Blog 4:

“OPEN SORE”

Hendrix’s father, Al, once a dancer and Golden Gloves contender, was a Seattle gardener, a devout church-goer, gambler and boozer; his mother, Lucille, also a dancer, was the belle of the ball, and pulled the odd trick to make ends meet after another bout with the volatile Al.

Elvis’s old man, Vernon, was a bootlegger, an ex-con and, according to his wife, Gladys, “a work-shy, steer-coddled jellybean.” Gladys was a lively buck dancer, a part-time seamstress, and consumed great quantities of her “medicine” -- Vernon’s shine – to calm her nerves. 

Cobain’s father, Don, fixed cars at a Texaco service station; his mom, a flirtatious trailer park beauty, cleaned and maintained their double-wide in Aberdeen Washington, which Kurt later called “Twin Peeks, but without the excitement.”

The Hendrixes and Presleys collected Welfare; the Cobains barely managed to scrape by on Don’s check.

The Joplins were Texas backwater middle-class: Seth, once a bathtub gin brewer, now a world-weary bookworm, worked as an engineer at the Port Arthur Texaco refinery; Dorothy, an ex-flapper, registered students at the local community college and taught Sunday School.

Freddie Lennon, a lush, a bon vivant, and dreamer, shipped out from Liverpool as a steward in the merchant marine; in his absence, Julia Lennon partied, without birth control.

Joe Garcia, a clarinetist, got fired from his own jazz band, then took over a seaman’s bar in San Francisco; his vivacious wife, Ruth, helped him pour drinks and worked as a part-time nurse.

George Morrison, a fighter pilot, became the youngest admiral in the Navy; his wife, Clara, was a devoted helpmate, homemaker and a gracious hostess.

So, the parents of the Seven greatest rock stars in history were a mixed bag. The only common ground between them seems to be that they all enjoyed dancing and drinking.

As far as their kids went, though, there seemed to be a more substantial emotional similarity. Hendrix, Elvis, and Lennon adored their mothers. For Jimi, Lucille was his “angel in the sky.” For Elvis, Gladys was “my baby… my life.” For John, Julia was his “shimmering, glimmering… oceanchild.”

But the Beatle-to-be had also called the pretty, promiscuous Julia “a cocksucking whore.” Cobain and Garcia were also ambivalent about their own headstrong, sexy moms – loving them deeply, but disparaging their morals. Then there was the infante terrible, Jim Morrison, whose signature anthem – The End – was about fucking his mother and killing his father.

Strange. Because of all Seven, Morrison seemed to have had the most comfortable, wholesome, “normal” upbringing. But he called himself an “Orphan,” and said his childhood had been an “open sore.” Hendrix’s, Cobain’s, and Lennon’s certainly had been – but Morrison’s?

What exactly did the future Lizard King and poet laureate of rock mean by an “open sore” and how did it relate to the others?...