Born as Robert  Parker Jameson, in Geneva Illinois in 1945. Bobby grew up in Arizona and California in the early fifties. Bobby developed an interest in music as a young child. --"I remember listening to the radio at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. I'd try and remember the words to all the songs I liked so I could sing them to myself. I didn't much care about anything else." --Bobby

By 1955 Bobby was living in Tucson, Arizona and Rock N Roll was really getting going. Bobby and his brother Bill would watch American Bandstand everyday to see how everybody looked and danced and they would copy them. --"I remember starting to make up songs instead of learning someone else's, so I guess that was the beginning of my song writing days."--Bobby

Bobby and his brother both got guitars from Sears and started learning how to play them. By 1957 they started playing at talent shows and at a place called Kal Rueben's Furniture City on Speedway Blvd., in Tucson; by which time Bobby was convinced that he was destined to be a "teen Idol" after watching the likes of Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry.

Bobby's mother and step father separated in 1958, and later divorced. --"What little adult supervision we had became at that point even more sparse. Like a boat without a rudder, I struggled to find my way, as did my brother Bill who, to make matters worse, suffered from mental and emotional problems." --Bobby

Shortly following the separation Bobby's mother moved him and Bill to St. Johns AZ. to a smalltown environment of Mormons on one side and American Indians on the other. Bobby and his brother ended up on the line between the two warring parties and tilted a little bit towards the Indians and become an immediate outcast.

--"I watched my brother get beaten in a fight in front of the entire student body of St. Johns High School.  We'd played at a school assembly a couple of months earlier, for the first time, and the attitude toward us from then on was completely different. A lot of people liked it, but a lot of them hated our guts for becoming the center of attention. Some of the top guys in school now had to worry whether their girl friends had a new interest in us. Hell, we were like mini stars of a piss ant town and some of them were down right threatened by it, hence the fight. It was just a matter of time before it happened and it happened at the school dance. My brother, who was a good fighter, got sucker punched by a football player and never had a chance. The Mormon principle of the school stood by and watched the whole thing happen and did nothing. I was beside myself screaming at him to stop it, but to no avail. The Indian kids knew what was going on, they'd seen that kind of shit all their lives. In the end it was them who picked my brother up off the ground and tried to clean him up. It was a beating, not a fight!  After that my brother just deteriorated mentally. Something inside him gave up and not too much later he ended up in the state mental hospital and was never the same. I vowed that from that day on no one would ever do that to me. It created a will in me that to this day I still possess. It has caused me great difficulty".--Bobby

Bobby's mother moved him to Mesa, to be closer to the state hospital in Phoenix where his brother Bill was and it was here that his mother married a man by the name of Francis Farr.  Where Bobby learned to work hand loading hay trucks in and around Phoenix in the summer when it was 120 degrees. Which he was rarely paid for, but worked like a dog; 18 tons of alfalfa a day and unloaded box cars at night, because it was too hot to work inside them in the daytime.

--"I tried to prove myself, but I never could. He made promises to me to get me to work, but he never kept one. Finally one afternoon I flipped out and blasted him with the rankest kind of language I could think up. I was 15 years old, going on 16, and had had enough. I told him I would never work for him again and from that day forward I never did. For the next couple of years I got into trouble. I got thrown out of every school I went to and basically became a pain in the ass. It was because of this time that music, the only thing I really loved, began to appear as my only possible chance to escape the depressing conditions of my life. My mother's marriages and my brother's mental illness had taken their toll on me and at times I thought about killing myself to get away from the stark disappointment of my existence. But somehow I always managed to find a reason to keep going. I just kept thinking that music had the power to get me out of this mess. If I could just make a record, people might like it and I'd make some money and change my life."

--"I didn't have many friends in Mesa, Az. as you might imagine. Let's face it, it was the early 60's like 1960 I'm talking about. John Kennedy was about to be president and the country was going to go through one of the biggest social revolutions in history, but I'm talking about the time that preceded it. The still lingering, black's didn't have the right to vote yet end of the 50's early 60's. A dark social fabric of middle america where husbands could slap their wife around and still beat their kids without being arrested. If I know anything, it was one of the root causes for the 60's social rebellion and I was part of it. The few friends I did have would laugh at me and say I was crazy when I'd try and tell them about my music. They'd look at me like I was from another planet and start to question whether they wanted to know me at all. Because of this I didn't bring it up much until I had a few beers and got just high enough and brave enough to talk about it. They'd make fun of me and say things like, "Bobby thinks he's a rock n roll star, but he's really just an ass hole". Every now and then I'd have to fight one of these guys to keep from getting pushed around so much."

--"As luck would have it Francis Farr, the Mormon husband, and my mom weren't doing all that well which in the long run got her to leave Mesa and go to Glendale CA. God, I can't tell you what this meant to me. A glimmer of hope for the future. There was a reason to hope. Something to hang on to. If I could just hold on long enough to get to California everything would get better."

--"I'd be closer to the magic city of Hollywood. A place where people thought and talked about the things I wanted to talk about. A place where they actually made records and movies and... My head exploded like a pumpkin being hit with a baseball bat. I had transferred myself into a dream world and clung to it like a starving animal. For the first time in a long time I felt as though there was really something to believe in."

--"I met Tony Alamo in Hollywood in 1964, probably at the "Carolina Pines," a local coffee shop hangout for struggling musicians, writers, and actors. He owned a record mail order company called Mr. Maestro Records."

--"Danny Whitten, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Bruce (Baby John) Hines and I were seated at a table in the "Carolina Pines" coffee shop one afternoon, in 1964. Tony Alamo approached us with copies of Billboard and Cashbox in hand. He dropped the papers in front of us saying, "take a look." Not knowing what he was referring to we began looking through both publications when we stumbled on black and white quarter page ads in both mags which stated, " The World's Next Phenomenon Bobby Jameson.  These words were above a black silhouette of me. The ads were identical in both publications and purposely did not show my face. Tony glared at us and then looked directly at me and said, "I told you I was going to make you a star."

--"The following week, 2 more ads ran in Billboard and Cashbox, except this time they were half page black and white ads. The words on them stated, "Bobby Jameson The Star Of The Century" and again they topped a black silhouette of me not showing my face.  For the next 6 weeks the ads kept coming out. I think it was the 3rd or 4th week when Tony dropped Cashbox and just kept the ads coming in Billboard. The 3rd week was a three quarter page ad. The 4th week a full page and so on. They went from black and white to three color and then to a full color. A four page pullout in the 8th week. No one had ever done this before, so the whole world wide music industry was noticing it. People were watching to see how far it was going to go. Each week they'd check out Billboard to see if a new and bigger ad was in it and there was. It became kind of a game that everybody was playing. I was blown away by the whole process. You've got to understand that I was just some punk kid from nowhere that nobody had ever heard of, and all of a sudden I was the subject of a lot of the industry. No one knew where the ads were coming from or who was doing this. People speculated that it was a major label doing it from America as a response to Beatlemania, which had taken over the US along with the rest of the world. The Beatles were the phenomenon, so Tony called me "The World's Next Phenomenon." I had nothing to do with it. I just stood around trying to comprehend what was happening to my life. In fact, for quite awhile nobody knew that I was Bobby Jameson, and when they found out they basically said, "well who the hell are you?" I didn't know how to respond so Tony responded for me. At first this was great, because he wouldn't let anyone screw with me, but later I found my own voice and trouble between Tony and me soon followed. We had no contract. To this day there is no contract. We had no record. I had to go in the studio (Nashville West) on Melrose Ave., in LA and cut one. We didn't even have muscians on most of the recordings. I wrote, arranged, played, and sang everything.  I basically produced 4 songs that are now the only 2 TALAMO RECORDS that exist. "I'm So Lonely/I wanna Love You" and "Okey Fanokey Baby/ Meadow Green". There aren't any others because I didn't have any other songs at the time. People think there are more secret Tony Alamo tapes of Bobby Jameson, but there aren't." --Bobby

This was the start of Bobby Jameson's music career. However, much to Bobby's disappointment his life in the music industry has not been as glamorous or prosperous as Bobby had hopes and dreams of; due to failures to receive payments and royalties for much of his work. In addition to many unfortunate circumstances that managed to take it's toll...Which you can read full in-depth stories about on Bobby's blog spot at: http://bobbyjameson.blogspot.com

In the meantime, moving forward to some of the highlights of Bobby's music career. Bobby Jameson is best known  for his highly sought-after cult LP "Songs of Protest" which he recorded under the alias Chris Lucey.  Jameson cut his debut single, "I Wanna Love You," for the Talamo label in early 1964. The record was a regional hit, and even earned him an appearance on American Bandstand.   Jameson captured the attention of Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham, and in late 1964; he flew to London to record the Decca single "All I Want Is My Baby," co-written by Oldham and Stones guitarist Keith Richards. (The B-side, "Each and Every Day of the Year," credits authorship to Richards and Mick Jagger.)  Upon returning to Los Angeles Bobby befriended producer Marshall Lieb; who was in the process of producing a debut release under the Surrey Records label for an artist by the name of  Chris Ducey; with the album covers already printed and ready for release. However, due to  contractual issues the project went limbo. At which time, Lieb coerced Jameson into writing and recording a new batch of tunes based on Ducey's existing song titles; and Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest was finally released-- now credited to "Chris Lucey"; upon release the album cover was altered from the origianl Chris Ducey cover to  featuring a photo of Rolling Stones Brian Jones, instead of Chris Lucey aka Bobby Jameson for reasons unknown.. The album was also released  under Jameson's real name in the U.K., with the title changed to Too Many Mornings.
 
Later in 1966, Bobby Jameson released "Gotta Find My  Roogalator" which was arranged by Frank Zappa and recorded in  L.A. with Carol Kaye on bass, and Larry Knechtel on piano, under Pat Boone's Penthouse label. Bobby then signed with Verve, where the Our Productions team of Curt Boettcher, Jim Bell, and Steve Clark produced his 1967 LP Color Him In. 

Jameson also appeared in the infamous American International Pictures documentary "Mondo Hollywood" in 1967;  a complete and uncensored film montage of the psychedelic sixties sights and sounds of the swinging  Hollywood hipster scene on the Sunset Strip. Including the nightlife at the Whiskey A-Go-Go,  "Jenny Lee" the inspiration for the Jan & Dean song, hairstylist Jay Sebring (murdered by Manson Family),   Grauman's Chinese Theater, freak-out club scenes, a psychedelic session with LSD guru Dr. Richard Alpert and a discussion of how to "re-enter" after an LSD trip, a Peace Rally at UCLA and much more! Sharing the screen with Frank Zappa, Jayne Mansfield, Gypsy Boots, Manson crony Bobby Beausoleil, Ann Margret,  Brigitte Bardot, Sony & Cher, Dean Martin, Frank and Nancy Sinatra, Jimmy Carl Black and many other celebrities..

In 1969 Bobby Jameson released his second solo album titled "Working" under GRT Records label. Including: Palo Alto (Jameson,R. P.), Norwegian Wood (Lennon,John/McCartney,Paul), I'll Be Your Baby (Dylan,Bob),  The Weight (Robertson,Robbie),  Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Dylan,Bob), Gentle on My Mind (Hartford,John), Broken Windows (Jameson,R.P.), Singing the Blues (Endsley,M.) , Ain't That Lovin' You Baby (Reed,Jimmy), Bout Being Young (Jameson,R.P.)

Bobby remained active in the music business until 1985. And over the years since has written and recorded dozens of beautiful songs. Many of which can be heard on his youtube channel at the link available at the bottom of this page. 

Jan (editor)