“History
of a hip hustler who became a homeless husk”
Much of the information I've
been able to gather on Prince Bobby Jack comes from comments posted
on a general discussion thread on Duke City Fix from 2010. The topic
of Prince Bobby elicited a number of responses, not all favorable
towards him. As it were, unsubstantiated rumors and hearsay is all I
really had to go by. I've borrowed the title for this chapter from
Solid Ghost's track description for their composition “The Legend
of Prince Bobby Jack” from the album “Normal Musik” more on
that further down the page. Outside of a grainy photograph and a
mention or two in the local papers. Prince Bobby Jack left little
trace of his existence in the city he called home for almost forty
years. The scrapbook that he carried around with him would fill in
many of the gaps, but it's probably buried at the bottom of a
landfill. While there is a lack of physical evidence, a large number
of locals not only remember him, but can still recall his
eccentricities and quirks in detail.
He was an accomplished
professional musician and singer, with a career that spanned four
decades and yet, to come across even one recording that features him
would be akin to stumbling upon Sasquatch at Starbucks. To quote
Winston Churchill (or was it Joe Pesci?) Prince Bobby Jack was a
riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. In lay men's terms; he
was a strange bird, possessed with an idiosyncratic personality and
prone to peculiar behavioral characteristics. It's generally agreed
that Prince Bobby first turned up in Albuquerque around 1958. Why he
came here remains a mystery. The locals took to him immediately, as
he passed out his bright red business cards embossed with gold
lettering “Prince Bobby Jack, Mr. Ink Spot” It opened doors that
a man working this entertainment starved neck of the woods could turn
to his advantage.
In all fairness to the
denizens of the Duke City, fact checking was a whole different
ballgame without the internet. One could claim to be the original
drummer in Canned Heat or one of the “original” Ink Spots and who
would know otherwise? It wasn't long before Prince Bobby was a
fixture in local clubs, including the Chesterfield Club where he
played alongside Dick Bills and Eddie Gallegos in a latter day
version of Bills' Sandia Mountain Boys. Stranger things have
happened, but we're talking Albuquerque in 1959, East Central, The
Chesterfield Club. Let me muster up as much discretion as I possibly
can and say that a fly in the buttermilk would have gone over like
shit on sherbet. If this is true, then I have to give Dick Bills all
the credit in the world for being such a visionary. It does change my
opinion of the man or maybe I just didn't know shit from shinola to
begin with.
Obviously this version came
along after Glen Campbell departed to start up his own band, The
Western Wranglers. Dick Bills probably saw an opportunity to flex his
musical chops. I wonder if they ever played the old K-Circle-B theme
song: "Headin' down the
trail to Albuquerque, saddle bags all filled with beans and jerky..."
Emeritus...
so it must be true, ¿que no? The Dick Bills/
Prince Bobby Jack/ Sandia Mountain Boys musical connection comes
courtesy of "Albuquerque, ¡feliz cumpleaños! Three Centuries
to Remember.” written by Dr. Nasario Garcia with Richard McCord. A
leading folklorist and a professor emeritus of Spanish, Dr.Garcia is
the author of 18 books, some co-written with the likes of Marc
Simmons, John Nichols, Nedra Westwater and Richard McCord, a
journalist, who founded the weekly Santa Fe Reporter and was for 14
years its editor and co-publisher.
The Albuquerque Journal ran this blurb:
“Mr.
Ink Spot, Prince Bobby Jack former lead vocalist of The Ink Spots
featuring The best of Ink Spots, Best of Nat King Cole, Best of the
Mills Bros. Luncheon Show Nightly at the Port O' Call”
This clue gives us a rare insight into Prince Bobby Jack's musical
style. Despite all his notoriety, few folks around the Duke City knew
what he actually sounded like. No recordings were made during his
dubious stint with “The Ink Spots” though Prince Bobby did record
at least two singles, circa 1959. Bill Stephens, a man who claims to
have known him better than most, recalls that he gave two seven inch
singles to Duke City DJ, Bobby Box, which he assumes are still in
Box's collection. An internet search turned up two items, a
recording on the Jaco label (#711) is mentioned and referred to as,
Prince Bobby Jack: Introducing.... which sounds more like an album,
though the website deals only in 45 rpm singles. No song titles were
mentioned.
The other item is interesting, a review
from Billboard magazine dated April 13th 1959. Prince
Bobby Jack “How Does One Know b/w Margie” Corvette 1009
“Prince Bobby Jack who has a style similar to Tommy Edwards, sings
this pretty rockaballad with feeling over a simple arrangement.
Pleasant rendering of the standard 'Margie' by the lad.” Tommy
Edwards was a smooth R&B singer best known for “It's All in the
Game” Rockaballad was an archaic term preferred at Billboard in
those days to describe soft rock ballads. The review was placed right
next to an ad for Taller Than Tall Paul's single “Jo-Jo, the
Dog-Faced Boy” a nifty number that was covered with some success by
Annette Funicello “I wish I
had What Jo-Jo had Drove the crowd Stark raving mad”
Bill Stephens, supposedly
Prince Bobby's neighbor on Alvarado SE. remembers Prince Bobby
having a wife and daughter (Bobbi) living with him. (also confirmed
by Prince Bobby's ward nurse at Casa Real) His wife worked at UNM and
passed away from cancer, with Bobbi going to live with Prince Bobby's
mother in New York as a result. If Bobbi actually existed, she
certainly wanted nothing to do with him in the coming years. Prince
Bobby often drove his gold Eldorado to Las Vegas where he had
engagements, playing the lounges though never as a headliner. John
Truitt, a musician who knew Prince Bobby professionally remarked,
“The car was always spotless, appointed with whatever accessories
were in fashion, and had his monogram on the door...painted on the
older models, stick on letters on the last one.” He was known to
frequent a restaurant at Coronado Center (Vip's Big Boy?) and the
Village Inn at Central and San Mateo.
There he would hold court.
Splendid in a sharkskin suit and tie with a royal crest on the
pocket, heavy makeup, pomaded “Eraserhead” hair- do, patented
leather high heeled boots, diamond pinkie ring, designer sunglasses
and always close at hand, a silver chalice from which he drank. At
times he would hold up his Holy Grail as if to bestow upon his fellow
diners its special powers designed to provide happiness, eternal
youth and food in infinite abundance. “The
best things in life are free” The silver chalice was
among his most prized possessions, he carried it in a velvet bag,
stashed away in the glove box of his Eldorado. John Truitt recalled
that whenever he dropped off one of his caddies (he owned several
over the years) for service at Galles Cadillac, he would loudly
proclaim that if anyone touched his silver chalice, he would have
them arrested. Needless to say, no one wanted to work on his car, due
to his inevitable complaints that the work had been done improperly
or that his belongings had been tampered with.
Address
unknown (not even a trace of you)
Prince Bobby Jack's
purported association with the Ink Spots opened doors for him, though
upon closer examination, his claim to fame was paper thin. Bobby Jack
would tell folks that he was an “original” member of The Ink
Spots as opposed to being a founding member. It's a fine line that
hundreds of “Ink Spots” impostors have walked upon going back to
the World War II era. The history of The Ink Spots is well
documented, perhaps more so than any other musical act prior to the
“rock” era. The Ink Spots formed in the early 1930s in
Indianapolis. The founding members were Orville “Hoppy” Jones,
Ivory “Deek” Watson, Jerry Daniels and Charlie Fuqua. When lead
singer Bill Kenny joined, he introduced the ballad style that would
make the group a crossover success in both the white and black
communities.
Near the height of their
popularity, Hoppy Jones collapsed on stage at the Cafe Zanzibar in
New York City and died in October, 1944. This ignited a series of
disputes over the rights to use the Ink Spots name. The original
group was a partnership, not a corporation, thus Hoppy Jones death
effectively terminated the partnership. Over the next ten years,
various founding members found themselves locked in court battles for
control of the brand. This led to a succession of impostors striking
out across the country performing as either The Fabulous Ink Spots,
The Famous Ink Spots, The Amazing Ink Spots, The Sensational Ink
Spots, The Dynamic Ink Spots and many more. The travesty would
culminate in 1967 when US federal judge Emmett C. Choate ruled that
since so many groups had been using the name “Ink Spots” it
had become “public domain” and free for anyone to use.
By the time Prince Bobby Jack came
along in the mid-1950s, The Ink Spots were several degrees removed
from the founding members and bore little resemblance to the real Ink
Spots other than the fact that they performed some of the same music.
Bobby Jack's whispy claim becomes even more questionable when you
consider that he performed with an offshoot of Bill Godwin's Ink
Spots, Bill Godwin's own ties to The Ink Spots were tenuous. If
you're still keeping score.... Prince Bobby didn't perform with Bill
Godwin, but with a group of musicians that broke away from one of
Bill Godwin's impostor Ink Spots. There were dozens of these groups
playing at every lounge, nightclub or casino in the U.S. that would
have them.... and some are still out there. I guess it beat digging
ditches or washing dishes.
Was Prince Bobby Jack an
actual Ink Spot?.... yes, he was. Although according to Judge
Choate's 1967 ruling, so are you and so am I... if we so desire. In
the late 1960s, Prince Bobby Jack was one of a group of musicians
that took control of Albuquerque's musicians union. Prince Bobby was
appointed or elected to head up the union. This allowed Bobby and his
cronies to cherry pick the best jobs for themselves at the expense of
their fellow brothers. This did not go over well and in all
likelihood led to an event that started Prince Bobby Jack on his
downward spiral.
I found this item online,
reprinted from The Eugene Register-Guard, dated Sept. 10th.
1975.
Musician put
on probation Dateline: Albuquerque
N.M.
Prince Bobby Jack former
member of the Ink Spots singing group has pleaded guilty to
embezzling $127 dollars from a musicians union he headed and was
given three years probation.
U.S. District Judge Howard
Bratton granted probation after Jack's attorney, William Snead, told
the court a psychiatric report indicated incarceration would be
“destructive” to Jack as an individual.
“I deeply regret the
wrongs I caused” Jack told the judge, who made restitution of all
funds embezzled a provision of Jack's probation.
I guess the Caddy needed an
oil change. Overnight he went from being Mr. Ink Spot to roadkill.
His arrogance and condescending demeanor caught up to him. Nobody
trusted him and over a period of time, everyone shunned him. John
Truitt reports that as a young musician he was advised “that in
matters of business, I should keep him at a distance” Prince Bobby
Jack tried to keep up appearances, but he was coming undone. Bobby
Jack had always had a habit of hitting people up for money, two or
three dollars at a time... loans that were never repaid. Bill
Stephens, who had maintained a friendship with Bobby Jack, started
noticing that he only called to ask for money, two and three hundred
dollars in loans that Stephens never got back. Tired of being burned,
most of his acquaintances stopped taking his calls or seeking him
out.
It wasn't long before people
started to notice his black Cadillac parked overnight at Coronado
Center or around the University area. He appeared to be living in it.
His homeless state took a turn for the worse a few years later when
he took to living in the bus stop at Central and Girard. He had with
him the telltale shopping cart train full of his belonging, among
which he may have stashed his beloved silver chalice and the
legendary scrapbook. Then just like that he disappeared from public
view. Prince Bobby Jack's fall from grace and subsequent decline
played out in slow motion. John Truitt said “Prince Bobby Jack was
shunned to the end by those who knew him, and for reasons that went
back to his arrival in the Duke City some four and a half decades
before.”
In 1993, having retired and
taken a job as a pharmaceuticals courier, Bill Stephens found himself
delivering to Casa Real, a long term care facility in Santa Fe. There
to his surprise he found Prince Bobby Jack. Bill paints a picture of
a happy reunion with a “dolled up” Prince Bobby entertaining the
residents, “He seemed pretty lucid to me” declared Stephens. His
nurse (she posted anonymously) at Casa Real however contradicts
Bill's account. “Your memory of a lucid person and that he was his
old self, dolled up... couldn't be further from the truth”
According to her, Prince Bobby was at Casa Real for three years “He
was penniless, homeless, no car, no clothes and no family. He was a
ward of the state” Bill Stephens claims he was able to visit him
several times a month, adding that Prince Bobby never once mentioned
his daughter Bobbi.
The ward nurse recalls Bobby
Jack having just one visitor in those three years (Stephens) She
mentions that the caller attempted to pry information from the nurses
concerning royalties. “The other nurses and I would laugh, because
we knew there were no royalties” While making his weekly rounds,
Bill Stephens stopped at Casa Real to check on Prince Bobby and found
out he was gone. He asked around and discovered that he had been
transferred to the state hospital in Las Vegas. The unit charge nurse
confirms that Prince Bobby was transferred, though not to a state
facility, but to a locked unit at Casa Real to keep him away from the
insistent solicitor (Stephens) she then taunts Bill “If you know
about the facility as you say you do, then you also know why he was
behind those locked doors”
The plot thickens... I
remind you that this is all conjecture and hearsay. One side paints a
rosy picture and the other views the matter sans rose colored
glasses. If I had to pick a side, I would tend to go with the ward
nurse, I trust nurses. Although she does mention that Prince Bobby
used to serenade her at the nurses' station which totally contradicts
her previous statement concerning his lucidity. Prince Bobby's
mental state deteriorated and he passed away shortly after his
“transfer” “Upon the
hill a pauper's grave had been dug to await it's new occupant. A
black hearse carrying an indigent casket slowly wended it's way down
the central lane followed by a small procession of workers and a
backhoe. Over the years, those few that mourned forgot all about
Prince Bobby. Dooming him to the worst fate that a vainglorious man
could suffer.... eternal anonymity.”
“At first the ghost was no
more than a chill in the air, a shimmer of mist, diffuse.” Slowly
it congealed into the recognizable form of a man with vacant white
eyes, translucent mahogany skin and a toothy smile. Draped in a
purple robe, clasping a silver chalice, the ghoul spoke with the
rasping tones of a man cultivating a two pack-a-day habit. “Where
the fuck all these people come from? I have been playing in this shit
hole for years, I ain't never seen this many people in here at once.”
He opened his mouth as if to sing, but only a scratchy whisper
emerged. At first it was distant, but it came steadily closer and
all the while becoming more distressed
“I don't want to set the world on fire, I just want to start a
flame in your heart” gingerly tinkling the keys of the
old forlorn piano, his eyes unfocused “I've
lost all ambition for worldly acclaim, I just want to be the one
you'd love” as his form dissipated into the misty
night.
In 2008, Solid Ghost, a
creative duo from the East Mountains, composed of Justin Parker and
Arnold Bodmer in collaboration with Dwight Loop, released “Normal
Musik” (some people think... this music is normal) which they
describe as “a symphony of montages and grooves extracted from the
chaos of white noise” “Normal Musik” features “The Legend of
Prince Bobby Jack” a homage of sorts to Prince Bobby, which they
describe as the “history of a hip hustler who became a homeless
husk” It's a dark self propelled piece interspersed with
disembodied voices that one could image to be that of Prince Bobby
Jack interacting with the pedestrian and vehicular traffic swirling
around the bus stop at Girard and Central that became his home.
Arnold Bodmer should be
quite familiar to Dirt City Chronicles readers. Arnold's musical
legacy stretches back to the mid-1960s when he first hooked up with
The Striders in Los Angeles, where he was hanging around Topanga
Canyon having just arrived from his native Switzerland. When The
Striders returned home, Arnold came with them and has since been
involved in enough musical projects and groups to merit his own write
up. Dwight Loop of course was the host of Earwaves on KUNM for 23
years (it's now hosted on SomaFM.com) Dwight is an electronic music
producer, performer, music writer/critic (Albuquerque Journal, Santa
Fe New Mexican, Crosswinds, I.E.) plus he's also the founder of Third
Ear, a recording label. Justin Parker (not to be confused with Justin
Parker the English songwriter and record producer best known
for his work with Lana Del Rey & Bat for Lashes) is also involved
with Rampant Egos, a Third Ear project that includes Bodmer and Loop.
