through on a promise he made at his initial court session to seek
professional help for his heroin habit, Danko replied: “I’ve been drug
free for three months, so that’s a start.”55
* * *
Most heroin abusers from the Village revival scene were a lot less
well known to the general public than were Taylor or Dylan or The
Band. Tim Hardin, for example, composed two famous songs—“If
I Were a Carpenter”56 and “Reason to Believe”57—but he had only a
cult following, and none of his albums sold well. Hardin first started
134 / heroin and music in new york city
I never even thought about stopping. First time I got off on smack
I said, out loud, “Why can’t I feel like this all the time?” So I pro-
ceeded to feel like that all the time.60
In Hardin’s wife Susan’s view, the song title references the fact that
heroin has often been sold in balloons, which can be swallowed
quickly if the need arose. The “blue surprise” speaks to the adverse
effects of heroin, one of which is that a man who uses it may not
be emotionally available for a woman (“it took a lovelight from
eyes”).63
According to one music website, heroin didn’t seem to help
Hardin’s career very much:
* * *
Bob Gibson was even less well known than Tim Hardin, but he
was an influential and active Village folkie, a New York City–born
singer-songwriter who “in the early 1960s was working pretty often
folk music / 135
I used heroin for about two years in what I thought was a sensi-
ble, discriminating manner. It gave me control of my emotions, I
thought. I ceased to deal with any kind of emotional factors in my
life. I tried to handle them chemically instead.67
But heroin had a serious downside for Gibson and his career:
* * *
David Blue was also little known to the public despite being active in
the Village folk scene. At one point Blue felt that he
just totally wanted to get off this planet and not have to face any-
thing . . . I never took drugs to heighten my awareness but rather to
cut it off completely and obliterate reality . . . Heroin was the absolute
bottom because it’s like a total anti-life drug. It was just like death
and that’s where I wanted to be. Luckily, I found out I was wrong.70
Years after he had cleaned up, Blue reflected on his use in an album
that “was about smack and loneliness and suicide and pain.”71 Two
tracks particularly spoke of life with heroin: “House of Changing
Faces”72 and “Come on John.”73 In the first, Blue acknowledges that,
“I still have the tracks to remind me what life was like, high and
wasted, when I wanted to die.” The second is about Blue’s “friend”
136 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
But many others just saw the downside of heroin for Neil. He was
notorious for his junkie behavior. For example, according to record
executive Jac Holzman,
We’d book recording sessions and he’d show up or not show up. I
mean, here’s a guy who wrote “Candy Man” and the day he finished
writing it he went to the Brill Building and sold it to about twenty
different publishers for fifty bucks each.80
folk music / 137
ran into him up at our manager’s house. Herbie Cohen had said,
“Judy, you’re such an up person, and you love his music so much, you
should really give Fred a talk about getting clean, because he’d be a
lot better off.” I started talking to him about how he should give up
heroin. I must have talked for five hours and he didn’t say a single
word. He would stare straight ahead and go “uh huh, uh huh.” When
I finally finished I said, “Well, whaddya think Fred?” He just looked
at me and said, “Yeah, but do you know any place I could score?”81
* * *
Like Fred Neil, Karen Dalton, a Village-based folk singer and banjo
player, was clearly a user who evidently never talked about her use
publicly. Unlike Neil, however, Dalton was virtually unknown to
the public. Despite her talent—she has been described as “the best
singer you’ve never heard of” and “folk music’s answer to Billie
Holiday”82 —Dalton didn’t find much success in the music business
and was never more than a cult favorite. As one journalist put it,
Dalton was “self destructive”:
She called me up after that and she said: “I guess it’s been three
weeks. It’s taken me this long to call and say I guess I oughtta thank
you for something.” She was furious at me for bringing her back.84
By the early 1990s, Dalton was living on the New York City
streets. The same folksinger friend recalled:
Whenever I performed there she would show up. She didn’t look too
bad. She had an odor and her teeth were awful, but she was a very
138 / heroin and music in new york city
Dalton died in 1993. How she died remains muddled. One jour-
nalist described Dalton’s last days as “living on the New York streets,
destitute, her health gone.”86 According to a musician and producer
who knew her,
Some said it was a drug overdose . . . But from what I understand, she
ran out of steam.87
* * *
In addition to those folk singers from the Village revival scene who
were users who wrote and sang songs about heroin, there were also
folk singers from the scene who were not users but who had songs
about heroin and other opiates. For the most part, these songs had
very little good to say about these drugs.
Richard and Mimi Fariña, the husband-and-wife duo, were two
such singers. Richard, who died in 1966 in a motorcycle accident
shortly after the duo’s second album was released, is known to the
public primarily for his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up
to Me,88 which was published just before his death.89 He wrote, and
the Fariñas recorded, “Mainline Prosperity Blues,” in large measure
a put-down of the heroin user’s work ethic:
Dave Van Ronk, also never a user, covered the 1920s’ classic
“Willie the Weeper,” which is about an opium addict who dreams of
folk music / 139
being a sailor. The song refers to smoking “pills,” which, during the
early 1900s, was common drug vernacular for opium:
* * *
Folk singer Peggy Seeger (part of the Seeger extended musical family
and Pete’s half-sister) was not part of the Village revival scene (she
was living in the UK during those years) nor was she a heroin user,
but she certainly merits mention here because she was the first to
record “Take Me in Your Arms (Miss Heroin).”
a pot band more than anything else. I would certainly never take
heroin, for instance. When my friend Janis Joplin died, I vowed to
140 / heroin and music in new york city
Yeah I used to get strung out once in a while but you know it hap-
pens to the best of us, at least I didn’t kill my damn fool self.101
Weber and [another friend] had hustled all the time to get heroin,
they would make their own needles out of basketball needles, they
would file down a basketball needle and put it on an eyedropper. It
was expensive, getting hustled and having to hustle back.102
With the group Junk Hog, Weber recorded “Lonely Junkie,” also
written (actually cowritten) by Stampfel, in which Weber makes it
clear that, for him, heroin is definitely a top priority:
folk music / 141
* * *
Before creating the Fugs, both Sanders and Kupferberg had been
Beat poets. The Beats were a cultural and literary movement that
emerged in the late 1940s, and the East Village was their home base
on the east coast. While the Beats’ preferred music was, and always
had been, jazz,106 the Beats were without a doubt an influence on
the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. There were
clear connections and “some surprising overlap”107 between the Beat
and folk music scenes.
Historian Sean Wilentz has documented the relationship
between these two scenes. He notes that the origins of the Beat
impulse, like those of the folk revival, dated back to the Depression-
era Left,108 and that “the major Beat writers began to forge their
friendships and find their literary voices in the same 1940s America
that produced the Almanac Singers.”109 Wilentz examines at length
the relationship between Bob Dylan and the principal Beat poet
Allen Ginsberg, who “became friends and maintained personal and
artistic connections for well over 30 years, until Ginsberg died in
1997.”110
Drug-wise, marijuana was the Beats’ favorite drug.111 Aside
from marijuana, the Beats “experimented with a variety of drugs in
addition to being serious drinkers, and morphine and heroin were
part of the mix.”112 Interviews conducted with New York Beats by
sociologist Ned Polsky in 1960 found that drugs were a pervasive
part of Beat life, and that about one in ten Beats was a heroin
user.113
Ginsberg experimented with a wide variety of drugs, including
heroin, but not to the point of addiction.114 Smoking opium “turned
out to be the supreme junk delight for him.”115 Probably his most
famous line of poetry, though, was about heroin. It’s the very first
line from 1956’s “Howl”— one of the most widely read poems of the
twentieth century: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed
by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through
the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.”116
142 / heroin and music in new york city
You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong moti-
vations in any other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a
matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score.
I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar
experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can
remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. You don’t
decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re
an addict.120
Under morphine one can edit, type, and organize material effec-
tively but since the drug acts to decrease awareness the creative factor
is dimmed. Junkie is the only one of my books written under the
folk music / 143
influence of opiates. The other books could never have been written
if I had been addicted to morphine at the time.125
for the next thirty five years followed a pattern in which fewer and
fewer poems were written and his prolific letter writing habit slowed
to a trickle. As time passed he alienated more and more of his friends
and his days were spent in the pursuit and use of drugs.126
I had just married when I began with the drug, not knowing that
I’d be addicted to it. Thus after awhile, down went my marriage and
down went my muse, and still I could not understand why I con-
tinued to take the drug or why in the first place. All I know is that
I would be deathly ill without it. I managed to stop when the baby
came, and thank God I never ventured to hook my wife (most do so
thus to keep their wives). But I was far from well.127
* * *
All the folk musician-users in the sample were from the 1950s/1960s’
folk revival period. I was not able to identify any folk musician–users
from the generation before the revival years or from the generation
since those years. Why might this be the case—why was heroin an
issue for musicians in the 1950s/1960s’ revival period but not before
or since?
We’ve seen that heroin has been readily available in New York for
most of the almost 70 years since World War II ended—especially
for musicians. Both Ed Sanders and Dave Van Ronk spoke about
how widespread heroin use was generally in downtown New York
City during the revival years; James Taylor recalled how easy it was
for him to find heroin in Greenwich Village during the years he
lived there. Heroin was there, and some musicians used it.
But understanding heroin use by a musician in the revival subcul-
ture requires going beyond the simple issue of availability. We need
to consider the influence of other subcultures on the folk music sub-
culture. During the revival years, pro-heroin use values and attitudes
from outside folk music are likely to have impacted some musician
identities and to have been a factor in their use of heroin.
One influence was the Beats. There were varied connections
between the Beats and the New York folk music scene of the 1950s
and 1960s. The Beats were a very dissident subculture. They wanted
to distance themselves as much as possible from mainstream America.
They felt revulsion for the status quo, a disdain for consumerist
materialism, and they railed against the prudery of their parents’
generation. Not surprisingly, then, it was a subculture in which drug
use generally was endorsed and considered normal behavior. Heroin
was used by many Beats, including at least two of its literary stars.
Given the interaction between these subcultures, the values and atti-
tudes about heroin held by the Beats may very well have influenced
some musicians from the revival folk scene to use the drug.
A second likely influence was the New Left. American folk music
had been connected to the political Left for decades. An earlier gen-
eration of leftists was concerned in large measure with trade unions
and labor rights, and many folk singers from this generation wrote
folk music / 145
and performed songs that conveyed a leftist message and that were
linked to the labor movement. Woodie Guthrie was undoubtedly
against the rich and on the side of the average working person. Pete
Seeger is famous for his activism and was on the front lines of a vari-
ety of social justice crusades starting in the 1930s. Based on his work
with the Almanac Singers—the first organized group to attempt to
use folk music as a vehicle for social change128 —Seeger helped found
“People’s Songs,” compiling a huge library of labor songs and spear-
heading a variety of pro-labor activity.129
Folk music’s left-wing connotation was “strong enough that it
became a target of the anti-communist witch hunt.”130 Beginning
in the 1940s, folksingers were routinely investigated and harassed
by the FBI and other governmental agencies. Congressional hear-
ings were held and a number of folksingers, including Seeger, were
questioned by the notorious House Committee on Un-American
Activities (HUAC). During these McCarthy years, Seeger and
a number of other well-known folk singers and entertainers were
“blacklisted” and had their careers damaged because they were
blocked from singing on TV and radio, from performance, and they
lost recording contracts.131
The New Left of the 1960s was different, focusing less on labor
issues and more on civil rights and antiwar issues. As Dave Van Ronk
put it: “The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War profoundly
changed the political atmosphere, and pulled a lot of people to the
left.”132 Numerous New York folk musicians wrote protest songs linked
to these movements. Protest songs made Bob Dylan famous, and he
helped this music reach a mass audience. The Fugs, too, were “fero-
ciously political . . . utilizing music and performance as the most potent
means of pushing their message ahead . . . the Fugs were at the forefront
of the civil rights movement as it bled into the antiwar protests.”133
The New Left was part of the larger 1960s youth counterculture.
As such, the climate was a very permissive one when it came to drug
use. At the time, drugs and radical politics often went hand in hand.
For many of the New Left, taking drugs was a way of saying “No!” to
authority, of bucking the status quo. Sometimes the drug use included
heroin. Given the relationship between folk music and the Left, such
pro-drug attitudes and behaviors are likely to have been an influence
on some folk musicians of the revival era deciding to use heroin.
* * *
146 / heroin and music in new york city
The main reason there were no heroin users from the earlier gen-
eration of folk musicians is undoubtedly the lack of availability
of the drug during that era. I noted in chapter one that heroin
was not easy to obtain during the 1920s, 1930s, and the early
1940s, and especially during the World War II years.134 These were
roughly the same years as the era of this earlier generation of folk
musicians.
In fact, I found no evidence that these musicians did anything
more than drink. Pete Seeger, for one, “kept his distance from
marijuana.”135 His view of heroin was reflected in his reaction to
discovering that a young folk singer from the revival generation he
admired was using heroin:
I felt sick at heart, almost like weeping. This guy was talented. Now
his career will be like the brief flare of a match instead of a fine
hearth fire which could have warmed us all, for years.136
It’s likely that another reason why there was no heroin use among
musicians from this earlier era is that this folk subculture was not
influenced by other subcultures existing during those times that had
values and attitudes supportive of drug use in general or heroin use
in particular. The Beats were essentially a post–World War II move-
ment, the political Left in those years was not connected to a pro-
drug youth subculture, and there were no similar subcultures existent
at the time. Thus, there were no subcultural supports for heroin use
for this generation of folk musicians. There was little or nothing in
their worldview that might lead them to consider using heroin.
* * *
In chapter one, I noted that since the folk music revival of the 1950s
and 1960s, folk music in New York City evolved to encompass a
broad range of artists and subgenres. One of the major folk scenes
in the city is Anti-folk, which began to develop in the East Village
in the 1980s, and since the early 1990s has been based around the
Sidewalk Café there. These younger songwriters and performers
were of a different mind than folkies from earlier generations. They
did not buy into the past traditions of folk music and took an edgier,
more rebellious approach to the music. For those of this generation,
as Jeffrey Lewis, a staple of the New York Anti-folk scene, once put
folk music / 147
it: “The past glory of the ’60s folk clubs had degenerated into tourist-
trap nostalgia joints.”137
As for the drug use of New York Anti-folk musicians (and also
New York folkies from other contemporary subgenres such as Indie
folk or Americana), a reasonable assessment—based on the limited
literature that exists, including song lyrics—would be that while
many of these musicians are definitely no strangers to drug use,
heroin does not appear to have much of a role in this scene. At most,
heroin seems to come up just in the occasional song reference, for
example, Lewis’s “Everyone’s Honest,” about a friend who had been
a user:
* * *
a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.147
The outlaw theme may very well have played a role in the heroin
use of some revival folk musicians. Outlaws are risk takers, they live
dangerously, and, as we’ve seen, using heroin can be very danger-
ous. Any member of a subculture in which heroin use is supported
or encouraged who might see himself and adopt an identity as an
outlaw might be inclined to use if the drug is available. Using heroin
is a sure sign of outlaw cool.
This theme doesn’t seem to have much of a presence in the cur-
rent folk scene. The newer generation of folk singers apparently is
less enamored of the outlaw, which is understandable, given their
150 / heroin and music in new york city
stance toward the old folk music traditions. These folkies—even the
prolific Jeffrey Lewis—are not writing songs or covering traditional
outlaw songs.
* * *
Few musicians from any genre have been as prolific and versatile as
Bob Dylan. In addition to his protest and outlaw songs, he has writ-
ten songs of varied types and with various themes. Surely he must
have written songs about drugs?
Not according to Dylan. He has always claimed he doesn’t write
drug songs. “I have never and never will write a drug song.”153 What
about “Rainy Day Women Numbers 12 and 35” (“everybody must
get stoned”)—which many people understand as a “marijuana song”?
When asked about this recently, Dylan seemed to maintain his long-
standing claim about not writing drug songs with this rather cryptic
response: “It doesn’t surprise me that some people would see it that way.
But these are people that aren’t familiar with the Book of Acts.”154
This raises an additional question: In the way that Dylan’s
“Blowin’ in the Wind” is considered the prototypical protest song
from the folk revival period, was there also a prototypical “heroin
song” from this era? Since it wasn’t a Dylan song (Dylan doesn’t
write drug songs), what song might it have been?
Some might vote for James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” but the
song is only partly about heroin, and it was released in 1970, not
at the height of the folk revival. This author’s vote goes to a song
that emerged not from New York but rather from the London scene,
which was happening roughly contemporaneously with the New
York revival. The song is Bert Jansch’s “Needle of Death.”155 Jansch
was one of Britain’s most famous folk singers, and this is one of
his best-known songs; it’s from his 1965 debut album, which estab-
lished Jansch as a star in British music. The song, covered by many
performers over the years, was inspired by the death of a folk music
friend, whose troubled life as a youngster:
This chapter focuses on the link between heroin and Latin and
Caribbean music in New York. After a short description of the Latin
and Caribbean populations in the city, I discuss heroin use and also
heroin dealing in these populations. Then I present an overview of
the various subgenres of Latin and Caribbean music that have been
popular in the city. Finally, I examine the use of heroin by New
York–based performers and musicians from these music subgenres.
* * *
New York has one of the most diverse populations of Latin Americans
of any city in the world. Over the years, New York’s Latin popula-
tion has continued to increase, and today roughly 30 percent of the
city’s population is Latin, that is, they have origins in the Hispanic
countries of Latin America.1
Until the late 1970s, New York’s Latino community consisted
primarily of Puerto Ricans, who have been deemed US citizens since
1917 and thus have had few restrictions placed on their travel to
New York. In the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of Puerto Ricans
came to New York to fill jobs in wartime industries. East Harlem in
Manhattan became the predominantly Puerto Rican community of
Spanish Harlem or El Barrio. Currently, the Bronx is the borough
with the largest number of Puerto Ricans in the city.2
There was a surge in immigration from the Dominican Republic
to New York beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, and since 1990
the Dominican population in the city has almost doubled.3 The
largest concentration of Dominicans lives in Washington Heights
in the northwestern end of Manhattan. In the past two decades,
the Mexican population in the city has grown more than five-fold,
152 / heroin and music in new york city
and Mexicans are now the third-largest Latin group in New York,
with “Little Mexicos” having sprung up in various neighborhoods
throughout the city.4 There has also been an increase in South and
Central Americans from countries including Ecuador, Colombia, El
Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
People from non-Spanish–speaking Caribbean (West Indian)
countries have lived in New York since at least the early 1900s.
While there is no accurate count of the number of Caribbeans living
in New York (there is no Caribbean “check-off” in the US Census),
the numbers that do exist indicate that Jamaicans are the largest
group in the city, followed by Haitians and Trinidadians, and that
Brooklyn is the borough where most New York Caribbeans reside.5
Annually, on Labor Day weekends in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights
section, the American Day Carnival and Parade brings together at
least a million West Indians from around the New York area to cel-
ebrate West Indian culture.
Heroin Use
Heroin use became a widespread problem among New York Latinos
after World War II. Before the war, the typical New York City her-
oin user had been an aging, working-class, white male. After the
war, this changed completely when heroin use escalated among poor
African American and also Puerto Rican male youth.6
Heroin use by New York Latinos after the war has been explained
as a reaction to the problems that migrants face in trying to come to
terms with an alien and hostile environment7 and as “one solution
to the social and psychological problems of Puerto Ricans which
result, in part, from the social burdens imposed on a recent immi-
grant group.”8 One observer wrote: “When Puerto Ricans migrate
to New York, cultural conflicts, brought about by industrialization
and migration from rural to urban areas on the island, are deepened
and even aggravated by additional factors such as discrimination,
minority group status, and a language barrier.”9
An anthropologist who worked in El Barrio in the early to mid-
1950s recalled that the patterns of drug use
remember that all the vacant lots had garbage in them, which was
used to make fires to sterilize needles. At that time, sterilization of
needles was done very carefully. It was crude, but it was very overt.10
Starting in the middle to late 1960s until the early 1970s, a “tidal
wave” of heroin addiction swept inner city New York.11 Heroin mar-
kets increased with an influx of new users, including many soldiers
returning from Vietnam who had been introduced to the drug while
serving overseas.12 At this time Puerto Ricans were about 15 per-
cent of the New York population but about 25 percent of the heroin
addicts.13
In the early 1970s, the South Bronx, which borders on Spanish
Harlem, had a heroin problem commonly described as an “epidemic.”
“One out of every five people in the Mott Haven area of the [South]
Bronx was addicted. The whole borough of the Bronx lacked a
detoxification program, inpatient or out.”14 During this time the
Young Lords, a group of revolutionary nationalists comprising
young Puerto Rican activists modeled on the Black Panthers, felt
compelled to take over a hospital in the Bronx and start a “guerrilla
clinic,” a drug detox program to rehabilitate heroin addicts.15
Interviews with New York Latin King and Queen gang members
who grew up in the 1970s to 1980s in New York City revealed that
about one-third had been substance abusers and that heroin was the
drug for many.16 The users
often placed their drug habit in the context of coping with extreme
levels of anguish and psychological turmoil . . . while hedonism and
experimentation were one reason to first experiment with drugs, it
was depression and other psychological distress that compounded
their use and led them into cycles of abuse.17
One leader of the Kings started using heroin a little later in life:
I managed to avoid it all those years and then I started and I kid you
not I loved that hit till this day, I’m not gonna be like one of those
ex-addicts that says I hate it when I think about it, Nah, I loved it, it
was warm, it enhanced my sex life . . . So it gave me a sense of power
and I just didn’t care about the world. I thought that nobody could
notice that I was nodding out and vomiting and my eyes are like
this, and then I woke up.18
154 / heroin and music in new york city
When asked, “how long did it take you?” the King leader
responded: “10 years.”
From the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, crack cocaine
became the predominant street drug in Latino New York, which
“infused new energy into the underground economy making drug
dealing the most vibrant equal opportunity employer for young
males in El Barrio.”19 But then heroin again became a street favorite
in Latino communities.20 Research in the late 1990s with new her-
oin users confirmed that young New York Latinos (especially Puerto
Rican) males and females in their teens and twenties were among
the city’s new users.21
One reason some young Puerto Rican males began using during
these years may be that they kept close relations with an older gener-
ation of users. While working with these older users, who oftentimes
were dealers, the young men got initiated into use. They continued
to use the drug because they were dealing it, and they couldn’t avoid
it. By contrast, Puerto Rican females were more likely to have been
introduced to heroin by girlfriends in leisure contexts, for example,
while hanging out and getting ready to go out partying.22
A study of drug use in the New York Dominican community
during the 1990s found less heroin use among Dominicans than
among other Latin groups. In large measure because of its associa-
tion with needles, using heroin was perceived by many Dominicans
in the study as a sign of weakness and lack of self-control and as
something whites, African Americans, and Puerto Ricans but not
Dominicans might be likely to use.23 At the same time, selling her-
oin was much less likely to be seen as wrong, especially if the money
earned through dealing was being sent home to the Dominican
Republic to support a family or being saved to go back to improve
the life of one’s family.24
There has been scant data available on New York City Latinos,
but national studies suggest that heroin use remains a problem.
Nationally, Hispanic teens’ use of heroin has been outpacing use
by their white and African American peers.25 Also, more Hispanic
youths are using prescription drugs, including opiates like Oxycontin,
to get high, and the rate of prescription-drug abuse is higher among
Hispanics than among other ethnic groups.26
* * *
latin and caribbean music / 155
Heroin Dealing
The Latino role in New York heroin dealing began essentially in
the early 1970s, when Turkey—the source of much of the heroin
in New York—banned opium cultivation. Many new distributors
entered the market, including Puerto Ricans and Cubans. In the
1980s, Dominicans became major players, quickly expanding into
heroin sales when profits from crack began to wane in the latter part
of the decade.35
Ethnographic research with Dominican street-level dealers in
Washington Heights in the 1990s found that they
cartels have weakened. Recent reports suggest that with the growth
of drug trafficking through Mexico, which traditionally has had
a low incidence of heroin abuse, local Mexican markets for heroin
have expanded, leaving a growing number of local abusers.39
* * *
States including New York.46 The gang suffered a blow recently when
Christopher “Dudas” Coke, who ran the posse for almost 20 years
from the barricaded neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, was sentenced
to 23 years in a US federal prison for drug trafficking.47
* * *
early 2000s reggaeton has had a strong presence in New York City
clubs and on the radio.
* * *
convicted of the crime; his career fell apart and he died “broke and
virtually forgotten.”63
Journalist Fredric Dannen has documented the “institutionalized
payola” that went on in the 1970s and 1980s as independent promo-
tion men plied radio station program directors with cash, cocaine,
expensive gifts, and prostitutes to play records.64 Dannen noted that
there were allegations that high-level music industry employees had
strong connections with high-level organized crime figures involved
in heroin smuggling,65 and that a well-known record company had
been a way station for heroin trafficking.66
In the Latin music industry and especially in the big Hispanic
markets such as New York City, payola has been described as
“completely rampant”—it “riddles the world of Spanish-language
radio.”67 Latin music labels “have been consistently prepared to pay
big money to get music on the radio.”68 According to one investiga-
tor, one reason for this is that
the Latin music industry in the U.S. has been and still is not as devel-
oped and not as corporate as the mainstream English language music
industry. So when it comes to radio it was much more based on per-
sonal relationships. It came much more from an old school—corrupt
but old school system—that used to be prevalent in American radio.69
* * *
Probably the best known of the users are Hector Lavoe and Cheo
Feliciano. Both were originally from Ponce, Puerto Rico, and both
moved to New York when they were 17 years old (Lavoe to the Bronx
in 1963, Feliciano to Spanish Harlem in 1952). Both also got caught
up in using heroin after they arrived.
Hector Lavoe was “as much of a rock star as salsa has ever
known.”72 He became famous as a vocalist in Willie Colon’s band,
recording more than 10 albums together; Colon became Lavoe’s
“mentor and sidekick.”73 According to one writer:
Lavoe “liked the [heroin] high and the fact that the drugs made
a lot of the confusion and doubts about his life go away76 . . . it made
him feel cool, which was miles from the insecurities he felt about
himself and his world when he was not high. But the main attrac-
tion was the idea of escape.”77 Heroin probably also helped him deal
with personal calamities that occurred in his life, which he found
overwhelming, including the accidental death of his son in a gun
incident, and a fire that ravaged his house in Queens.78
Heroin took a serious toll on Lavoe’s music career. He “had to rely
on others to take care of him—wake him up for gigs and literally
drag him to work.”79 “I began showing up to gigs late and then not
at all. I had encountered a serious problem.”80 His addiction “regu-
larly aroused the anger of promoters and club owners.”81
The unity within the Colon band “began to unravel as Hector
began making snide and often disparaging remarks to the musi-
cians, sometimes in the middle of a performance.”82 Sometimes he
latin and caribbean music / 163
That night he just lost it. He was just walking around the stage talk-
ing to himself. We had never seen that side of him before and it was
a scary thing to see.84
* * *
At roughly the same time Lavoe began using heroin, singer and per-
cussionist Cheo Feliciano, who was 11 years older than Lavoe, was
getting clean. Feliciano, also a Fania All-Star, has spoken at length
about his heroin problem. As for how he first got involved with the
drug:
I would arrive to work late. I wouldn’t begin singing until I was high.
I was always arriving late—with only minutes before the gig started.
I would invent twenty thousand excuses. I would rip my clothes and
say I was mugged.90
* * *
I wanted to get up there and when I did, I said: “Man, is this it?”
Is this really all there is? And then I got a little bit depressed. And
I turned back to something I thought was in the past. I turned to
tecata, dope . . . I take things hard so I got hooked on the shit. If I had
known what junk would do to me, I would never have touched it.
But back then we weren’t enlightened.97
around the church. He knelt in front of the cross and he could see
the needle marks disappearing from his arms.100
* * *
My surroundings have not been cause for my issues, I’ve always been
surrounded by good people.”105
Quinones tried cleaning up through conventional detox and treat-
ment programs, including one in Cuba,106 but, like Ismael Rivera,
he only succeeded via a religious conversion, and, also like Rivera,
his career has rebounded as a result.
Since I accepted Jesus Christ as my one and only savior, and publi-
cized it, not to brag about it, but to show the public that an artist can
also seek refuge in God, and that I could be in this same environ-
ment with the same people and in the same locations only not doing
the same things I did before, my record sales have gone up like never
before. My fan base has even increased.107
* * *
Sabu Martinez was a Latin Jazz conga player and percussionist. Born
in El Barrio in New York, he was a user through a good part of
the 1950s, when he was in his twenties. He eventually cleaned up,
moved to Sweden permanently where he continued to play music,
and died there in 1979.
Not much has been written about Martinez, but in 1976 he
was interviewed for a Swedish “mens magazine.” According to the
interviewer, even after he stopped using, Martinez faced a troubling
situation,
His wife had left him. He had lost his children’s affection and respect
(he left others to provide food, shelter, and clothing). He used to be
one of the world’s best conga players, but it was so long since he
had worked that many had forgotten him. Orchestra leaders, who
normally would have let him sit in for regulars out on sick leave,
hesitated to engage him.108
* * *
* * *
There have been numerous reports in the press about drug mules—
adults and sometimes children—arrested trying to transport drugs
across international borders. In two recent (and separate) incidents,
Latin musicians were arrested trying to smuggle heroin into New
York from a Dominican Republic airport.
One musician was Jimmy Bauer, a New York–based bachata singer
of Dominican heritage, who in 2010 was stopped trying to smuggle
88 pellets of heroin—more than a kilogram of pure heroin—in his
stomach. According to the news story, Bauer got sick when a couple
of the pellets he had swallowed burst. He was rushed to a hospital,
where an X-ray exam revealed the pellets, which were extracted from
his stomach. He was then arrested for trafficking, and ended up
getting a 6-year prison sentence. He later admitted that he tried to
smuggle the heroin because he was broke, had financial problems,
and wanted some quick cash to make a bachata music video.116 In
2013, Martha Heredia, a “Latin American Idol” winner from the
Dominican Republic, was also arrested as she was about to board a
plane to New York. Police found almost three pounds of heroin in
the heels of three pairs of shoes packed in her suitcase.117
from the early salsa era, when heroin was a big problem in Hispanic
communities in New York and easily available, especially to people
like musicians. The case of Domingo Quinones reminds us that salsa
is still popular and so is heroin. All five of the self-acknowledged
abusers were of Puerto Rican heritage, which is also not surprising
since historically there have been far more Puerto Ricans living in
New York City than any other Hispanic group.
Little good came from heroin for these people. Heroin did seri-
ous damage to Lavoe’s career and to his life more generally, and he
died young (46) essentially because of the drug. Feliciano thought
that because of heroin, his life went “down the drain.” Rivera, like
Feliciano, was literally forced to live in the streets for long stretches
because of heroin. Feliciano, Rivera, and Quinones all found that
once they got clean, their careers revived. Martinez’s case shows that
the stigma of having been a heroin user can haunt one’s career even
well after use has stopped.
One factor Cheo Feliciano thought was related to his use of heroin
and that of other Puerto Ricans in New York is the struggle and con-
flict around trying to achieve a satisfying sense of identity—a sense
of “who we are.” Feliciano once described the conflict this way:
During that time I was one of the many victims that had succumbed
to drug addiction. For many Latinos back then, there was an identity
crisis. The Colombian wanted to be back in Colombia. The Puerto
Rican wanted to be back in Puerto Rico. We tried to make our own
little Colombias and Puerto Ricos in the States.118
jettison our native language and culture, to assimilate into either the
white or the black world.”122
The author Piri Thomas has written about how this kind of iden-
tity conflict can be a cause of heroin abuse—particularly his own. In
his Down these Mean Streets, Thomas describes how as a dark-skinned
Latino (his mother was a white Puerto Rican while his father was a
dark-skinned Cuban) he was seen in New York as African American,
which led to confusion about his racial/ethnic identity. He felt that
racially he belonged to both groups (black and white) but ethnically
he belonged to neither, and that this struggle and his experience of
discrimination was a factor in his decision to use heroin.123
Another aspect of Latino subculture and identity that can be a
factor in heroin use is “machismo,” which emphasizes the impor-
tance of toughness, aggressiveness, and risk taking. In a study of
Mexican American heroin users (“tecatos”), Quintero and Estrada
argue that for young men, drug use is a means to act out macho val-
ues of risk taking, excess, and outstripping others. The tecato enters
drug use in order to demonstrate socially valued toughness and “cra-
ziness” or to show that he can control a vice where weaker men have
failed. The machismo values of excess and outstripping others lead
to escalating drug use and eventually heroin. For many tecatos, the
beginning of injection use was a tangible sign that they had achieved
the socially valued goal of becoming “real drug addicts.”124
Machismo seems to have been an element in Ismael Rivera’s
heroin use. Rivera once said he considered the Palladium “a test of
musical prowess . . . a macho trap. How ‘bad’ could you be under
the influence and still perform. That was the measure of manhood,
of musicianship.”125 Machismo was also clearly displayed by Hector
Lavoe in his last interview. He said he was “fine,” but it was obvious
he wasn’t. Machismo dictated he could not appear weak.
* * *
Willie Colon, who stayed friends with Lavoe after he fired him
from his band, had some strong views about this. When Lavoe died
in 1993, Colon mourned him in a newspaper column.127 In the
article, Colon shared his views about how various components of
the music industry betrayed and exploited Lavoe, including
the “record moguls who live like Saudi princes selling his records
and reselling them as CDs without paying royalties as Lavoe lan-
guished in poverty”; the promoters who paid him “crumbs”; and the
imitators who tried to cash in on his reputation.128
Colon also thought that some of the blame has to go to Lavoe’s fans,
who were “accomplices to his tragedy.” But Colon also blamed him-
self: for not having the courage “to face him in his condition.”129
Colon was definitely not a big fan of the Lavoe movie:
My primary goal for this book was to bring some needed insight
into the connection between drugs and music. I chose to keep the
focus strictly on heroin because it is generally considered the “king
of street drugs” and, in contrast to other hard drugs such as cocaine,
using heroin is typically seen not just as “deviant” but as dramati-
cally deviant. It made sense to focus on the role of heroin in not just
one type of music but in a variety of popular music genres. And
since drug and music scenes can be very different depending on the
locale, it also made sense to keep the focus on one place and to have
New York City be that place, since for years New York has been the
capital of both heroin and music in the United States.
My intention was not to offer a comprehensive theory of her-
oin and music. Rather, I wanted to explore the lived experiences of
heroin-using musicians. I wanted to understand why musicians first
use and continue to use the drug, why heroin is more common in
some genres and subgenres of music than in other music types, and
how heroin affects a musician’s playing, creativity, and career. This
is the kind of knowledge from which the sociology of drug abuse
and the sociology of music can benefit. The book also addressed
some of the central concerns in the field of cultural criminology,
which seeks to understand both normative and deviant behavior by
focusing on interaction, intersubjectivity, and experience.1
The sample of 69 heroin-using musicians was mostly from rock
and jazz, but there were at least five musicians from each of the
other main music genres under consideration. All of these self-
acknowledged users used heroin at least regularly if not daily, and
most were injectors. Most were also long-term users, while some
174 / heroin and music in new york city
used for shorter periods of time. Some eventually cleaned up, while
others never did. Almost half of the sample (48 percent) are dead
(including 16 of the 19 jazz musicians) and many of these users died
from a heroin-related overdose.
Most heroin research focuses on the street addict. But heroin
abusers are not all the same. Those who are celebrities and have mon-
ey—like many of the musicians in the sample—are sociologically
different from other abusers. Their money and connections make a
difference. It’s generally easier for them to function as addicts—they
are less likely to be living the “junkie lifestyle” and resorting to hus-
tling and crime to fund their habits. The injectors may also be less
likely to find themselves in situations where they have to share their
needles and run the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or hepatitis.
The decision not to try to conduct interviews with the musicians
in the sample who are still alive was based on my presumption they
would not only be very difficult to reach but also reluctant to talk
about their heroin use, especially since they’ve talked about it pos-
sibly numerous times already in interviews or in books they them-
selves have written. In fact, using the narrative accounts I employed
in the book—what the musicians themselves had to say—was the
best way to get at the issues at hand for all members of the sample.
Some of the musicians had much to say, some had little to say, but all
these data capture individual lived experience and tell us what these
people are thinking and feeling.
As with any self-report data obtained from drug abusers, it’s nec-
essary to comment on the validity (accuracy) of these kinds of narra-
tive data. Since research involving drug abusers relies extensively on
self-reports, over the years a sizable literature on this issue has devel-
oped. A fair conclusion is that, at least when collected by trained
interviewers, data about drug use and drug-related behaviors can be
considered sufficiently accurate.2
There is no reason to think that the data used for this book are
any less valid than the data used in other studies of drug abusers
based on self-reports. At the same time, some of the 69 heroin-using
musicians in the sample may have downplayed their heroin use and
related behaviors in interview situations because they wanted to make
a favorable impression and present themselves in a socially desirable
way. Alternatively, some respondents may have exaggerated their use
so as to come across in a more “hardcore” or “badass” way.
conclusion / 175
* * *
but that overall the impacts are likely to be adverse, for musician-us-
ers from all the music genres and subgenres that were under consid-
eration. Similarly, it seemed that the adverse effects of heroin would
outweigh any potential positive effects of the drug in terms of how
successful musicians’ careers were. Both hypotheses were undeniably
supported by the data.
The jazz musicians in the sample reported a host of difficulties
and problems related to their heroin use. In general, heroin seemed
to provide little benefit to these musicians’ performances or careers.
Many had their forward progress as musicians impeded or their
careers cut short because of the drug.
Some of the jazz musicians were in poor health because of heroin and
became too ill to play. Many ODed from the drug or died from heroin-
related complications. Many had serious financial problems because of
their habits. Harassment and arrest by the police and imprisonment
were also very common. A recurring theme involved engaging in what
Miles Davis called “junkie shit,” which included such things as missing
or being late for gigs, nodding out on stage, or being too high to play.
Having a “junkie reputation” led to mistrust by fellow musicians, get-
ting fired from bands, and missing out on job opportunities.
There were some positive aspects to using heroin. Heroin helped
some users including Charlie Parker concentrate by blocking out
“internal noise”; it helped them to relax; and it helped build up their
confidence to perform. Some said heroin helped enable them to
practice for long periods of time.
The rock musician-users also had primarily negative things to
say about the effects heroin had on their playing, creativity, and
careers, echoing many of the same themes as the jazz musicians.
Some rock musicians spoke about how life with heroin became cha-
otic and how it dampened their inspiration so that music became
secondary and their productivity was reduced. Some told of how
they couldn’t rehearse or play without heroin, or were sometimes too
high to play, or passed out from heroin while on stage, or how their
band collapsed because of heroin. Many spoke of the problems they
faced being “junk sick” while on tour. Very few of the rock musi-
cians spoke of the positive ways in which heroin affected their music.
Keith Richards, for one, thought heroin helped him concentrate and
be more tenacious when working on a song.
178 / heroin and music in new york city
By and large, the R&B users suffered through the same issues as
the jazz and rock musicians. Frankie Lymon noted that even after
getting clean, he had trouble finding success as a solo performer
because few people believed he would stay clean. Dion’s heroin use
was a factor in the Belmonts’ breakup and forced Dion out of the
music business for a time (although he also said that using heroin
“enhanced” his stage performance). Sam Moore felt that his career
“fell apart” because of heroin and that heroin “wiped him out finan-
cially.” Dr. John spoke of police harassment. For the disco DJs, the
main issues were missing club bookings, “erratic spinning,” nodding
out at the turntables, and losing touch with the dance floor crowd,
none of which helped their careers.
Folk musician users in the sample also echoed themes heard in
previous chapters of this book: missed shows, poor performances,
failed comeback albums, careers put on hold, and reputations of
untrustworthiness. This was also true for the Latin performers; the
stories they told were about band disunity and firings and breakups,
people turning their backs on them, difficulty finding work, family
breakups, and the overall serious toll heroin took on their careers
and their lives more generally.
* * *
What’s Next?
There are at least two potential follow-up projects—each employ-
ing the basic theoretical perspective and methodological strategy I
followed in this book—that need to proceed. The first would be an
examination of the heroin–music connection in a city that, like New
York, is a center for both heroin and music but which is different
enough as a city so that the heroin and music scenes are not simply
mirror images of those in New York.
Los Angeles would be a good first choice. The city has long been
a major center for Mexican black tar and brown powdered heroin on
the West Coast. And if New York is the music capital of the United
States, Los Angeles has long been a second music capital having
had, for example, thriving jazz, folk rock, punk, hardcore, and rap
scenes. London would also be a good choice. There is a long history
of opiate use in the United Kingdom, and newspaper and anecdotal
reports indicate that heroin is not at all difficult to obtain.3 As for
music, London remains a city with a scene that has been described
as “unique and glorious.”4
The second follow-up project would be to explore the role of
heroin in the other arts in New York, including literature, film and
180 / heroin and music in new york city
* * *
Any study of heroin and the arts in New York would have as a central
figure the comedian and satirist Lenny Bruce, who died of an OD
in 1966. Arrested multiple times on drug and obscenity charges,
including once during a performance in Greenwich Village, his
harassment by and battles with the criminal justice system basically
ruined his career. Record producer Phil Spector famously said that
Bruce “died from an overdose of police.”5 To Bob Dylan, Bruce “was
an outlaw, that’s for sure.”6 As regards his heroin use, Bruce put it
this way: “I’ll die young, but it’s like kissing God.”7
No t e s
1 Introduction
1. John Leland, Hip: The History (New York: HarperCollins, 2004),
266.
2. Jock Young, “Moral Panics and the Transgressive Other,” Crime Media
Culture 7, no. 3 (2011b): 245–258.
3. David Courtwright, Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America
before 1940 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); David
Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987).
4. Rich Cohen, Tough Jews (New York: Vintage Press, 1998); David
Courtwright, Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); David Courtwright,
“The Roads to H: The Emergence of the American Heroin Complex,
1898–1956,” in One Hundred Years of Heroin, ed. David Musto,
chap. 1, 3–19 (Westport, CT: Auburn House, 2002); Blanche Frank
and John Galea, “Current Drug Use Trends in New York City,” in
Epidemiologic Trends in Drug Abuse. Proceedings from the December,
1998 Community Epidemiology Work Group (Rockville, MD: National
Institute on Drug Abuse, 1998), 181–189; Andrew Karmen, New York
Murder Mystery (New York: New York University Press, 2000); Musto,
The American Disease; Edward Preble and John Casey, “Taking Care of
Business: The Heroin Users Life on the Street,” International Journal of
the Addictions 4 (1969): 1–24; Luc Sante, Lowlife (New York: Vintage
Books, 1991); Barry Spunt, “The Current New York City Heroin
Scene,” Substance Use and Misuse 38, no. 10 (2003): 1533–1543; Travis
Wendel and Richard Curtis, “The Heraldry of Heroin: ‘Dope Stamps’
and the Dynamics of Drug Markets in New York City,” Journal of
Drug Issues, 30, no. 2 (2000): 225–260.
5. Count Basie, Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 51.
6. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report (New
York: United Nations (UNODC), 2010, ISBN: 978–92–1–148256–0
United Nations Publication Sales No. E.10.XI.13, 137.
182 / notes
7. Edwin Brecher, Licit and Illicit Drugs (Boston, MA: Little, Brown,
1972), 8–16.
8. John Colapinto, “Heroin and Rock,” Rolling Stone 735 (May 30, 1996):
16.
9. Mark Caldwell, New York Night (New York: Scribner, 2005); Rufus
King, The Drug Hang-Up: America’s Fifty Year Folly (Springfield, IL:
Charles C. Thomas, 1972); Luc Sante, Lowlife (New York: Vintage
Books, 1991); Cohen, Tough Jews.
10. Courtwright, Dark Paradise; Musto, The American Disease; Eric
Schneider, Smack: Heroin and the American City (Philadelphia, PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
11. Schneider, Smack; Musto, The American Disease; Brecher, Licit and
Illicit Drugs; David Bellis, Heroin and Politicians: The Failure of Public
Policy to Control Addiction in America (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1981).
12. Courtwright, Dark Paradise; Musto, The American Disease.
13. Nancy Campbell, J. P. Olsen, and Luke Walden, The Narcotic Farm:
The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts (New York:
Abrams, 2008); King, The Drug Hang-Up, chap. 3.
14. Musto, The American Disease; Courtwright, Dark Paradise; Schneider,
Smack; Jill Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of
America’s Romance with Illegal Drugs (New York: Scribner, 1996).
15. Musto, The American Disease; Courtwright, Dark Paradise; David
Courtwright, Herman Joseph, and Don Des Jarlais, Addicts Who
Survived: An Oral History of Narcotic Use in America, 1923–1965
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989); Schneider, Smack.
16. Schneider, Smack.
17. Alfred McCoy, with Cathleen Read, and Leonard Adams, The Politics
of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York: Harper and Row, 1972);
Schneider, Smack.
18. Campbell, Olsen, and Walden, The Narcotic Farm; McCoy, The Politics
of Heroin in Southeast Asia; John McWilliams,The Protectors (Newark:
University of Delaware Press, 1990).
19. Brian Bennett, “Over 100 Years of National Drug Related Headlines,”
Erowid, 2006 http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/media/psychoac-
tives_media8.shtml.
20. Courtwright, Dark Paradise; Musto, The American Disease; Schneider,
Smack.
21. Preble and Casey, “Taking Care of Business”; Courtwright, “The
Roads to H”; Bruce Johnson and Andrew Golub, “Generational Trends
in Heroin Use and Injection in New York City,” in One Hundred Years
of Heroin, ed. David Musto, chap. 7 (Westport, CN: Auburn House.
2002).
notes / 183
22. Karmen, New York Murder Mystery; Schneider, Smack; Musto, The
American Disease; Wendel and Curtis, “The Heraldry of Heroin.”
23. Wendel and Curtis, “The Heraldry of Heroin.”
24. Schneider, Smack.
25. Wendel and Curtis, “The Heraldry of Heroin.”
26. Frank and Galea, “Current Drug Use Trends in New York City.”
27. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Press
Release #080–05, August 3, 2005, “Statement Re: New Law Lifting
Buprenorphine Restrictions,” http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr
/pr080–05.shtml; New York City Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene, “Local Government Plan Report: Mental Health Services,”
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/ downloads/pdf/mh/mh-localgovtplan
-2008.pdf.
28. Barry Spunt, “The Current New York City Heroin Scene,” Substance
Use and Misuse 38, no. 10 (2003): 1533–1543; U.S. Department of
Justice, National Drug Threat Assessment, “Drug Availability in the
United States,” February 2010. http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs38
/386661/heroin.htm.
29. Joe Bonomo, Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band
(London: Continuum Books, 2007), 342.
30. Spunt, “The Current New York City Heroin Scene”; U.S. Department
of Justice, National Drug Threat Assessment, “Drug Availability in
the United States.”
31. Hollis Alpert, Broadway! 125 Years of Musical Theatre (New York:
Arcade Books, 1991).
32. Alpert, Broadway!; Reebee Garafalo, Rockin Out: Popular Music in the
USA (New York: Pearson, 1996), 17.
33. Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1996); Ed Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, and Ken
Tucker, Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll (New
York: Rolling Stone Press/Summit Books, 1986); Ian Inglis, “‘Some
Kind of Wonderful’: The Creative Legacy of the Brill Building,”
American Music 21, no. 2 (2003): 214–235.
34. Marc Myers, “Jazz’s First Record Turns 95,” February 21, 2012.
35. Samuel Charters and Leonard Kunstadt, Jazz: A History of the New
York Scene (New York: Da Capo Press, 1963); Thomas Fiehrer, “From
Quadrille to Stomp: The Creole Origins of Jazz,” Popular Music 10,
no. 1 (1991): 21–38.
36. Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux, Jazz (New York: W. W. Norton,
2009), 183.
37. See Schneider, Smack; Alyn Shipton, A New History of Jazz (London:
Continuum Books, 2001).
38. See University of the Streets website: www.universityofthestreets.org.
184 / notes
55. Center for the Study of Brooklyn October 24, 2012, http://www
.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pub/departments/csb/csb_history.htm.
56. Peter Manuel, Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to
Reggae (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006); Christopher
Washburne, Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York City
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2008); Lloyd Bradley,
This is Reggae Music (New York: Grove Press, 2000); Raquel Z. Rivera,
“Policing Morality Mano Duro Stylee: The Case of Underground Rap
and Reggae in Puerto Rico in the Mid-1990s,” in Reggaeton, ed. Raquel
Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall, and Deborah Pacini-Hernandez, 111–134
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009).
57. Isidor Chein, Donald Gerard, Robert Lee, and Eva Rosenfeld, The
Road to H: Narcotics, Juvenile Delinquency, and Social Policy (New
York: Basic Books, 1964); see also Schneider, Smack; John Helmer,
Drugs and Minority Oppression (New York: Seabury Press, 1975).
58. Robert Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free
Press, 1957).
59. Preble and Casey, “Taking Care of Business.”
60. Richard Dembo, Review of E. Preble and J. J. Casey, 1969. “Taking
Care of Business—The Heroin User’s Life on the Street,” International
Journal of the Addictions, 4 (1997): 1–24, Substance Use & Misuse 32,
no. 2: 195
61. Charles Winick, “The Use of Drugs by Jazz Musicians,” Social Problems
7, no. 3 (1959–1960): 240–242.
62. Winick, “The Use of Drugs by Jazz Musicians,” 246.
63. Winick, “The Use of Drugs by Jazz Musicians,” 245.
64. Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
65. Bruce MacLeod, Club Date Musicians: Playing the New York Party
Circuit (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993).
66. Washburne, Sounding Salsa, 6.
67. Washburne, Sounding Salsa, 132.
68. Frederick Thrasher, The Gang (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1927); Clifford Shaw, The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy’s Own Story
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1930).
69. Albert Cohen, Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (New York:
Free Press, 1955), 25.
70. Gresham Sykes and David Matza, “Juvenile Delinquency and
Subterranean Values,” American Sociological Review 26, no. 5 (1961):
712–719.
71. Howard Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New
York: Free Press, 1963).
72. Jock Young, The Drugtakers (London: Paladin, 1971).
186 / notes
73. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson (eds.), Resistance through Rituals:
Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (Birmingham, UK: Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1975); Dick Hebdige, Subcultures:
The Meaning of Style (London: Methuen, 1979).
74. Robert Garot, Who You Claim: Performing Gang Identity in the School
and on the Streets (New York: New York University Press, 2010);
James Cote, “Identity Studies: How Close Are We to Developing a
Social Science of Identity? An Appraisal of the Field,” Identity: An
International Journal of Theory and Research 6, no. 1 (2006): 3–25.
75. Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (New
York: Prentice Hall, 1969); Charles Horton Cooley, Human Nature and
the Social Order (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922); George
Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1934); see also Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-
Identity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991); Zygmunt
Bauman, Liquid Modernity. (Cambridge: Polity, 2000); Zygmunt
Bauman, Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi (Cambridge:
Polity, 2004).
76. Alfred Lindesmith, Addiction and Opiates (Chicago, IL: Aldine,
1968).
77. Harvey Feldman, “Ideological Supports to Becoming and Remaining
a Heroin Addict,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 9, no. 2 (1968):
131–139.
78. Richard Stephens, The Street Addict Role (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991);
see also Harold Finestone, “Cats, Kicks, and Color,” Social Problems 5,
no. 1 (1957): 3–12; Alan Sutter, “The World of the Righteous Dope
Fiend,” Issues in Criminology 22 (1966): 177–222.
79. Thomas Dormandy, Opium: Reality’s Dark Dream (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2012).
80. Jos Ten Berge, “Breakdown or Breakthrough? A History of European
Research into Drugs and Creativity,” Journal of Creative Behavior 33,
no. 4 (1999): 259.
81. Stanley Krippner, “Psychedelic Drugs and Creativity,” Journal of
Psychoactive Drugs 17, no. 4 (1985): 235–246; Ten Berge, “Breakdown
or Breakthrough?”
82. Michael Largo, Genius and Heroin (New York: HarperCollins, 2008),
1–2.
83. Being “New York City–based” means that the individual was born
and/or raised in New York City and continued to call the city home,
or the individual at some point relocated to the city. In other words,
these are people who spent the major part, if not all, of their career in
New York City. New York City includes the city’s five boroughs plus
the metropolitan area, that is, Westchester County, Long Island, and
parts of New Jersey and Connecticut.
notes / 187
2 Jazz
1. Listed alphabetically, these 19 musicians are: Walter Bishop, Art
Blakey, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon,
Freddie Gruber, Jimmy Heath, Billie Holiday, Elmo Hope, Philly Joe
Jones, Howard McGhee, Jackie McLean, Charlie Parker, Max Roach,
Red Rodney, Sonny Rollins, Mal Waldron, and Randy Weston.
Additionally, these 15 New York–based jazz musician-users who did
not talk about their use—at least publicly or for the record—are part
of the story of heroin and jazz in New York (also listed alphabetically):
188 / notes
100. Ross Russell quoted in Lewis MacAdams, Birth of the Cool: Beat,
Bebop, and the American Avante-Garde (New York: Free Press, 2001),
56.
101. Howard Mandel, Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz (New York:
Routledge, 2008), 33.
102. Giddins, Celebrating Bird, 15.
103. Davis, Miles, 76.
104. Marc Myers, “Bill Evans on High,” JazzWax, www.JazzWax.com,
August 27, 2007.
105. Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams, 133.
106. Leland, Hip, 264.
107. Robert Reisner (ed.), Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker (New York:
Da Capo Press, 1962), 47.
108. Filan, The Power of the Poppy, 168.
109. Ira Gitler, Jazz Masters of the 40s (New York: Da Capo Press,
1966), 17.
110. Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 233.
111. Charlie Parker, “Parker, Moose the Mooch,” Charlie Parker, a Studio
Chronicle 1940–1948 (London: JSP Records, 2003).
112. MacAdams, Birth of the Cool, 52.
113. Davis, Miles, 65.
114. Gioia, The History of Jazz, 231.
115. DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop, 194.
116. Robert O’Meally, The Jazz Singers [A Smithsonian Collection
of Jazz Vocals from 1919–1994]. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Collection of Recordings/Sony Music Special Products, 1998 [Sound
recording].
117. Giddins, Celebrating Bird, 15.
118. Steve Voce, “Obituary: Red Rodney,” The Independent, May 31, 1994,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-red-rodney.
119. Gene Lees, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995), 103.
120. Lees, Cats of Any Color, 104.
121. Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams, 119.
122. Lees, Cats of Any Color, 104.
123. Roland Baggenaes, Jazz Greats Speak (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow
Press, 2008), 59.
124. Gitler, Swing to Bop, 280.
125. David Hutchings, “Jazz Great Dexter Gordon Blows an Elegant
New Note as an Actor—and Oscar Hopeful—in Round Midnight,”
People Magazine 26, no. 21 (November 24, 1986): 113, http://www
.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20095090,00.html.
notes / 193
186. Sonny Rollins was the original saxophonist but only stayed with the
band for a couple of months.
187. Ashley Kahn, A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature
Album (New York: Viking Press, 2002), 15.
188. Davis, Miles, 209.
189. Kahn, A Love Supreme, 81.
190. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme (liner notes) (Universal City, CA:
Impulse, 1965).
191. Lees, Cats of Any Color, 77.
192. Burt Korall, Drumming Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002), 290.
193. Orrin Keepnews in Jazz Profiles, “The Wonder of Philly Joe Jones,”
July 30, 2013, http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2013_07_01_archive.
html.
194. Philly Joe Jones, Interview in Downbeat, n. d., cited in http://www.
musicianguide.com biographies/1608001248/Philly-Joe Jones.html.
195. Heath, I Walked With Giants, 71.
196. Heath, I Walked With Giants, 78.
197. Milkowski, “Freddie Gruber.”
198. Hennessey, Klook, 114.
199. DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop, 446.
200. Hennessey, Klook, 114.
201. Hennessey, Klook, 115.
202. David Rosenthal, Hard Bop (New York: Oxford University Press,
1993), 169.
203. Rosenthal, Hard Bop, 44.
204. Sam Stephenson, “Sounds from Rikers Island,” November 5, 2010,
www.jazzloftproject.org/blog/uncategorized/sounds-from-rikers
-island.
205. Jeffrey McMillan, Delightfullee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), 100.
206. Sam Stephenson, “Notes from a Biographer: Sonny Clark” Paris
Review Daily, January 26, 2011, http://www.theparisreview.org/
blog/2011/01/26/sonny-clark-part-ii.
207. Stephenson, “Notes from a Biographer.”
208. Stephenson, “Notes from a Biographer.”
209. Rosenthal, Hard Bop, 59.
210. Myers, “Ira Gitler on Sonny Stitt,” April 1, 2011.
211. Davis, Miles, 134–135.
212. Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, eds., Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of
Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It (New York: Dover Publications,
1955), 375.
213. Davis, Miles, 105.
196 / notes
3 Rock
1. See Ed Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, and Ken Tucker, Rock of Ages: The
Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll (New York: Rolling Stone
Press/Summit Books, 1986); Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City:
The Rise of Rock and Roll (New York: Da Capo Press, 1996).
198 / notes
2. Ian Penman, “Drugs In Rock Culture: Don’t Try This at Home,” The
Guardian, August 2, 1996, http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library
/Article/drugs-in-rock-culture-dont-try-this-at-home, 2.
3. Simon Napier-Bell, Black Vinyl White Powder (London: Ebury Press,
2001), 236.
4. Deena Dasein, “Rock ‘n’ Horse: Rock’s Heroin Connection,”
December 1996, http://globalpop.tripod.com/pop/heroin.html.
5. These 30 musicians (listed alphabetically) are: Ryan Adams, Walter
Becker, John Cale, James Chance, Cheetah Chrome, Willy DeVille,
Mike Doughty, Steve Earle, Albert Hammond, Debby Harry, Richard
Hell, HR, Wayne Kramer, John Lennon, Richard Lloyd, Walter Lure,
Handsome Dick Manitoba, Nico, Jerry Nolan, Iggy Pop, Dee Dee
Ramone, Lou Reed, Keith Richards, Chris Stein, STZA, Johnny
Thunders, Sid Vicious, Leslie West, Johnny Winter, and Thalia Zedek.
These five rock musicians are not part of the sample per se but are part
of the story of heroin and rock in New York: Stiv Bators, Adele Bertei,
Billy Graziadei, Dave Insurgent, and Andy Shernoff.
6. Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman, Louder Than Hell: The
Definitive Oral History of Metal (New York: Harper Collins, 2013), 7.
7. Richard Cromelin, “Return of the Nightfly,” Metal Leg: The Steely
Dan Magazine 5, no. 18.4 (April 1992), http://www.granatino.com
/sdresource/18crom.htm.
8. Steely Dan, “The Return of Steely Dan,” Mojo Magazine, October
1995, http://www.steelydan.com/mojo.html.
9. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Corp Author: Steely Dan. Katy Lied
(Universal City, CA: MCA, 1999, 1975).
10. Arthur Lubow, “Fancy Dan,” New Times, February 18, 1977, From the
Steely Dan Internet Resource. Granatino.com/sdresource/burrough.
htm.
11. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Corp Author: Steely Dan Gaucho
(Santa Monica, CA: MCA, 2000, 1980).
12. Mary Lou Sullivan, Raisin’ Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny
Winter (New York: Backbeat Books, 2010), 153.
13. Sullivan, Raisin’ Cain, 168.
14. Sullivan, Raisin’ Cain, 160.
15. Leslie West, Interview on Howard Stern, July 23, 2007 [Radio].
16. Leslie West, “Mountain,” Classic Rock Magazine, 2003, http://www.
daveling.co.uk/docmountain.htm.
17. West, Interview on Howard Stern.
18. Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2009), 551.
19. John Lennon, “The Rolling Stone Interview: John Lennon,” Rolling
Stone 74, 75, January 21 and February 4, 1971. http://imaginepeace.com
/archives/4385.
notes / 199
20. John Lennon, “Cold Turkey,” The John Lennon Collection (Hollywood,
CA: Capitol Records, 1989).
21. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr,
“Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” The Beatles (London: Parlophone,
1987).
22. Lennon, “The Rolling Stone Interview: John Lennon.”
23. Keith Richards, Life (New York: Little Brown, 2010), 259.
24. Richards, Life, 285.
25. Richards, Life, 285.
26. Richards, Life, 314.
27. Richards, Life, 260.
28. Richards, Life, 260.
29. Richards, Life, 261.
30. Victor Bockris, Keith Richards: The Biography (Cambridge, MA: Da
Capo Press, 2003), 213.
31. Richards, Life, 304.
32. Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and
Beyond (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001), 441.
33. Brian Cogan, The Encyclopedia of Punk (New York: Sterling Publishing,
2008), viii.
34. Caroline Polk O’Meara, “The Bush Tetras, ‘Too Many Creeps’, and
New York City,” American Music, 25, no. 2 (2007), 203.
35. Cogan, The Encyclopedia of Punk, 184.
36. Cogan, The Encyclopedia of Punk, 346.
37. Victor Bockris, Lou Reed: The Biography (London: Hutchinson, 1994),
85.
38. John Cale and Victor Bockris, What’s Welsh for Zen: The Autobiography
of John Cale (New York: Bloomsbury, 1999), 73.
39. John Leland, Hip: The History (New York: HarperCollins, 2004),
268–269.
40. Velvet Underground and Nico, “Heroin,” The Velvet Underground &
Nico (New York, NY: Polydor, 1996).
41. Leland, Hip, 267.
42. Velvet Underground and Nico, “I’m Waiting for the Man,” The Velvet
Underground & Nico.
43. Velvet Underground, “Sister Ray,” White Light/White Heat (Hollywood,
CA: Polydor, 1996).
44. Dave Thompson, Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell: The Dangerous
Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed (New York: Backbeat
Books, 2009), 37.
45. Leland, Hip, 252.
46. James Young, Nico: The End (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1992),
66.
200 / notes
47. Richard Witt, Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon (London: Virgin,
1993), 243.
48. Witt, Nico, 243–244.
49. Witt, Nico, 285.
50. Young, Nico, 79.
51. Witt, Nico, 293.
52. Richard Hell, Blank Generation (New York: Sire Records, 1977).
53. Richard Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp (New York: Harper
Collins, 2013), 217.
54. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 130.
55. Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Please Kill Me (New York: Grove
Press, 1996), 166.
56. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 154.
57. McNeil and McCain, Please Kill Me, 166.
58. Steven Wells, Punk: Young, Loud and Snotty (New York: Thunder’s
Mouth Press, 2004), 138.
59. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 137.
60. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 138.
61. See Richard Curtis, Travis Wendel, and Barry Spunt, “We Deliver:
The Gentrification of Drug Markets on Manhattan’s Lower East
Side.” (Final Report to the National Institute of Justice Grant #1999-
IJ-CX-0010, 2002).
62. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 160–161.
63. McNeil and McCain, Please Kill Me, 209–210.
64. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 229.
65. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 241.
66. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 263.
67. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 252.
68. Brian Smith, “Tator Tautology,” Detroit Metro Times, May 21, 2003,
http://www2.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=4933.
69. Judy McGuire, The Official Book of Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘N’ Roll Lists
(Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press, 2011), 189–190.
70. McGuire, The Official Book of Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘N’ Roll Lists,
189–190.
71. Will Hermes, “Punk Reunion: New York,” Spin Magazine, September
21, 2007, http://www.spin.com/articles/punk-reunion-new-york/.
72. Richard Hell, “Delicate Rage,” New York Magazine, May 21, 2005,
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/9310
73. Savage, England’s Dreaming, 59.
74. Like many early bands, the Dolls have resurrected themselves over the
years and continue to perform
75. John Holmstrom and Hurd, Bridget (eds). Punk: The Best of Punk
Magazine (New York: HarperCollins 2012).
notes / 201
76. Pamela Des Barres, Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon
(London: Abacus, 1997).
77. Mat Snow, “Hairspray and Hard Drugs: The New York Dolls,” Q,
January 1995. http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/hairspray
-and-hard-drugs-the-new-york-dolls
78. Nina Antonia, Too Much Too Soon: The New York Dolls (London:
Omnibus, 2005a), 188.
79. Jerry Nolan, “My Life as a Doll,” Village Voice Rock and Roll Quarterly
(July 1991), 22.
80. Nolan, “My Life as a Doll,” 22.
81. Nolan, “My Life as a Doll,” 22.
82. Nina Antonia, Johnny Thunders: In Cold Blood (London: Cherry Red
Books, 2000), 230–233.
83. Stephen Colegrave and Chris Sullivan, Punk: The Definitive Record of
a Revolution (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2001), 213.
84. Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia, End of the Century—The Story of
the Ramones ([Film] Magnolia Pictures, 2005).
85. Dom Daley, “Walter Lure—Interview Exclusive,” Uber Rock,
November 12, 2009, http://www.uberrock.co.uk/interviews/62-no-
vember-interviews/292-walter-lure-interview-exclusive.html.
86. Richard Hell and Walter Lure, “One Track Mind,” Born to Lose: Johnny
Thunders with the New York Dolls, the Heartbreakers & Alone (Kent:
Delta Music, 2003).
87. Johnny Thunders and Walter Lure, “Too Much Junkie Business,” Born
to Lose: Johnny Thunders with the New York Dolls, the Heartbreakers &
Alone (Kent: Delta Music, 2003).
88. Daniel Clodfelter, “Walter Lure: The Devil Inside,” LA Record, August
25, 2009, http://larecord.com/interviews/2009/08/25/walter-lure-of-
the-heartbreakers-interview-the-devils-inside.
89. Daley, “Walter Lure—Interview Exclusive.”
90. Joe Bonomo, Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band
(London: Continuum Books, 2007), 234.
91. Bonomo, Sweat, 234.
92. Antonia, Too Much Too Soon, 182.
93. Nina Antonia, “The First Punk: Johnny Thunders,” Mojo, March, 2005.
94. The Clash, “The City of the Dead,” Clash on Broadway (New York:
Epic, 1991).
95. John Lydon, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (New York: Picador,
1994), 135.
96. Cogan, The Encyclopedia of Punk, 256.
97. Colegrave and Sullivan, Punk, 212.
98. Dee Dee Ramone and Veronica Kofman, Lobotomy (New York:
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1997), 26–27.
202 / notes
120. Martin Popoff, “Twelve Shots on the Rocks (Liquor and Poker): An
Interview with Singer Michael Monroe,” Lollipop, n.d., http://www
.lollipop.com/article.php3?content=issue65/hanoirocks.html.
121. Nick Kent, The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), 183.
122. Colegrave and Sullivan, Punk, 219.
123. Colegrave and Sullivan, Punk, 290, 319.
124. Colegrave and Sullivan, Punk, 219.
125. Mark Paytress, Vicious! The Downfall of the Prince of Punk (London:
Sanctuary, 2004), 186.
126. Gary Herman, Rock’n’Roll Babylon (London: Plexus, 2002), 62.
127. Savage, England’s Dreaming, 510.
128. Herman, Rock’n’Roll Babylon, 63.
129. Chrome, Cheetah Chrome, 253.
130. Cogan, The Encyclopedia of Punk, 9.
131. Douglas Levy, “GG Allin: Portrait of a Serial Singer,” The GG Allin
SuperSite Media Guide—Anthropomorphic, #1 January, 1993, http://
www.oocities.org/ekx001/MG/ANT1993MG.html.
132. Matt Corbett, “Leftover Crack—Interview,” Racket Magazine, March
16, 2008, http://racketmag.com/interviews/leftover-crack-interview/;
Colin Moynihan, “Sharing a Part of Activist History in the East
Village,” The New York Times, March 4, 2012. http://www.nytimes.
com/2012/03/05nyregion/east-village-museum-shares-a-piece-of-
activist-history.html.
133. Hannah Wagner and Roya Butler, “Leftover Crack Interview,” All
Schools Network, n.d. http://www.allschools.de/interview/53834.
134. STZA, “Gimme Heroin,” Leftover Crack/ Citizen Fish Split 7 (with
Citizen Fish) (Fat Wreck Chords, 2006).
135. Cogan, The Encyclopedia of Punk, 64–65.
136. Steven Blush, American Hardcore: A Tribal History (Port Townsend,
WA: Feral House, 2010) 188.
137. John Joseph, The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon (New York: Punkhouse
Publishing, 2007), 380–383.
138. Joseph, The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, 95.
139. John Barry, “I Against I: It’s Not Easy Being a Punk Legend, But
H.R. Still Has That P.M.A,” Baltimore City Paper, October 15, 2008,
http://www2.citypaper.com/music/story.asp?id=16871
140. Mark Andersen, and Mark Jenkins, The Dance of Days: The History of
the Washington D.C. Punk Scene (New York: Soft Skull, 2009), 28.
141. Andersen and Jenkins, The Dance of Days, 57–58.
142. Cogan, The Encyclopedia of Punk, 262.
143. Reagan Youth, “Reagan Youth Biography,” n.d., http://www.newre-
darchives.com/bands/Reaganyouth/bio.htm.
204 / notes
169. Cop Shoot Cop, “She’s Like a Shot,” Consumer Revolt (London: Big
Cat, 1992).
170. Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life, 3–5.
171. Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life, 9.
172. Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life, 494–495.
173. Albert Hammond, “Interviews—Rock & Folk April 2011: Albert
Hammond, The Strokes,” shesfixingherhair, 2011b, http://www
.shesfixingherhair.co.uk/blog/interviews-rock-folk-april-2011.
174. Albert Hammond, “Albert Hammond Jr. Confesses Drug Problem”
April 29, 2011, Contactmusic, 2011a, http://www.contactmusic.com/
news/albert-hammond-jr-confesses-drug-problem_1216108.
175. Mike Doughty, The Book of Drugs: A Memoir (Boston, MA: Da Capo
Press, 2012a).
176. Doughty, The Book of Drugs, 160.
177. Doughty, The Book of Drugs, 244.
178. Doughty, The Book of Drugs, 154–5.
179. Doughty, The Book of Drugs, 159.
180. Doughty, The Book of Drugs, 165.
181. Doughty, The Book of Drugs, 204.
182. Mike Doughty, “Doughty Emerges from Soul Coughing
Clean, Upbeat,” VH1, 2012b, http://m.vh1.com/news/article.rbml?id
=1424482&artist=soul_coughing.
183. Ryan Adams, “Ryan Adams,” Spin Magazine, June 21, 2007.
184. Anthony DeCurtis, “Ryan Adams Didn’t Die. Now the Work
Begins,” The New York Times, June 17, 2007, http://topics.nytimes.
com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/ryan_adams/index.html.
185. Ryan Adams, “Hotel Chelsea Nights,” Love Is Hell (Universal City,
CA: Lost Highway, 2004).
186. Lauren St. John, Hardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of
Steve Earle (New York: Fourth Estate, 2004), 36.
187. St. John, Hardcore Troubadour, 104.
188. Toby Manning, “Steve Earle Gives New Meaning to the Expression
‘Lifetime Achievement’,” Word, May 2004.
189. St. John, Hardcore Troubadour, 241.
190. Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams, “CCKMP,” I Feel Alright
(Burbank, CA: Warner Bros, 1996).
191. Steve Earle and Allison Moorer, “Oxycontin Blues,” Washington
Square Serenade (S.l.: New West Records, 2007).
192. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 251.
193. Nina Antonia, “The First Punk: Johnny Thunders,” Mojo, March,
2005b.
194. Paul Friedlander, Rock & Roll: A Social History (Cambridge, MA:
Westview Press, 2006), 26; Ronald Cohen, “The Delinquents:
Censorship and Youth Culture in Recent US History,” History of
Education Quarterly 37 no. 3 (1997): 266.
206 / notes
195. Ray Pratt, Rhythm and Resistance (New York: Praeger, 1990), 138.
196. Cohen, “The Delinquents,” 254.
197. Napier-Bell, Black Vinyl White Powder, 148; see also David Baker,
“Rock Rebels and Delinquents: The Emergence of the Rock Rebel
in 1950s ‘Youth Problem’ Films,” Continuum: Journal of Media and
Cultural Studies 19, no. 1 (March 2005): 39–54.
198. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 198, 130.
199. Cohen, “The Delinquents,” 39.
200. Cohen, “The Delinquents,” 40–41.
201. Bill Haley, “Rock Around the Clock,” Bill Haley & His Comets
(Universal City, CA: MCA Records, 1999).
202. Cohen, “The Delinquents,” 266.
203. Pratt, Rhythm and Resistance, 135.
204. Herman, Rock’n’Roll Babylon, 35.
205. Craig O’Hara, The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise!! (Edinburgh:
AK Press, 1999), 38.
206. Ken Gelder, ed., The Subcultures Reader (London: Routledge, 2005),
83–89.
207. Colegrave and Sullivan, Punk, 12–13.
208. John Holmstrom and Bridget Hurd, eds., Punk: The Best of Punk
Magazine (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 46.
209. Wells, Punk, 27.
210. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 116.
211. Hell, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, 147.
212. Wells, Punk, 71.
213. Holmstrom and Hurd, Punk, 9.
214. Keith Roe, “Music and Identity among European Youth,” Soundscopes.
info vol. 2, July 1999, http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes
/DATABASES/MIE/Part2_chapter03.shtml.
215. Mark Andersen, and Mark Jenkins, The Dance of Days: The History of
the Washington D.C. Punk Scene (New York: Soft Skull, 2009), 21.
216. Lydon, Rotten, 158.
4 R&B
1. Jerry Wexler and David Ritz, Rhythm and the Blues: A Life in American
Music (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 62.
2. Six New York–based R&B musicians/performers have spoken pub-
licly about their heroin abuse; listed alphabetically, they are: Dion
(DiMucci), Dr. John, Chaka Khan, Frankie Lymon, Sam Moore, and
Nicky Siano. Also part of the story of heroin and R&B in New York
are: Larry Levan, Rudy Lewis, and, from Parliament-Funkadelic:
Tiki Fulwood, Eddie Hazel, Billy Nelson, and Tawl Ross.
notes / 207
3. Frankie Lymon, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” Billboard Top Rock ‘n’
Roll Hits, 1956 (Santa Monica, CA: Rhino, 1989).
4. Gary Herman, Rock’n’Roll Babylon (London: Plexus, 2002), 81.
5. Art Peters, “Comeback of a Child Star,” Ebony 22, no. 3 (1967): 43.
6. Peters, “Comeback of a Child Star,” 49.
7. Peters, “Comeback of a Child Star,” 49.
8. Peters, “Comeback of a Child Star,” 49.
9. Reebee Garafalo, Rockin Out: Popular Music in the USA (New York:
Pearson, 1996), 129.
10. Dion DiMucci, The Wanderer (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1988), 51.
11. DiMucci, The Wanderer, 51.
12. DiMucci, The Wanderer, 52.
13. DiMucci, The Wanderer, 78.
14. Garafalo, Rockin Out, 129.
15. Dion DiMucci, Dion (Cincinatti, OH: Servant Press, 2011), 49–50.
16. James Brown, Make It Funky: The Big Payback: 1971–1975 (S.I.
Polydor, 1996).
17. R. J. Smith, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown (New York:
Gotham Books, 2012), 260.
18. Sam Moore, “Soul Survivor,” People, June 16, 2003, http://www.peo-
ple.com/people/archive/article/0,,20140335,00.html.
19. Sam Moore and Dave Marsh, Sam and Dave: An Oral History (New
York: Avon Books, 1998), 86.
20. Moore and Marsh, Sam and Dave, 83.
21. Sam Moore, “Soul Man Sam’s Heroin Shame,” ContactMusic, January
2004, www.contactmusic.com/news-article/soul-man-sam.s-heroin
-shame.
22. The Drifters, “Up on the Roof,” The Very Best of the Drifters (Los
Angeles, CA: Rhino, 1993).
23. The Drifters, “On Broadway,” The Very Best of the Drifters.
24. The Drifters, “Under the Boardwalk,” The Very Best of the Drifters.
25. Garafalo, Rockin Out, 128.
26. Rudy Lewis, “Rudy Lewis Death, the Drifters: A Famous Man Few
People Knew,” http://forever-27.com/rudy-lewis/rudy-lewis-death-the-
drifters-a-famous-man-few-people-knew/, n.d.
27. Jeremy Simmonds, The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (Chicago:
Chicago Review Press, 2008), 532.
28. Mac [Dr. John] Rebennack, Under a Hoodoo Moon (New York: St.
Martin’s Griffin, 1994), 31.
29. Rebennack, Under a Hoodoo Moon, 38.
30. Gary Stromberg and Jane Merrill, The Harder They Fall: Celebrities
Tell Their Real Life Stories of Addiction and Recovery (Center City, MN:
Hazelden Books 2005), 88.
208 / notes
31. Chaka Khan, “Khan’s Regrets over Drug Use,” ContactMusic, October
2009, www.contactmusic.com/news/khans-regrets-over-drug-use
_1118237.
32. Chaka Khan, Chaka! Through the Fire (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press,
2003), 135–136.
33. P-F dissolved in the early 1980s, but the P-F All Stars, a successor
band, still performs.
34. Dimitri Nasrallah, “George Clinton: A Parliafunkadelicment Thang,”
Exclaim, October 2005, http://exclaim.ca/Features/Timeline/george
_clinton-parliafunkadelicment/Page/4.
35. David Mills, Larry Alexander, Thomas Stanley, and Aris Wilson,
George Clinton and P-Funk (New York: Avon Books, 1998), 57.
36. Mills et al., “George Clinton,” 58.
37. Mills et al., “George Clinton,” 51–53.
38. See Peter Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco
(London: Faber and Faber, 2005), 3–56, chap. 1.
39. Peter Braunstein, “Disco,” American Heritage (November 1999): 43;
Garafalo, Rockin Out, 334; Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around, 29.
40. Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around, 210.
41. Tim Lawrence, Love Saves the Day (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2004), 274.
42. Garafalo, Rockin Out, 340.
43. Bill Brewster, and Frank Broughton, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
(New York: Grove Press, 1999), 8.
44. Brewster and Broughton, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 188.
45. Lawrence, Love Saves the Day, 280.
46. Lawrence, Love Saves the Day, 244–246.
47. Lawrence, Love Saves the Day, 246.
48. Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around, 269.
49. Brewster and Broughton, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 287.
50. Mel Cheren, My Life and the Paradise Garage (New York: 24 Hours for
Life, 2000), 445.
51. Matthew Collin, Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid
House (London: Profile Books, 2009), 13.
52. Karenza Moore and Steven Miles, “Young People, Dance, and the
Subcultural Consumption of Drugs,” Addiction Research and Theory
12, no. 6 (2004): 519.
53. Frank Owen, Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club
Culture (New York: Macmillan, 2003), 42.
54. Cheryl Keys, Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 2002), 40.
55. Ed Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, and Ken Tucker, Rock of Ages: The Rolling
Stone History of Rock and Roll (New York: Rolling Stone Press/Summit
Books, 1986), 599.
notes / 209
56. I use “rap” rather than “hiphop” because rap refers more specifically
to a type of music, while hiphop speaks to a larger subculture and life-
style that includes not only rap but also break dancing, DJing, graffiti
art, slang, and fashion.
57. Dennis Rome, Black Demons (Westport, CN: Praeger, 2004), 101–
102; see also Keys, Rap Music and Street Consciousness, 17–38.
58. Timothy Brennan, Secular Devotion: Afro-Latin Music and Imperial
Jazz (New York: Verso Books, 2008), 117; see also Raquel Rivera, New
York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2003); Juan Flores, “Recapturing History: The Puerto Rican Roots of
Hip Hop Culture,” in Island Sounds in the Global City, ed. Ray Allen
and Lois Wilcken, 61–73 (New York: New York Folklore Society,
1998).
59. Juan Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hip (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2000), 76.
60. Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman, Louder Than Hell: The
Definitive Oral History of Metal (New York: HarperCollins, 2013),
408.
61. Jon Pareles, “Rapper Conquered Music World in ‘80s with Beastie
Boys” (Adam Yauch obituary), New York Times, May 4, 2012, http://
www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/arts/music/adam-yauch-a-founder-of-
the-beastie-boys-dies-at-47.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
62. Redman, “How to Roll a Blunt.” Whut? Thee Album (New York, NY:
Rush Associated Labels, 1992).
63. Busta Rhymes, “Get High Tonight,” When Disaster Strikes (New York:
Elektra, 1997).
64. 50 Cent, “High All the Time, Get Rich or Die Tryin’” (New York:
Aftermath, Interscope, Shady, 2003).
65. Styles P. “Blow Ya Mind,” Super Gangster (Extraordinary Gentleman)
(New York: Koch Records, 2007).
66. ASAP Rocky, Roll One Up, Live.Love.ASAP.
67. Sam Dolnick, “Hope for a Bronx Tower of Hip-Hop Lore,” New
York Times September 7, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07
/nyregion/07.
68. Wayne Marshall, “Kool Herc,” in Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia
of the Movement, Music, and Culture, ed. Mickey Hess, 22 (Westport,
CT: Greenwood, 2007).
69. Grand Master Flash, “The Message,” Grand Master Flash & the Furious
Five (Englewood, NJ: Sugar Hill Records, 1982).
70. Joseph Saddler, [Grandmaster Flash]. The Adventures of Grandmaster
Flash (New York: Broadway Books, 2008), 157.
71. Saddler, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash, 169, 197.
72. Flavor Flav, Flavor Flav: The Icon, the Memoir (Las Vegas, NV: Farrah
Gray Publishing, 2011), 62.
210 / notes
73. Jaime Lowe, Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB (New York:
Faber and Faber, 2008), 227.
74. Lowe, Digging for Dirt, 126.
75. Simmonds, The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars, 532.
76. Tony Whitehead, James Peterson, and Linda Kaljee, “The ‘Hustle’:
Socioeconomic Deprivation, Urban Drug Trafficking, and Low-
Income, African-American Male Gender Identity,” Pediatics 93, no. 6
(1994): 1053.
77. Eithne Quinn, Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2005), 50.
78. Toure, “Biggie Smalls, Rap’s Man of the Moment” New York Times,
December 18, 1994, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/18/arts/pop-
music-biggie-smalls-rap-s-man-of-the-moment.html.
79. Matthew Cooke, How to Make Money Selling Drugs [Film] (Tribeca
Films, 2012).
80. Ethan Brown, Queens Reigns Supreme (New York: Anchor Books,
2005), 140.
81. Jackson, From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens
(London: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 95.
82. Jay-Z, Decoded (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010), 23.
83. Jay-Z, Decoded, 75.
84. Jay-Z, “Jay-Z Speaks on His Drug Dealing Past & Almost Being
Shot With Oprah” The O Magazine, October 2009, http://realtalkny.
uproxx.com/2009/09/topic/topic/featured/jay-z-speaks-on-his-drug-
dealing-past-almost-being-shot-with-oprah/#ixzz2SMzOewUU.
85. Dimitri Bogazianos, 5 Grams (New York: New York University Press,
2012), 54.
86. Melle Mel, “White Lines,” Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five
(Englewood, NJ: Sugar Hill Records, 1982).
87. Brewster and Broughton, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 234.
88. Dorian Lynskey, 33 Revolutions Per Minute (New York: HarperCollins,
2011), 338.
89. In the early years of the crack era, abusers were often called baseheads,
in reference to freebase, an earlier form of smokable cocaine.
90. Public Enemy, “Night of the Living Baseheads,” It Takes a Nation of
Millions to Hold Us Back (New York: Def Jam Recordings, 1988).
91. De La Soul, “My Brother’s a Basehead,” De La Soul Is Dead (New
York: Tommy Boy, 1991).
92. Notorious B.I.G., “Ten Crack Commandments,” Life after Death
(New York: Bad Boy Records, 1997).
93. 50 Cent, “Bloodhound,” Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (New York: Aftermath,
Interscope, Shady, 2003).
94. Jay-Z, “Dead Presidents,” Reasonable Doubt (Roc-A-Fella Records,
Priority, 1996).
notes / 211
140. Azie Faison and Agyei Tyehimba, Game Over: The Rise and
Transformation of a Harlem Hustler (New York: Atria Publishing,
2007), 220.
141. Brown, Queens Reigns Supreme.
142. Brown, Queens Reigns Supreme, xx.
143. Brown, Queens Reigns Supreme, xxv.
144. Mobb Deep. Shook Ones Part 2, The Infamous (New York: RCA,
1995).
145. Albert [Prodigy] Johnson, My Infamous Life (New York: Touchstone,
2011), 170.
146. Method Man, “I’m Dope Nigga,” Blackout! 2 (New York: Def Jam,
2009).
147. Old Dirty Bastard, “Raw Hide,” Return to the 36 Chambers: The
Dirty Version (New York: Elektra, 1995).
5 Folk Music
1. Jim Farber, “That’s Not At All Folk,” New York Daily News, March 17,
2013, 5.
2. Rob Rosenthal and Sam Rosenthal (eds.). Pete Seeger in His Own
Words (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2012), 67.
3. Anne Margaret Daniel, The Rhymers’ Club, Part Two: Bob Dylan and
Edgar Allan Poe 07/02/2013 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne
-margaret-daniel/the-rhymers-club-part-two_b_3519344.html.
4. Dick Weissman, Which Side Are You On (London: Continuum,
2006), 10.
5. Will Kaufman, Woody Guthrie: American Radical (Champaign:
University of llinois Press, 2011).
6. Nora Guthrie, My Name Is New York (Brooklyn, NY: Powerhouse
Books, 2012).
7. Weavers, “Goodnight Irene,” The Weavers Greatest Hits (Santa
Monica, CA: Vanguard, 1986).
8. Sam Roberts, “America’s Left Bank” New York Times, April 5, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/nyregion/how-greenwich-vil-
lage-got-its-funk.html?_r=0; see John Strausbaugh, The Village (New
York: HarperCollins, 2013).
9. David King Dunaway, and Molly Beer, Singing Out: An Oral History
of America’s Folk Music Revivals (New York: Oxford University Press,
2010), 2.
10. Robert Cantwell, When We Were Good: The Folk Revival (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 287–289.
11. Weissman, Which Side Are You On, 94.
214 / notes
12. See Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America (New York: Doubleday,
2010), 61–62.
13. See Suze Rotolo, A Freeweelin’ Time (New York: Broadway Books,
2009), 145.
14. Dave Van Ronk, and Elijah Wald, The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A
Memoir (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2005), 209.
15. These nine musicians are: James Taylor, John Phillips, Levon Helm, Rick
Danko, Tim Hardin, Bob Gibson, David Blue, and Steve Weber; Bob
Dylan is cautiously included in this group (see the discussion to follow).
Fred Neil, Karen Dalton, and Cass Elliot are also part of the story.
16. Dave Thompson, Hearts of Darkness (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat
Books, 2012), 197.
17. Timothy White, James Taylor (London: Omnibus Press, 2005), 119.
18. David Browne, Fire and Rain (Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 2011),
55.
19. Joe Smith, and Mitchell Fink, Off the Record: An Oral History of
Popular Music (New York: Warner Books, 1989), 309.
20. Smith and Fink, Off the Record, 309.
21. White, James Taylor, 140.
22. Thompson, Hearts of Darkness, 112.
23. Browne, Fire and Rain, 250–251.
24. James Taylor and Stephen C. Foster, “Fire and Rain,” Sweet Baby James
(Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Records, 1987).
25. James Taylor, Valerie Carter, Arnold McCuller, Kate Markowitz, David
Lasley, Bob Mann, Clifford Carter et al., “Another Day,” Hourglass
(New York: Sony, 1997).
26. Timothy White, “James Taylor: Immense Singer, Considerable
Cranium,” Mojo September 1997, http://www.james-taylor.com/
articles/mojo-september-1997.
27. James Taylor, “Rainy Day Man” James Taylor (S.l.: Apple, 2010).
28. Ian Halperin, Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Story (New York, NY:
Citadel Press Books, 2003), 49.
29. Robbie Woliver, Hoot: A 25 Year History of the Greenwich Village Music
Scene (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 60.
30. Marc Myers, “Jazz Wax,” Jazz’s First Record Turns 95, February 21,
2012, www.JazzWax.com.
31. Mary Vespa, “Mackenzie Phillips and Her Rock Legend Dad Toil to
Escape the Rack of Drugs,” People, March 2, 1981, http://www.people.
com people/archive/article/0,,20078715,00.html.
32. Chris Campion, “John Phillips: A Lifetime of Debauched and Reckless
Behaviour,” The Telegraph, September 25, 2009, http://www.telegraph
.co.uk/culture/music/6228133/John-Phillips-a-lifetime-of-debauched
-and-reckless-behaviour.html.
notes / 215
33. Chris Campion, “King of the Wild Frontier,” The Guardian, March 14,
2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/mar/15/john-phillips
-mamas-and-papas.
34. Eddi Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream of Me: The Life of Cass Elliot
(Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2005), 235.
35. Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream of Me, 236.
36. Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream of Me, 241.
37. Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream of Me, 271.
38. Dorian Lynskey, 33 Revolutions Per Minute (New York: Harper
Collins, 2011), 58.
39. Bob Dylan, Chronicles Volume One (New York: Simon and Schuster,
2004), 103.
40. Bob Dylan, Tarantula (New York: Schribner, 1966), 48.
41. Bob Dylan, Michael Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Paul Griffin, Bobby
Gregg, Harvey Brooks, Charlie McCoy, Frank Owens, and Russ
Savakus, “From a Buick 6,” Highway 61 Revisited (New York:
Columbia, 2004).
42. Howard Sounces, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (New
York: Grove Press, 2011), 264.
43. Andy Greene, “Questions about Bob Dylan’s Claim That He Was Once
a Heroin Addict,” Rolling Stone, May 23, 2011, http://www.rollingstone
.com/music/news/bob-dylan-admits-heroin-addiction-in-newly-released
-1966-interview.
44. Robert Shelton, No Direction Home (New York: Ballantine Press,
1986; 2010), 5.
45. Greene, “Questions about Bob Dylan’s Claim.”
46. Greene, “Questions about Bob Dylan’s Claim.”
47. Greene, “Questions about Bob Dylan’s Claim.”
48. Barney Hoskyns, Across the Great Divide (Milwaukee, WI: Hal
Leonard, 2006), 127.
49. Levon Helm and Stephen Davis, This Wheel’s on Fire (Chicago, IL: A
Cappella Press, 1993), 196.
50. Helm and Davis, This Wheel’s on Fire, 209.
51. Helm and Davis, This Wheel’s on Fire, 209.
52. Adam Sweeting, “Rick Danko [obituary],” The Guardian, December 16,
1999, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/1999/dec/17/guardianobituaries.
Adamsweeting.
53. Robert Doerschuk, “Rick Danko—The Last Interview,” December 7,
1999, http://theband.hiof.no/articles/rd_120799.html.
54. Rick Danko, “Rick Danko Says Heroin Arrest a Mistake,” Reading (PA)
Eagle, July 3, 1997a, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat
=19970703&id=jIc1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=dqYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2639,8
75828.
216 / notes
103. Steve Weber, Luke Faust, Peter Stampfel, and Robin Remailly, “Sally
in the Alley,” Alleged in Their Own Time (Somerville, MA: Rounder
Records, 1975).
104. Greil Marcus, Bob Dylan (New York: PublicAffairs Books, 2010),
353–354.
105. Peter Stampfel, “Lonely Junkie,” Peter Stampfel & the Bottle Caps
(Cambridge, MA: Rounder Records Corp, 1900).
106. Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America, 63.
107. Ronald Cohen, Rainbow Quest (Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts Press, 2002), 108.
108. Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America, 51.
109. Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America, 54.
110. Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America, 10–11.
111. Eric Schneider, Smack: Heroin and the American City (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 143; Carlo McCormick,
“Beat Pharmacopoeia,” in The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats, ed.
Holly George-Warren, 367–370 (New York: Hyperion, 1999).
112. Schneider, Smack, 143.
113. Ned Polsky, Hustlers, Beats, and Others (Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press,1985), 144–182.
114. Bill Morgan, I Celebrate Myself (New York: Viking Press, 2006), 85.
115. Morgan, I Celebrate Myself, 349.
116. Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, 1947–1980 (New York: Harper &
Row, 1984).
117. Schneider, Smack, 143; see also Nicolas Rasmussen, On Speed: The
Many Lives of Amphetamine (New York: NYU Press, 2009), 94–99.
118. Ted Morgan, Literary Outlaw (New York: Henry Holt, 1988), 121.
119. Daniel Odier, The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs (New
York: Penguin Books, 1989), 144.
120. William S Burroughs, Junky (New York: Penguin Books, 2003),
xxxviii.
121. Burroughs, Junky.
122. William S Burroughs, Naked Lunch (New York: Grove Press, 2001).
123. Barry Miles, The Beat Hotel (New York: Grove Press, 2000), 92.
124. Odier, The Job, 133.
125. Odier, The Job, 159.
126. Gregory Corso, An Accidental Autobiography (New York: New
Directions, 2003), 372.
127. Corso, An Accidental Autobiography, 377.
128. Dick Weissman, Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat
Books, 2010), 184.
129. Kaufman, Woody Guthriel, 122.
notes / 219
130. William Roy, Red White and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and
Race in the United States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2010), 79.
131. Dunaway and Beer, Singing Out, 76–107; see also Weissman, Talkin’
‘Bout a Revolution, 202–205.
132. Van Ronk and Wald, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, 198.
133. Thompson, Hearts of Darkness, 115.
134. Recall from chapter two that even in jazz, heroin did not become a
problem until after the war.
135. David King Dunaway, How Can I Keep from Singing (New York:
Villard Books, 2008), 331.
136. Rosenthal and Rosenthal, Pete Seeger in His Own Words, 310.
137. Jeffrey Lewis, “Rip-Off Artist,” New York Times Opinionator [blog],
August 9, 2008, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/
rip-off-artist/?_r=0.
138. Jeffrey Lewis, “Everyone’s Honest,” Indie-rock Fortune Cookie (Cooper
Station, NY, 2001).
139. Jeffrey Lewis and Jack Lewis, “The Last Time I Did Acid I Went
Insane,” The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane: And Other Favorites
(London: Rough Trade, 2001).
140. Jeffrey Lewis, Jack Lewis, and Anders Griffen, “No LSD Tonight,”
It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That the Light Shines through (New York:
Rough Trade Records, 2003).
141. Amos Barshad, “Adam Green Explains His Macaulay Culkin–
Starring, Ketamine-Influenced iPhone Movie the Wrong Ferrari,”
Vulture, April 7, 2011, http://www.vulture.com/2011/04/adam_
green_explains_his_macaul.html.
142. Beck Hansen, “Beck Issues a Sinister Drugs Warning,” Contactmusic
May 6, 2005, http://www.contactmusic.com/news-article/beck-
issues-asinister-drugs-warning.
143. See Richard Meyer, “The Outlaw: A Distinctive American Folk,”
Journal of the Folklore Institute 17 (May–December, 1980): 94–124.
144. Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969),
20.
145. Bascom L. Lunsford, “Poor Jesse James,” Minstrel of the Appalachians
(New York: Riverside, 1959).
146. Woody Guthrie, Jeffrey Place, Guy W. Logsdon, Moses Asch,
Leadbelly, Cisco Houston, and Cool White, “Billy the Kid,” Woody
Guthrie: The Asch Recordings (Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Folkways, 1999).
147. Woody Guthrie, “Pretty Boy Floyd,” Dust Bowl Ballads (New York:
Buddha Records, 2000).
220 / notes
148. David Blue, “Outlaw Man,” Nice Baby and the Angel (New York:
Asylum Records, 1973).
149. Bob Dylan, “Outlaw Blues,” Bringing It All Back Home (New York:
Columbia, 1980).
150. Bob Dylan and Gordon Carroll, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid: Original
Soundtrack Recording (New York: Columbia, 1989).
151. Bob Dylan, “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” Blonde on Blonde (New York:
Columbia, 2004).
152. Peter Vernezze and Carl Porter, Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s All
Right, Ma, I’m Only Thinking (New York: Carus Publishing, 2005),
79.
153. Bob Dylan, “Rainy Day Women #12 and #35,” Songfacts, http://
www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2934.
154. Mikal Gilmore, “Bob Dylan Unleashed: A Wild Ride on His New LP
and Striking Back at Critics,” Rolling Stone, September 27, 2012, http://
www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-unleashed-a-wild
-ride-on-his-new-lp-and-striking-back-at-critics-20120927.
155. Bert Jansch, “Needle of Death,” Bert Jansch (London: Sanctuary
Records, 2001).
156. Bert Jansch, “Needle of Death by Bert Jansch,” Songfacts, http://
www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=18126.
24. Shedlin and Deren, “Cultural Factors Influencing HIV Risk Behavior
among Dominicans in New York City,” 86–89.
25. NBC News, “Illegal Drug Use Rising among Hispanic Teens,”
September 24, 2007, www.nbcnews.com/id/20961698/ns/health-
addictions/t/illegal-drug-use-rising-among-hispanic-teens.
26. Join Together, “Prescription Drug Abuse Rising among Hispanic
Youth,” July 27, 2006, http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/drugs/
prescription-drug-abus-r.
27. Axel Klein, Marcus Day, and Anthony Harriot, eds., Caribbean Drugs
(Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2004), 203.
28. Paula Holzman Kleinman and Irving Faber Lukoff, “Ethnic Differences
in Factors Related to Drug Use,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior
19, no. 2 (1978): 190–199.
29. Hamid et al., “The Heroin Epidemic in New York City,” 382.
30. Glenda Anderson, “Troubling New Signs of Heroin,” The Gleaner
(Jamaica), July 20, 2003, http://jamaicagleaner.com/gleaner/
20030720/lead/lead2.html.
31. Klein, Day, and Harriot, Caribbean Drugs, 154.
32. Alexander Hotz and Kristofer Rios, “Puerto Rico’s Ignored Public
Health Crisis: ‘I’ve Lost a Lot of Friends to Drugs,’” The Guardian,
July 15, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/15/puerto
-rick-health-crisis-heroin-drugs.
33. Daniel Kanstroom, “Deportation Nation” [Op Ed], The New York
Times, August 30, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/opin-
ion/deportation-nation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
34. David Brotherton and Luis Barrios, Banished to the Homeland
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 229; see also David
Brotherton and Yolanda Martin, “The War on Drugs and the
Dominican Deportee,” Journal of Crime and Justice 32, no. 2 (2009):
21–48; Yolanda Martin, Wasting Away: Substance Abuse and Health
Risk Outcomes Among Dominican Deportees (PhD diss., New York:
CUNY Graduate Center, 2012).
35. Travis Wendel and Richard Curtis, “The Heraldry of Heroin: ‘Dope
Stamps’ and the Dynamics of Drug Markets in New York City,”
Journal of Drug Issues, 30, no. 2 (2000): 225–260.
36. Hamid et al., “The Heroin Epidemic in New York City,” 383.
37. National Drug Intelligence Center, “New York Drug Threat
Assessment—Heroin” November 2002, http://www.justice.gov/
archive/ndic/pubs2/2580/heroin.htm.
38. US No Drugs, 2009. “Drug Trends—New York,” http://www.usnod-
rugs.com/drugtrends.htm?state=New%20York.
39. Laura Villagran, “As Mexico’s Traffickers Ship Drugs North They
Leave Addicts in Their Wake,” The Christian Science Monitor, January
notes / 223
/sergio-george-produces-salsa-giants-bringing-genre-legends-article
-1.1420427.
55. Kirk Semple, “To Hear Mexican Ballads, Take the D Train,” The
New York Times, February 11, 2011, 2011a, http://www.nytimes.
com/2011/02/12/nyregion/12bands.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
56. Elijah Wald, Narcocorrido (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 28.
57. Raquel Z. Rivera, “Policing Morality, Mano Duro Stylee: The Case
of Underground Rap and Reggae in Puerto Rico in the Mid-1990s,”
in Reggaeton, ed. Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall, and Deborah
Pacini-Hernandez, 111–134 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2009), 111.
58. Washburne, Sounding Salsa, chap, 4, 130–150.
59. Washburne, Sounding Salsa, 131.
60. Washburne, Sounding Salsa, 144.
61. Washburne, Sounding Salsa, 130–131.
62. Washburne, Sounding Salsa, 130–150.
63. Bill DeMain, “Alan Freed and the Radio Payola Scandal,” Performing
Songwriter, n.d. http://performingsongwriter.com/alan-freed-payola-
scandal/.
64. Fredric Dannen, Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the
Music Business (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 14.
65. Dannen, Hit Men, 92–3 and 282.
66. Dannen, Hit Men, 53.
67. Jordan Levin, “Payola Called Fixture in Latin Music,” Puerto Rican Herald,
December 8, 2002, http://www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2002
/vol6n51/PayolaFixture-en.html; Jasmine Garsd, “Oh, Yes He Did: Latin
Grammys Speech Demands End to Payola,” NPR News November 11,
2011, http://m.npr.org/news/NPR+Music+Mobile/142240749.
68. Nate Anderson, “Payola! (or, How to Undermine Your Own Argument
to Congress),” Ars Technica, July 27, 2010, http://arstechnica.com/tech
-policy/2010/07/payola-or-how-to-undermine-your-own-argument-to
-congress/.
69. Garsd, “Oh, Yes He Did.”
70. Meg James, “Univision Settles U.S. Radio Payola Case,” Los Angeles
Times, July 27, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/27/business/
la-fi-ct-univision-20100727.
71. The five self-acknowledged heroin users were Hector Lavoe, Cheo
Feliciano, Ismael Rivera, Domingo Quinones, and Sabu Martinez.
Frankie Ruiz is also part of the story although he apparently never
talked on the record about his use.
72. Ernesto Lechner, “Reevaluating the Legacy of a Salsa Pioneer,” Los
Angeles Times, October 3, 1999, http://articles.latimes.com/1999oct/03/
entertainment/ca-18006.
notes / 225
99. See Jim O’Donnell, “The Church of the Black Christ,” Around the
World in Eighty Years, February 18, 2013, http://www.aroundtheworld
ineightyyears.com/the-black-christ.
100. Kent, Salsa Talks, 51.
101. Kent, Salsa Talks, 51.
102. Delgado, “Interview: Cheo Feliciano.”
103. Elnuevodia.com, “Domingo Quinones—Canta Sus Verdades [Sing
Your Truths],” Elnuevodia.com August 13, 2012, http://www.elnuevodia
.com/domingoquinonescantasusverdades1321249.html.
104. APC, “Interview with Domingo Quinones,” APC [Spanish television]
March 2006, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOxDqy5UzFo.
105. APC, “Interview with Domingo Quinones.”
106. EFE, “Domingo Quiñones se Recupera de su Dependencia de Las
Drogas en Cuba,” EFE, May 5, 2004, http://bogota.tropicanafm.
com/noticia/domingo-quinones-se- recupera-de-su-dependencia-de-
las-drogas-en-cuba/20040505/nota/154508.aspx.
107. George Rivera, “A Conversation with Domingo Quiñones,”
JazzConClave, 2001b, http://www.jazzconclave.com/i-room/domingo
.html.
108. Karl La Corbiniere, “The TV Idol Who Became a Slave to Heroin—
and Beat It,” Fib-Aktuellt June 2, 1976, http://www.hipwax.com/
sabu/FA061976.html.
109. La Corbiniere, “The TV Idol Who Became a Slave to Heroin—and
Beat It.”
110. Ned Sublette, Cuba and Its Music (Chicago: Chicago Review Press,
2004), 541
111. Lechner, “Reevaluating the Legacy of a Salsa Pioneer.”
112. Lechner, “Reevaluating the Legacy of a Salsa Pioneer.”
113. Philip Sweeney, “Frankie Ruiz [obituary],” The Independent, August
19, 1998, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obitu-
ary-frankie-ruiz-1172610.html.
114. Eileen Torres, “A Tribute to the Late Frankie Ruiz,” Salsa Centro,
2002, http://www.salsacentro.com/index.htm.
115. John Child, “Frankie Ruiz: Another Salsa Casualty” (Obituary),
Descarga.com, August 30, 1998, http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/
db/archives/Profile30.
116. H. Nelson Goodson, “Vargas, Known as Jimmy Bauer Sentenced
to Six Years in Dominican Prison for Heroin Mule Smuggling
Conviction,” Hispanicnewsnetwork, February 29, 2012, http://his-
panicnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/2012/03/01.
117. Associated Press, “Latin American Idol Winner Arrested after
Smuggling Heroin from Dominican Republic on Flight to New York
Inside Her Platform Heels,” Daily Mail (UK ), February 21, 2013,
notes / 227
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282648/Latin-American
-Idol-winner-Martha-Heredia-arrested-smuggling-heroin-Dominican
-Republic-flight-NY-platform-heels.html.
118. Rivera, “A Conversation with Cheo Feliciano.”
119. Alex Roland, “Interview with Cheo Feliciano,” Youtube.com 2007,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XVH_tFuS88.
120. Fitzpatrick, Puerto Rican Americans, 3–4.
121. Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire, 90.
122. Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire, 92.
123. Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets (New York: Vintage Books,
1967), see especially chapters 4, 9, 11, and 13.
124. Gilbert Quintero and Antonio Estrada, “Cultural Models of
Masculinity and Drug Use: Machismo, Heroin, and Street Survival
on the US-Mexico Border,” Contemporary Drug Problems 25, no. 1
(1998): 147–168.
125. Flores, “Ecua Jei! Ismael Rivera, El Sonero Mayor (A Personal
Recollection),” 71.
126. León Ichaso, Julio Caro, Jennifer Lopez, Simon Fields, David
Maldonado, David Darmstaedter, Todd A. Bello, Marc Anthony,
Christopher Becerra, John Ortiz, Vincent Laresca, Manny Pérez, and
Andres Levin, El Cantante, New Line Home Entertainment, 2007.
127. George De Stefano, “The Tragedy of Héctor Lavoe,” Descarga.com
November 1, 1993, http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/archives/
Profile7?eUWCTk73;798.
128. De Stefano, “The Tragedy of Héctor Lavoe.”
129. De Stefano, “The Tragedy of Héctor Lavoe.”
130. Willie Colon, “Willie Colon Speaks Out on El Cantante,” Salsadiaries,
Weblog, entry posted in August 2007, http://salsadiaries.blogspot.
com/2007/08/willie-colon-speak-out-on-el-cantante.html.
7 Conclusion
1. Jeff Ferrell, Keith Hayward, and Jock Young, Cultural Criminology:
An Invitation (London: Sage Publications, 2008).
2. See, for example, Lana Harrison and Arthur Hughes (eds.), “The
Validity of Self-Reported Drug Use: Improving the Accuracy of
Survey Estimates,” NIDA Research Monograph 167. NIH Pub. No.
97–4141 (Washington, DC: Supt. of Docs, U.S. Govt. Print. Off.,
1997); Shane Darke, “Self-Report among Injecting Drug Users: A
Review,” Drug and Alcohol Dependence 51, no. 3 (1998): 253–263.
3. See, for example, Nick Enoch, “Drug Dealers Who Lived Millionaire
Lifestyle Drinking Dom Perignon and Driving Lamborghinis in
228 / notes
£5.5m Heroin Ring Are Jailed,” Daily Mail, June 14, 2013, http://
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341805.
4. Laura Barton, “London’s Unique and Glorious Music Scene Is Unlike
Any Other City’s,” The Guardian, July 26, 2012, http://www.the-
guardian.com/musicmusicblog/2012/jul/26/londons-unique-glorious-
music-scene.
5. See Ralph Gleason, “An Obituary [Lenny Bruce],” in The Unpublished
Lenny Bruce, ed. Kitty Bruce, 1984, 126–128 (Philadelphia, PA:
Running Press, 1966).
6. Bob Dylan and Chuck Plotkin, Shot of Love (New York: Columbia
Records, 1990). Sound recording.
7. Richard Neville, Play Power (New York: Random House, 1970), 138.
I n de x
50 Cent, 114, 116, 117, 119, 121, 122 American Day Carnival and
on heroin use, 118 Parade, 152
Queens upbringing of, 124 American Gangster (film), 121–2
American Gangster (Jay-Z), 121–2
A7 (club), 87 “American Gangster” (Jay-Z), 122
ABC No Rio, 87 amphetamines, 79–80, 142
Adams, Ryan, 95 amyl nitrite, 111
addict identity, 176 Anarchy Tour (1976), 79, 85
addiction, 3, 14, 75, 187n85 Anderson, Elijah, 124
identity and, 14–15, 110 “Another Day” (Taylor), 129
in inner city, 153 Anslinger, Harry, 22
adolescence and heroin use among Anthony, Marc, 171
Latinos, 153, 154, 155 Antifolk festival, 9
Afghanistan, 2, 5 anti-folk music/movement, 9, 146–7,
African Americans, 4, 7–8, 114, 176 148
newer generations’ view of heroin anti-heroin songs, 91, 106, 120–1,
use, 56, 118, 123, 148 138, 179
“race records” and, 8, 103 See also heroin songs
racial equality and, 28–9, 37, 57 anti-use musicians
Road to H and, 10–11 after bebop years of jazz and, 53–6
See also rhythm and blues (R&B) Calloway, 21–2, 23–4
music Clinton and, 109–10
Afro-Cuban Jazz, 158 Davis, 46, 49, 51, 177
Agnostic Front, 87 in hardcore scene, 87
alcohol, 16, 71, 168 Lunch and, 91–2
effect of on musical performance, 41 in straightedge scene, 88–9, 100–1
folk musicians and, 146 Apollo Theater, 7–8, 20
jazz musicians and, 19–20 Argentina, 158
Alig, Michael, 113 Armstrong, Louis, 20–1, 23, 24, 28
Allin, GG, 86 Arnold, Buddy, 24
Almanac Singers, the, 127, 128, 141, 145 arrests, 49, 62, 113, 155
alt country-rock music, 95 of Bruce, 180
alternative/indie rock music, 7, 66, of Danko, 133
93–6 of Heath, 48
230 / index