Tales from a Wizard: The Oral History of Walpurgis: The Band Behind Phantom's Divine Comedy: Part 1

By RD Francis

Tales from a Wizard: The Oral History of Walpurgis recreates the tales of the band behind the ethereal and mysterious The Divine Comedy—an album known to the world as Phantom’s Divine Comedy: Part 1. This new exploration into one of Detroit’s most mysterious rock groups visits the band’s earliest days in 1968 as they rehearsed in the basement bowels of a dilapidated Victorian home on the Rochester-Troy border and up its nationally released album in 1974 on Capitol Records—and beyond.

This intimate history tells the Phantom’s story through the words of the family and friends, bandmates and musicians, and Detroit scenesters that spent time with, worked with, and witnessed the band live.

These are the continuing tales of the man who replaced Jim Morrison in the Doors.

R.D Francis previously explored the myth and legend of the Phantom in The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, the Phantom of Detroit, and the Fates of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RD Francis
• Release date: Oct 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463985182

RD Francis

Schooled as an architectural draftsman and radio broadcaster, and after a detour as a sometimes music journalist, roadie, and rock bassist, a move from behind the microphone to the front of the camera led to the current endeavors of R.D Francis as a screenwriter specializing in sci-fi, horror, and comedy. He now offers his rock journalism and fiction works on Smashwords.

Book preview

Tales from a Wizard:

The Oral History of

Walpurgis

The Band Behind

Phantom’s Divine Comedy: Part 1

By R.D Francis

Cover design by R.D Francis

Wizard Silhouette free clip art by GDJ

Courtesy of https://openclipart.org/detail/231796/wizard-silhouette

Public Domain License

Bloody (title and author name) and

Anton (subtitle) typefaces

Courtesy of PicFont.com

Copyright 2018 R.D Francis

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your enjoyment of this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy as a gift for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work and dedication of this author.

This book is dedicated to all of

the musical phantoms of Detroit.

You are the real rock stars.

Detroit wouldn’t have rocked without you.

Table of Contents

Cast of Characters

Prologue: The Ghosts of Jim Morrison

Chapter 1: Oxford Rock City

Chapter 2: Madrigal: Out of the Womb

Chapter 3: Walpurgis: A Night on Rochester

Chapter 4: Behind the Mask: A Divine Comedy

Chapter 5: Howl of the Pendragon

Chapter 6: Dance of the Happy Dragons

Chapter 7: Phantom 2018: The Ghost Who Lives

Epilog: The Phantom Letters

About the Author

Cast of Characters

Drew Abbott: Musician—Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band

Richard Allen: Musician—BOA, Sass, Pendragon, Roxius, Rock Anthem

Susan Barker: Detroit scenester and Walpurgis Family member

John Barnell: Musician and Record Executive—The Orange Fuzz; Point Blank Records

Steve Bergier: Roadie—Walpurgis

James Berry: Detroit scenester

Paul Cervanek: Musician—Good Tuesday, Madrigal, Fancy Colors

Jim Cherry: Music Journalist and Author—The Doors Examined

Mike Chizzy Chisholm: Musician—The Detroit Doors

Amy Collins: Detroit scenester

Ron Course: Musician—White Heat, Bliss, Pendragon, Coloradus, Shotgun Willie Band

Marco Cozza: Italy-based Phantomphile

Greg Crockett: Roadie—The Amboy Dukes and Rare Earth

Herman Daldin: Musician—Train, Third Power, White Bucks, Victor Peraino’s Kingdom Come

Jimmy Dormine: Musician—Shotgun Willie Band, Confederate Railroad, ABC-TV’s Nashville

Mike deMartino: Producer and Musician—Fiddlers Music and Cloudborn Studios; Happy Dragon

Robert Dempster: Musician—the Wha?

Ron Domilici: Detroit scenester and Music Historian

Gary Gawinek: Musician, Engineer, Roadie—We Who Are, Tea, Walpurgis, Bob Seger

Johnny Heaton: Musician—The West End, Old Friends, White Heat, Tantrum, Rock Anthem

Ed Houlehan: Musician—Walpurgis, Victor Peraino’s Kingdom Come

Bob Howe: British-based music aficionado and professional record collector and retailer

Jeff Johnson: Musician—Pendragon, Powerplay, Shooter, Third Power

Russ Klatt: Musician—Madrigal, Walpurgis

Michail Lagopatis: Greece-based Music Journalist and Disc Jockey—TimeMaZine FanZine; Municipal Tripoli 91.5 FM

Francesco Lenzi: Italy-based Music Journalist and Musician—Cultural Magazine L’Ulcera del signor Wilson; Once In A Lifetime and OrangeFlash

John Maxwell: Detroit scenester

Frank Mielke: Musician—The Patriots, The West End, Flash Cadillac, David and the Diamonds

Chris Marshall: Musician—White Bucks, Pendragon, Powerplay, Shooter, Rock Anthem

Charlie Martin: Musician—Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band

Joe Memmer: Musician—The Free, Shadow, Jem, Pendragon, The Detroit Doors

Randy Meyers: Musician—Julia and Bob Seger

Greg Miller: Producer—Hideout Productions, Pampa Studios

Sam Moceri: Musician and producer—The Lazy Eggs; Fiddlers Music

Daniel O’Connell: Musician—The Wha?, Barooga Bandit

Bill Pearson: Progressive Radio DJ—WTAC, WWCK; brother of Ted Pearson

Alex Raga: Italy-based musician—Jim Morrison tribute vocalist

Chris Ruetenik: Musician—Walpurgis, Father, Art In America

Mitch Ryder: Musician—The Detroit Wheels, Detroit, solo artist

Joel Schultz: Musician—Julia, Bob Seger

Diane Sims: Detroit scenester and Walpurgis Family member

Rick Stahl: Musician—Sincerely Yours, Wilson Mower Pursuit, Pendragon, solo artist

J.D Stone: Progressive Rock DJ— WAMX, WABB, WTKX

Scott Strawbridge: Musician and Producer—Happy Dragon; Fiddlers Music, Artisan Recorders

Dave Teegarden: Musician—Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band

Malcolm Frank Thompson: Musician and Disc Jockey—Paisley Sky; RPPFM 98.7 Melbourne, Australia

Bob Waller: Musician—Blue Queen and Wildwood

Tom Weschler: Photographer and Manager—Hideout and Palladium Productions; Bob Seger

Jerry Zubal: Musician—Kwintels, Tea, 1776, Rockicks, Pendragon

Back to Top

Prologue: The Ghosts of Jim Morrison

If you are reading this book then you have an interest in one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest mysteries of the sixties and seventies. Greater than the ghost groups of the Masked Marauders, Lord Sitar, the Guess Who, ? and the Mysterians, Detroit’s Sugar Man Rodriquez, Klaatu, and Orion. Even greater than the then makeup-concealed identities behind Kiss. A real life Eddie and the Cruisers. Of course we are speaking of the Ghost of the Lizard King—the doppelganger of Jim Morrison. For a brief moment in time in 1974, a man whom many Detroit scenesters knew as Ted Pearson and, later, who others knew as Arthur Pendragon, was a rock star.

Sadly, a well-intentioned record company and managerial marketing concept concealed his identity behind a photonegative album cover—a mask. And even when the photographic-savvy in the pre-digital years of 1974 reversed the Tom Weschler-shot cover into a blue-hued positive image—still no one knew the man behind the mask (outside of Detroit, anyway). Self-professed connoisseurs of all things Morrison did not even know their critically scoffed musical specter was from the same town that birthed Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Ted Nugent, Meatloaf, and Bob Seger.

Vinyl aficionados savvy enough to notice that the notations of Gear Publishing and Hideout Productions that appeared on the Phantom’s Divine Comedy effort also appeared on Bob Seger’s albums, thought the photo might be Bob Seger playing a joke; that Seger was helping Jim cut albums and hideout from his rock star persona. However, it was not an incognito Jim Morrison or Bob Seger on the cover—and no one was talking. Capitol Records could not have been more aloof.

When the first professionally shot black and white published photos of the unmasked Phantom flanking Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and Danny Sugerman, taken by Jim Parrett of the L.A. fanzine Demin Delinquent (on July 3, 1974), appeared, no one was talking. And when later published photos of the Phantom with Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper, shot by Led Zeppelin’s and the Rolling Stones’ critically-acclaimed rock photographer, James Fortune (on June 15, 1974), appeared, still no one knew who this towering, black-clad and silver jewelry-adorned guy was with all these rock stars. And it certainly did not help matters when those Jim Parrett photos made their first national appearance in a December 1974 issue of Creem magazine with the caption: Is that you, Jim?

Perhaps you journeyed the pages of this writer’s previous exploration on the Phantom mystery: The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, the Phantom of Detroit, and the Fates of Rock ‘n’ Roll. That book’s introduction quoted a passage from the book of Ecclesiastes 3:1 of the King James Version of The Holy Bible; the verse speaks of man’s lack of understanding that there is a season, and time, to every purpose under the heavens.

The purpose of this writer’s previous rock ‘n’ roll love letter to his old friend was to not only serve as a biography on Jim’s Morrison’s reluctant doppelganger, but to place that doppelganger’s life and music—previous written off by music critics as a divine joke that disrespected Jim Morrison’s influential, five-year legacy—into a historical context. The purpose was to place the Phantom’s music into a perspective of the life and times of the rock ‘n’ roll industry. The goal of the book was—once and for all—to dispel the hazy, swirling crystal ball rumors of the cut-n-paste Internet-based cult that shrouded rock ‘n’ roll’s L’Homme au Masque de Fer—for the grip that mask held over Ted Pearson’s career, the fabricated managerial camouflage might as well have been cast of iron.

The purpose of that book was to introduce you—the Phantomphiles outside of the borders of America’s then rock ‘n’ roll epicenter, Detroit, Michigan—to a unique individual; to give his doppelganger-mangled career legitimacy in the future annals of rock ‘n’ roll. As Mike Chizzy Chisholm of the Detroit Doors recently said to this writer, I’m on a mission to give Arthur’s soul peace. Indeed.

The previous book was inspired by and based upon conversations this writer experienced in 1993 with the man who led the band Walpurgis—known to the world as Phantom. As you, the reader, will discover in these new pages, the Phantom’s closest friends and confidants in the Madrigal, Walpurgis and Pendragon families—even his own bandmates and the producers and session musicians who worked with him—were unaware of the European-based cult surrounding Ted Pearson’s music that began in Italy in 1989. That fan base birthed from the pirated copies of his studio recordings from 1973 and 1978.

You know the myth. Hopefully, if you read The Ghosts of Jim Morrison (or at the very least sampled the free Internet-based eBook chapters), that myth was dispelled. The purpose of this book is to tear away the myth and shatter the mask, and move from the biographical to the autobiography. Sadly, Ted Pearson is no longer with us to tell his story.

Tales from a Wizard: The Oral History of Walpurgis recreates the tales of the band behind the ethereal, mysterious album, The Divine Comedy, from the band’s earliest days in 1968 in the basement bowels of a dilapidated Victorian home on the Rochester-Troy border and up to their nationally-released album in 1974 on Capitol Records. This intimate history tells Ted Pearson’s story through the words of family and friends, bandmates, musicians and Detroit scenesters who spent time with, worked with Ted, and witnessed his bands live.

In this tale, this writer will step back and rein his nostalgia and unbridled passion for the underdog musicians of the industry, and let the people who knew Ted best—tell his story. So while this book, as well as The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, serves as a celebration of the music of Madrigal, Walpurgis, and Pendragon, it is as much about you—his fellow, unsung musicians and scenesters of Detroit and the music and the scene that you created. You made Detroit the rock ‘n’ roll capital of America.

So welcome to the oral history of Ted Pearson . . . and the oral history of Arthur Pendragon. It is this writer’s sincere hope that as you read these pages, you’ll hear the voice of our Phantom and experience him in your heart—just as the people who contributed to this book did, over forty years ago.

So raise a cold old, will ‘ya? Flash those horns and flame-on your handheld butane candles in tribute. Long live Earl Theodore Pearson and long live rock ‘n’ roll. — R.D Francis

Back to Top

Chapter 1: Oxford Rock City

DURING this writer’s research for the first book, a few rumors, which appeared on now mostly defunct (thankfully), self-published music connoisseur and aficionado websites regarding musical obscurities from the late sixties and early seventies, reported Ted Pearson, the man behind the Phantom’s Divine Comedy album, died in drug deal gone bad. Other sites, because of the Tom Carson, Tommy Court, and Arthur Pendragon-identities cut-n-pasted all over the web, believed the drug deal gone bad earned the Phantom a ticket into the American government’s Witness Protection Program. This rumor seems to stem from this one anonymous, still-posted Amazon.com user comment—the earliest dated comment about a drug deal—from January 2007:

Kindle Customer: I don’t wish to get into a big argument about this, but the Phantom was a local rocker from Oxford, Michigan, named Ted Pearson, Jr. I went to school with his brothers and sister and knew Ted his whole life. Most everyone from my generation who lived in Oxford has a copy of the Capitol 45 [rpm single] of Calm Before the Storm.

I saw [Ted] perform several times at local venues. Ted was quite a character. He often wore a full-size sword at his waist in public and, though often stopped and questioned, it was legal—at least at that time in history, since the weapon was not concealed. Officially, Ted died in a drug-related incident. However, there is much speculation to this day that he is alive and well [and] living under the Witness Protection Program. I like to think that’s what really happened.

Susan Barker: I guess these fans that Arthur has years after the fact—that I never knew existed—has their wishes. If you ever saw the movie Eddie and the Cruisers, you would see how easy it is to fantasize about some rock star faking their death to drop out of sight. Eddie and the Cruisers has great music and a somewhat corny, but rather interesting story of a Sixties band. But, no Arthur didn’t [die in a drug deal or go into Witness Protection].

Marco Cozza: Eddie and the Cruisers reminds me of the pseudo-Iggy Pop/David Bowie film, Velvet Goldmine. In that film the glam-rock David Bowie substitute, Brian Slade, murdered his Maxwell Demon-stage guise, only to return as the white suit-clad Tommy Steele, which was the film’s proxy for Bowie’s Thin White Duke persona. Both films seem to have pinched, unknowingly, off the Phantom mystery.

John Maxwell: In 1974, Vincent Furnier took his stage persona, Alice Cooper, and made it his legal name. Everyone thinks it’s brilliant. But Ted Pearson takes his stage persona of Arthur Pendragon and made it his legal name—and he’s going underground to hide from drug dealers. It’s stupid. I mean, I get the whole connection to Jim Morrison and the mystery behind him dying in Paris, but . . . it’s just stupid.

Some of these Phantomphile insights are from Facebook comments posted on Phantom-uploaded photos on pages dedicated to the Detroit music of the sixties and seventies and noted by an *. (Some names with an * are truncated for privacy throughout this book.)

James G*: [Ted] used to hang out at the Full Moon Records [location] in Rochester a lot [in the seventies]. I liked Ted and thought he was interesting. I heard he walked about Lake Orion with a broad sword a lot in the eighties [when he fronted Pendragon].

Rick Stahl*: I doubt that [Arthur] did that. He was a talented musician with a stylized sense of showmanship and quite egocentric in that area, but not a total lunatic.

Chris Ruetenik*: Hmmm. Let’s remember the time period. His garb was tame compared to some of Elton’s or Bowie’s. I think [Ted] had talent.

Marco Cozza: I see now that Arthur Pendragon was a rock-opera character not that far removed from Ziggy Stardust. Sadly, Ted’s creative vision was bastardized into The Phantom, by forces out of his control. And not just by materialistic managers, but spiritual forces as well, I believe.

James G*: I knew Ted from the Full Moon [record store] days. I knew Chris Ruetenik [also of Walpurgis at one point] and worked with [Chris] there, too. He did change his name to Ted Pendragon, as I recall. I read a report about him walking in to a McDonald’s with a broad sword in Lake Orion, I tell ya. It maybe [rumor], but I read or heard it somewhere.

Rick Stahl*: I left Pendragon, after about three years in the band, near the end of 1983. Whatever became of him after—that I cannot attest to.

John Maxwell: Remember that Johnny Bravo episode of The Brady Bunch? Greg fit the suit. It’s that record company suit that ruined Klattu’s and the Knack’s career. No one wanted to leave Jim rest . . . and Arthur fit the suit. The only difference is that Ted’s Johnny Bravo was named The Phantom. I’d even say Julian Lennon suffered the same fate: they tried to stuff him, like Klattu, into his dad’s old suit.

Bob Howe: R.D, why didn’t you address the rumors about Ted’s dying in a drug-deal and his going into witness protection or address the story that appeared on Amazon.com?

R.D Francis: I have seen those posts and, in my opinion, it sounds too far-fetched—and made up. I felt this drug dealing and witness protection story was completely unfounded and not worth the effort to investigate. We all want our rock-stars to burn out in a blaze of glory and not quietly fade away [which Susan Barker pointed out].

What we have here: Jim Morrison faked his death, goes underground with bogus death certificates, etc. Then there’s the assassination plots via L.S.D poisoning with the C.I.A’s plots to kill off everyone that attended the Monterey Pop Festival.

Bob Howe: Yes, you