One of these concept pieces that you could hear played on FM radio back then was an 18-minute beauty by Parallax entitled “Kiss of the Mudman.”
What made “Mudman” so unique that even Lester bangs admitted a grumbling admiration for it (Bangs was infamous for loathing everything about the prog-rock movement) was its fusion of traditional blues with Hindi music. Critics were divided on whether or not it was a successful piece, but even those who disliked it had to admit that it was unlike anything produced during the short-lived prog era—and that it was performed by your basic rock trio, using only a bass, drums, and a single guitar, without any studio trickery or overdubs, served, according to Rolling Stone’s review, “…as a testament to Parallax’s serious-minded goals, if not their cumulative musicianship, which seems too agile at times to move ‘Mudman’ into the realm of potential classic. Still, Canada’s Rush might soon have reason to be looking over their shoulders if Knight, Shaw, and Jacobs continue to move in this direction.”
Kiss of the Mudman (both the album and the song) made Parallax instant (if fleeting) icons. Their two previous albums (both of which had done okay but not great) were re-issued and sold like crazy, giving them two gold and one platinum album the same year, 1978.
And then Alan Shaw, the bassist, died of a heroin overdose, and Tracy Jacobs, the drummer, was killed in an auto accident (it was later determined that he’d been drunk at the time). Byron Knight recorded a terrific solo album that just bombed, and then he dropped off the radar. Some college stations still dusted off “Mudman” from time to time when the DJs felt like making fun of it (or needed a leisurely piss break), and it, like the band who recorded it, was now nothing more than a curiosity piece.
Still, if you were a fan, (like I’d been) to hear the man who’d written and sang the song mumble the word “…mudman…” was, well…still kind of a thrill, and I couldn’t help but remember the verse that had been all the rage for a few months back when I was a teenager:
“You wonder where it all went wrong and why you feel so dead
why it seems that every day you’re hanging by a thread
Are you still who you were and not what you’ve become?
Is this the taste of failure that lingers on your tongue?
Your dreams are ending in a place
far from where they began
Because what’s on your lips
Is the memory of the kiss
Of the mudman…”
Okay, “Blowin’ in the Wind” it wasn’t, but as a soul-sick cry of loneliness and alienation, it works—and that’s what “Mudman” was, an 18-minute musical suicide note, chronicling the last minutes of a dying rock star’s life as he looks back on all the people he’s hurt and left behind, knowing that none of it—the fame, the money, the women and riches—was worth it, that all he’d ever wanted he’d pissed away, and now had to die alone, and deserved his fate.
I’d always wondered just who or what the Mudman was (as did all the fans of the piece), but Knight would never say.
“…sonofabitch,” he slurred from the cot as he attempted to sit up. I went over and helped him, got him a glass of water, and watched as he pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket and popped two of them into his mouth. “For the pain,” he said, taking a deep drink of the water. Setting down the glass, he wiped his mouth, rubbed his eyes, and looked at me. “Was I dreaming, or did you say something about an ulceration?” I shook my head. “That was someone else, the Reverend, the man who runs this shelter.” “Ah.” He blinked, coughed a few times, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m kinda sick, I’m afraid.” “Cancer.” It was not a question. He looked at me. “Seen it before, have you?” “Yes.” “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna flip out on you. I just needed to get a little shut-eye in a warm place.” “You’re Byron Knight.”
He paled at the mention of his name. “I was Byron Knight. Now I’m just a sick transient who’s come back to his hometown to die. Think the Reverend would have any objection to my doing it here?”
“We’ve had people pass away before. The Reverend never forces anyone to leave if they don’t want to.”
“That’s good, because I don’t want to. Don’t have anywhere to go, anyway.” He ran his fingers through his hair, then stuck out his hand. “You are?” “Sam,” I said, shaking his hand. “What the fuck happened to that ear of yours?” I touched it, as I always do whenever someone asks me about it. “Frostbite.” “You hear out of it? No, huh?” “Nope.” “So I guess it was a dumb question.” “Not really.” He sniffed, then looked around the room. “Your Reverend, he wouldn’t have any booze stashed around here by chance, would he?” I knew the Reverend kept a bottle of brandy in his desk. I got it out and poured Knight a short one. “Is that a good idea?” I asked him as I handed the glass to him. “I mean, on top of the pain pills?”
He laughed but there was no humor in it. “Sam, I think I’m way past worrying about the effects this’ll have on my health.” He lifted the glass in a toast. “To your health, then.” He downed it in one gulp. “Oh, that’s nice.” He held out the glass. “One more? I promise that’ll be it.” I poured him another, this one a little higher than the last. This time he sipped at it. “I wish you’d stop looking at me like that.” “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that…I was a big fan.” “That’s nice.” He sounded as if he really meant it. “It’s nice to know that someone remembers.” “You guys were good.”
“No, we could have been good. Fuck—we could’ve been great, but it just got too easy to hear everyone else tell us how great we were. ‘Better the illusion exalts us than ten thousand truths.’ Alexander Pushkin said that. Don’ ask me who he was, I couldn’t tell you. I read that line in a book of quotes somewhere. Always stayed with me.” He dug around in his pocket and produced a hand-rolled cigarette. “Yes, Sam, this is grass, and I’m gonna light up. I can do it in here or we can step outside, it’s up to you.”
I nodded at the joint. “That for the pain, too?”