CHRISTOPHER SANDFORD: “Perhaps twice a year Keith would fly to LA, call Gram Parsons and then take off into the Mojave desert. They’d make camp, squat around a fire and, as Keith said, ‘fry a few brain cells – Gram got better coke than the Mafia.’ It was one of the perks of the job, to just tool off and watch the light changing in the valley below, when the smoke from the fire slowly blotted out the horizon. There was always a moment when all that was left was the faint smudge of Hollywood and a dull glow from the throb of distant TV transmitters. The buildings themselves were no longer there, and eventually even the mountains went. That was when Keith might light one of his special fat cigarettes, stretch out and start telling stories about Dartford.”
SPENCER KANSA: “Historically the desert had always been a traditional place of pilgrimage for those seeking spiritual experiences, and Joshua Tree’s primordial, prehistoric landscape was especially rich in mysticism. It was said the eponymous Joshua Tree itself was famous for only growing in two places on Earth, the southern western states of America and the Holy Land, and some liked to speculate that Noah’s Ark had landed there.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “It seemed like an endless night. It took a thousand years, but it was all over too quick. It was a great spot, and there was this kind of barber’s chair right on top of the rock where Leary and so forth used to sit. So we rustled up some mescalin and peyote and tried to talk with the local Indians.”
ANITA PALLENBERG: “We had binoculars, loads of blankets, and a big stash of coke. That was our idea of looking for UFO’s! Did we believe in UFO’s? Well, it was all part of that period. We were just looking for something.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “In the middle of the night we were on a high precipice somewhere in Joshua Tree. We made a fire and the moon came up and suddenly out of the blackness I heard this unearthly sound, a sound I’d never heard before. It was so thrilling, like being in India with the wolves howling. And I remember turning to Gram and saying, ‘God, what’s that?’ And he said, in his funny Southern accent ‘Why Maryanne, don’ja know what’s just a li’l ol’coyote.’”
PHILLIP PROCTOR: “Gram was almost like an alien. He had this long, tall, spidery body. Long fingers, which helped him to really play, and he was the heart and soul of Burrito Brothers and a gentle giant. Music was his entire life and he was totally focused on it. And really easy to hang with. He was a commanding, flowing figure.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “I think it was Gram who laid that trip on for us. We went out there to watch the UFO’s. And maybe take a spin in one, should the occasion arise.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “It was wonderful. Staying up all night, driving out to Joshua Tree and walking along as the dawn came up. We would leave the cars somewhere and go off. We didn’t bring anything – food, water, nothing. In that state we could have gone off in the wrong direction and gone around in circles forever, but somehow we didn’t.”
AYA: “The impact of nature out there, the starkness. You don’t feel a storm in the city like you do out in the desert, with the crackling of thunder and the animal energy going around. That’s what the natives understand, that everything is alive.”
STEPHEN DAVIS: “One night they drove out into the California desert to watch the sun rise at Joshua Tree National Monument, an out-of-this-world moonscape of cactus and canyons and prehistoric trees. Wrapped in blankets, guitars at hand, Anita as beautiful and grey-eyed as Minerva, they climbed atop the Cap Rock promontory and felt like gods watching Apollo begin his blazing ride across the desert.”
BARNEY HOSKYNS: “Los Angeles has always been haunted by the desert that surrounds it – by its emptiness, its inhospitability to life and the way it provides a refuge for freaks, cultists and killers. As everyone from Aldous Huxley to Jim Morrison to Gram Parsons has understood, the desert lends itself to apocalyptic fantasy. ‘Let it come and clear the rot and the stench and the stink,’ says Marion Faye as she looks eastward towards the desert in Norman Mailer’s Hollywood novel ‘The Deer Park.’ ‘Let it come for all of everywhere, just so it comes and the world stands clear in the white dead dawn.’”
