During my California years, I spent a good deal of time hanging out in the Mojave Desert whenever I had the chance. The California desert (as anyone who’s been there knows) is quite a mystical place, and the deeper one goes into that awesome emptiness, the stranger and more quizzical it becomes. Perfect place to get seriously offline, go hide out and pick some guitar.
“Desert people” are folks who live out there long enough that their minds settle in the shimmering heat and their souls open to the transformative winds that blow all the dust in their heads into psychic tea leaves for their morning cup. They know the folklore of their country as well as they do the backroad to Death Valley Junction. One of the more interesting stories I heard out there (from a group of university desert researchers with a penchant for the bizarre) was the tale of guitarist, singer and songwriter, Gram Parsons, a seminal artist in the LA country-rock scene of the 60s and early 70s.
Gram Parsons was one of those crazed musicians who thrived in the expanses of the Mojave, and in particular, Joshua Tree National Park was one of his favorite haunts. His place as one of the founding fathers of 70s country-rock is well-established, and requires no particular embellishment here. He died in 1973 of an alcohol and heroin overdose in a motel room near the park, where he often hung out. Very sad affair, and a great loss to music lovers. While his family made more conventional arrangements for his interment, his road manager, Phil Kaufman, and another friend, Michael Martin, had other ideas.
Following their own unique agenda out of love for their departed friend, the men copped a hearse somewhere, masqueraded as funeral home employees, intercepted Parsons’ casket at the Los Angeles airport where it awaited shipment to his stepfather in Louisiana, hoodwinked LAX security, and made off with the goods, heading north on the 405. They drove the body to Joshua Tree, toasted his life abundantly, mumbled something or other, and proceeded to set the corpse afire, attempting to fulfill Parsons’ wish to be cremated at the park. They fled hastily when they saw headlights coming their direction, for some reason.
As it happens, the ad-hoc morticians had been a little light on available wood for the pyre (being out in the desert and all), and the body was not completely consumed. The singer’s remains were retrieved (not really all that much the worse for wear, all things considered), and eventually wound up in a cemetery in New Orleans, as originally planned.
After Parson’s incendiary processional was over and word got out, some anonymous fans (apparently moved deeply by the whole thing for the poetry that was in it) illegally placed a marker in Parsons’ honor at Joshua Tree, and the tale of Parson’s rather round-about trip to the grave became storyteller fodder for God knows how many long nights around how many desolate desert campfires.
PHOTO BY ROBERT FULTON
Now—flash forward to July 24, 2001, and we find some old Parson fans with relatively good memories (as well as some park staff members, God bless ’em) asking the National Park Service to formally recognize Parsons and his connection to the park. Parson’s makeshift shrine, still preserved in the arid environment of Joshua Tree, does not appear on the official park map and is not mentioned in park brochures, and rangers are not required to tell the story in educational programs. Some redress would seem called for here.
“It is one of the most deeply embedded pieces of Joshua Tree folklore,” says National Park Service employee Bob Van Belle. “There is not a climber in the country who does not know the story.”
Some folks become legends by how they live their lives. Others do so by the events leading to their deaths. And then there are the rare people who not only make a huge difference in this world, but leave it all behind in dramatic style—and even after death inspire some transcendently amazing postscript to their lives via the hands of others. I hope the Park Service comes to appreciate Gram Parson’s final trip to the desert. It’s just the kind of tale to tell to friends around the fire when the coyotes are crying at the moon and you have a log handy to suddenly, at just the right moment, toss on the flames when no one anticipates it.
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Additional links
- www.gramparsons.com
- www.emmylou.net/gram.html
- ebni.com/byrds/memgrp6.html
- www.laweekly.com…the-cult-of-gram-parsons-lives-on-in-joshua-tree
Copyright 2001 Jeff Foster. All Rights Reserved.