Golden Hits Of The 60s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After
BOB LIND
ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY
(BOB LIND)
World Pacific 77808
No. 5 March 12, 1966
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“Who was I then? An abrasive unpleasant coward whose talent, face it, was hopelessly midge like when
stacked against his good fortune,” wrote Bob Lind, his harshest critic, for the liners of his Best of… CD
“A pushy self-centered drunk with the ego the size of Montana, at war with my record label, my publishing
company, my girlfriends, band members, and anyone else who made an attempt to help or befriend me.
“If there’s anything positive to say about me in those days, it would be that I loved what I was doing, loved
the passion and drama of words; loved this music, flawed though it certainly 1s, it might have been the only
thing about me worth saving.”
Robert Lind (b. Nov. 25, 1942) was born in Baltimore, to a doomed marriage. Mom remarried when he
was five. “We lived everywhere,” said Lind, in an exclusive interview, of a childhood imprint that would
haunt forever. “My [step-]father was in the Air Force and we travelled all over. When you’re always
moving and I’m also 10 years older than by brother and sisters–you look for ways of beating the loneliness
and playing records just wasn’t enough. My family wasn’t much into music other than my younger sister,
Fiddlin’ Annie Lind, now the best fiddle player in Texas [with the Issac Payton Sweat Band]. She had
a number one record in Houston, with ‘Cotton-Eyed Joe’ [in the early ’80s].
“Music became a means, for me–l’m not a strikingly good looking guy–and making music became a way to
meet women. I believe that all music guys make is basically mating calls. It’s organic; more than just notes.
Music reachs out to deep levels.”
At 11, Lind took three, four guitar lessons and during his teens at Aurora High he joined Jerry Valdez
and his three-chord Moonlighters; later fronted Bob Lind and the Misfits. He enrolled in the theater
-arts program at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado. “All I did was play music, there,” said
Lind. “I’d check my watch and it’d be time for class, and I’d say, ‘Fuck it.” After three years of study,
he flunked out and moved to the closest metropolis, Denver, where he worked the folk houses for a year–
the Analyst Coffee House, Green Spider, the Exodus.
Believing in Bob, Al Chapman, at the Analyst Coffee House, taped one of Lind’s sets and gave him a tape for
him to take around to the labels. “World Pacific [a jazz label and subsidary of Liberty] was the first record
company that I went to,” said Lind. “I gave him my tape to Dick Brock [label president] and he listened and
he signed me. I though, ‘Whoa, this is easy! Man, this is great ! All you got to do is go to a company and
get a deal.’ I had no idea that people work at it for years and maybe never get a deal.”
Lind signed with Metro Music; before even his first disk was issued acts were showing an interest in Bob’s
material. Weeks before the release of “Elusive Butterfly,” the label issued “To My Elders With Respect,” a
release that Bob Lind himself was unaware of until recently; “terrible song,” said Bob.
“SONNY [Bono] was gonna produce me, but he got too busy and JACK NIETZCHE and I hit it off–both of us
like to drink and do drugs–so he was with me from the start; took me in let me live at his house. ‘Elusive
Butterfly’ was one of the first songs we cut; the one I had the least faith in, probably because it had five
verses and we had to cut three out. ‘Butterfly’ came to me after I was up all night. It was started when the
sun was coming up… l was on the border… The words are about the magic of the quest, the thrill of
searching, even when that which is sought is hard to see.”
Nearly every tune that would eventually account for Lind’s cult status–“Elusive Butterfly,” “Truly
Julie Blues,” “Mister Zero,” and “Cheryl’s Goin’ Home”–was recorded at that first session, for Lind’s
first LP, Don’t Be Concerned. Nitzsche was producing and arranging the swirling, haunting strings;
Leon Russell on piano. A host of artists would record Lind’s material–the Blues Project, Cher, ADAM
FAITH, Marianne Faithfull, Noel Harrison, Nancy Sinatra, the Turtles, the Yardbirds’ Keith Relf.
Both sides of Bob’s follow-up single, “Truly Julie Blues” (#65, 1966) b/w “Remember The Rain”
(#64), charted marginally. Lind recorded another high-quality and similarly-styled LP, Photographs
of Feeling (1966), but inexplicably it never made the listings. None of Lind’s successive 45s fared well,
either. To make matters worse, Verve/Folkways got hold of some old tapes of lesser material from Lind’s
Denver days that he cut for Bandbox Records, and (with-out permission, apparently) with accompliment-
added issued in album form as The Elusive Bob Lind.
“My career was pretty much down the toilet by this time,” wrote Lind. “I was hanging onto sanity by my
teeth.” It was January 23, 1967, Bob’s last recording session for World Pacific. Recording the unreleased
“I Fall To You,” Bob fell down. “My strongest memory of this record session is that when I put my vocal on,
I was so drunk, I literally fell off the stool. I wasn’t hurt… The woman I was with, who was as drunk as I
was, thought it was a scream. She said, ‘It’s only just a song, Bob. Don’t take it literally.'”
Lind then went off into the deserts of New Mexico to “retire.” He reappeared briefly in 1971, with a single,
“She Can Get Along,” and and critically acclaimed LP for Capitol, Since There Were Circles. In the
80’s, Goldmine researcher Steve Eng reported that all was well: Bob was writing short stories, plays, and
even a novel (East of the Holyland). Eng noted that one of Lind’s plays, The Sculpture, had won the
California Motion Picture Council’s “Bronze Halo” award.