Roky Erickson

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Roky Erickson (right) with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top at the Austin Music Awards 2008

Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson (born July 15, 1947 in Dallas , Texas , † May 31, 2019 in Austin , Texas) was an American singer and guitarist . Before his eventful solo career, he was a member of the band The 13th Floor Elevators from 1965 until its dissolution in 1969 , which are among the pioneers of psychedelic rock . Due to a mental illness, Erickson lived completely withdrawn for a long time, but continued to record albums. From 2005 he gave concerts again on a regular basis.

biography

Roky Erickson grew up as the oldest of five sons of an architect and a mother who loved singing. At the age of five he began to play the piano, a little later he started playing the guitar. Shortly before graduating, he left high school with the goal of becoming a professional rock musician. Around the same time he wrote his most commercially successful piece You're Gonna Miss Me , which he recorded in 1965 with the Austro-Hungarian band The Spades. Shortly thereafter, however, he switched to another local band, The 13th Floor Elevators, who were looking for a singer and had become aware of Erickson's high, extroverted vocal style.

Erickson was first treated for schizophrenia in April 1968 when he looked exhausted and confused after returning from a concert tour and was hospitalized by his mother. However, with the help of his bandmate Tommy Hall, he evaded treatment and traveled to California with some friends, where he a. a. tried using heroin to silence the "terrible voices in his head". After contracting jaundice shortly afterwards , he returned to Austin.

Since the band members were known in their hometown as users of drugs such as LSD , marijuana and mescaline , they were under special observation by the local police. After marijuana was found at Erickson's in 1969, he faced a prison sentence of up to ten years in Texas. However, his lawyer reached because Erickson's history that he instead because of insanity was in a mental hospital in Austin admitted, to visit from the several times he fled as a result by his then-wife, Dana. Eventually, the authorities moved him to the infamous Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane , where Erickson and his mostly violent inmates were under close guard. He was allowed to play in a small band in the institution, but during his stay he had to endure treatments and experiments with electric shocks and strong psychotropic drugs. He was not released until the end of 1972 after a lawyer recognized him during a visit to Rusk and stood up for him. Meanwhile, in 1970, the United States Congress had relaxed the penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana, making it a minor offense in Texas as well . According to this stipulation and the following case law, Erickson would have long since been released from a normal prison with his offense. The lawyer achieved in court that Erickson was recognized as sane again and that his time in Rusk was credited as sufficient punishment for the drug offense.

After his release, he founded the band Bleib Alien in 1975 , which was later renamed Roky Erickson and the Aliens .

During the 1990s, Erickson's condition worsened; his career as a musician came to a standstill while older recordings were released several times. He only maintained regular contact with his mother, who tried to look after him. However, Erickson became increasingly neglected and spent most of his time watching cartoon series and filing and replying to commercials and direct mail. When Sumner, Roky's youngest brother and also a professional musician, returned to Austin several years later, he decided to help his brother.

In 2005, Keven McAlester's documentary You're Gonna Miss Me was released. The film team accompanied Erickson between 1999 and 2004 and shows how Roky Erickson tries, with the help of his brother Sumner, to bring order and normality back into his life. Complemented by numerous reviews of the life of Erickson, old friends and later companions such as Billy Gibbons , Patti Smith and others have their say alongside his family . The film was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award in 2007 in the category Best Documentary .

From 2005 onwards, Erickson was feeling so good again that he was gradually giving concerts again. In 2010 he released a studio album for the first time in 14 years. With the support of the American indie rock band Okkervil River , True Love Cast Out All Evil was released , which rose to number 27 on the Billboard charts in the Independent Album category .

Discography

See here for the discography of the 13th Floor Elevators .

Solo albums

  • Roky Erickson and The Aliens (1980, CBS Records )
  • The Evil One (1981, 415 Records)
  • Don't Slander Me (1986, Pink Dust Records)
  • Gremlins Have Pictures (1986, Pink Dust Records)
  • Casting the Runes (1987, Five Hours Back)
  • Holiday Inn Tapes (1987, Fan Club Records / New Rose Records )
  • Live at the Ritz 1987 (1988, Fan Club Records)
  • Click Your Fingers Applauding The Play (1988, New Rose Records)
  • Openers (1988, Five Hours Back)
  • Live Dallas 1979 (1992, Fan Club Records)
  • Beauty and the Beast (1993, Sympathy for the Record Industry)
  • All That May Do My Rhyme (1995, Trance Syndicate)
  • Demon Angel: A Day and a Night with Roky Erickson (1995, Triple X Records )
  • Roky Erickson and Evilhook Wildlife (1995, Sympathy for the Record Industry)
  • Never Say Goodbye (1999, Emperor Jones)
  • Don't Knock the Rok! (2004, Norton Records)
  • I Have Always Been Here Before (2005, Shout! Factory)
  • Halloween (2008, Norton Records)
  • True Love Cast Out All Evil (2010, ANTI-Records ), together with Okkervil River

The records released between 1992 and 2008 mostly contain older recording material.

Filmographic references

  • You're Gonna Miss Me , 2005 documentary about Roky Erickson directed by Keven McAlester

Web links

Commons : Roky Erickson  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fighting Demons: Psychedelic Rock Pioneer Roky Erickson Is Dead In: Rolling Stone June 2, 2019.
  2. ↑ https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mn0000307025/awards
  3. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0791268/
personal data
SURNAME Erickson, Roky
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Erickson, Roger Kynard (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer, songwriter and guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Dallas , Texas
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 2019
Place of death Austin , Texas