Tom Graves - Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers

My Afternoon With Louise Brooks, copyright 2011 by Tom Graves. Blonde Shadow: The Brief Career and Mysterious Disappearance of Actress Linda Haynes, copyright 2011 by Tom Graves. Meat Eaters, Killers, and Suckers of Blood: Mano a Mano With Harry Crews was first published in that form in the anthology Getting Naked With Harry Crews, copyright 1999 by Tom Graves. Natural Born Elvis: The Story of Bill Haney, the First Elvis Impersonator was originally published in The Oxford American magazine in 1998, copyright 1998 by Tom Graves. The Back Door Frontman was originally published in The Oxford American magazine in 1999, copyright 1999 by Tom Graves. In the Midnight Aisle: The Story of the Blackwood Brothers Quartet, copyright 2011 by Tom Graves. The Men With the Golden Ears, copyright 2011 by Tom Graves. Steve Hoffman: The First Genius of CD was originally published in the Oct. 1987 issue of Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1987 by Tom Graves. Bill Inglot: An Analog Heart In A Digital Domain was originally published in the Aug. 1991 issue of Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1991 by Tom Graves. In Pursuit of Pure Sound: The Story of the Audiophile Record Label, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs was originally published in the May 1, 1993 issue of American Way magazine, copyright 1993 by Tom Graves. Sympathy for the Devil: A Kind Word for Albert Goldman, copyright 2009 by Tom Graves. Ten LPs You Probably Dont Have (But Should), copyright 2009 by Tom Graves. When the Sex Pistols Came to Memphis, copyright 2010 by Tom Graves. Guilty Pleasures: Tennessee Ernie Ford was originally published in 1991 in Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1991 by Tom Graves. Woodstock Revisited was originally published in American History magazine, copyright 1996 by Tom Graves. Interview: Frank Zappa was originally published in 1987 in Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1987 by Tom Graves. Interview: Mick Taylor was originally published in 1988 in Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1988 by Tom Graves. Have Mersey: An Interview with the Las Driving Force and Angriest Member, Lee Mavers was originally published in 1991 in Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1991 by Tom Graves. Take Me Seriously!: An Interview with Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders was originally published in 1991 in Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1991 by Tom Graves. Interview: Dave Marsh was originally published in 1988 in Rock & Roll Disc magazine, copyright 1988 by Tom Graves.

Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers, copyright 2015 byThe Devault-Graves Agency. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without permission of the publisher.

Print Edition ISBN: 978-1-942531-08-1

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-942531-07-4

Cover design: Martina Voriskova

Title page design: Martina Voriskova

DEVAULT-GRAVES DIGITAL EDITIONS

Devault-Graves Digital Editions is an imprint of The Devault-Graves Agency, Memphis, Tennessee.

The names Devault-Graves Digital Editions, Lasso Books, and Chalk Line Books are all imprints and trademarks of The Devault-Graves Agency.

www.devault-gravesagency.com

Table of Contents

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Graves received his first recognition as a journalist in 1976 when he won a Sigma Delta Chi (the journalism student organization) regional award for best feature article for a profile of a local eccentric, Prince Mongo, for Memphis Magazine. At graduation that same year he received the National Observer Award for journalism graduate of the year from Memphis State University. He began to publish reviews and articles for national periodicals while still in his early twenties and became the editor and publisher of the critically-acclaimed small circulation magazine Rock & Roll Disc from 1987 until the magazine ceased publication in 1992.

Graves wrote for Rolling Stone, Musician, American History, The Oxford American, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other magazines and newspapers before his first novel, Pullers, was published in 1998. The novel received glowing reviews, but it was nine years before Gravess next book, Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson. This meticulously-researched biography received praise from a wide variety of sources and won the author the Keeping the Blues Alive Award for Literature in 2010.

Beginning in 2010 Graves travelled with filmmakers Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville to interview the subjects for the documentary film Best of Enemies (released in 2015) about the 1968 debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr., a subject he had been working with since his freshman year in college. Graves was credited as the Consulting Producer for the film, which continues to play in theaters and is predicted to win future awards.

In 2012 Graves and his friend Darrin Devault formed a book publishing company, The Devault-Graves Agency, that specializes in re-publishing promising books that have gone out of print. The company made world news in 2014 when it published Three Early Stories by J.D. Salinger, the first legitimate J.D. Salinger book in over 50 years. They also published three Jack Kerouac novels, the celebrity profile collections of Rex Reed, Weegees autobiography, and crime fiction by Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, and David Goodis.

In 2015 Devault and Graves published a book of their photography, Graceland Too Revisited, about the infamous Elvis-themed roadside attraction in Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Graves has lived his entire life in Memphis, Tennessee and is a professor at LeMoyne-Owen College where he teaches English, Humanities, and Journalism.

AUTHORS PREFACE

I WAS BOTH BLESSED AND CURSED to have been born and raised in the South. In fact, Ive lived the whole of my sixty years in Memphis and its highly possible that I will run out my string here in the Bluff City. My parents, however, were both from the backwoods of Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, just outside the town of Pine Bluff. They both lived in poverty and struggled through, first, the Great Depression, and second, World War II. My father and four of his brothers fought in the war and all of them returned home, more or less, in one piece. Dad thought this was a miracle and it cemented his certainty that a higher power was behind the survival of this notoriously roughhouse gang of Graves.

My mothers side of the family, the Rogers, were the master storytellers. Out in the country, where television reception was a rumor, Saturday night entertainment consisted of sitting around and swapping stories, many of which had been heard several times. I have never understood the rudeness of people who will stop you when telling a story and say, Yeah, youve told that one before. Knowing the quirks, the punch lines, and the build-ups to these classic family yarns made them screamingly funny. I have never laughed so hard in my life as at the repeat stories of my Granddaddy, Uncle Joe, Uncle Glenn, Uncle Benard (correct spelling), and Aunt Katy.

Not all the stories were funny. Ill never forget how my Granddads stories of panthers roaming the woods of Arkansas would keep me wide awake at night, listening for the sound of a woman screaming, which is how my Granddad described the yowl of a panther. In the front yard, when the women were away telling their own stories, the men would relate some of their war experiences, careful to watch their language with a boy (me) hanging on every word.