Jug Band Music and the Strange Cult Surrounding It

It is Newport - 1965, at the Folk Festival.

Bobby is pissing everybody off again. Just like he did two years ago when he was booed off the stage and Peter Paul and Mary had to come out and tell everyone to ‘like him because he’s the guy who writes the songs we sing‘.

And we did it too - because we'd do anything Mary Travers asked.

This time the fans are yelling at him because he’s playing rock and roll on the folk stage.

Pete Seeger is trying to get the crowd to take it easy on Bob, but Dylan’s mad at Pete - he thinks Pete considers him a traitor to the music for sticking electricity into his guitar.

Angered by Dylan’s Rock experiment, the folkies are streaming out by the hundreds.

Up to the center of the stage strides a skinny , flop-eared guy wearing a sea-captain's hat that looks like it is left over from Halloween. The little guy pulls a mouth harp out of a dirty red bandana and begins playing ‘Rock of Ages.’

Ten minutes later, or thirty minutes later, depending on who’s telling the story, the world is right again because of this stirring harmonica solo that saved folk music.

The man who stole the show that night in New England, was Mel Lyman. Mel certainly did not look like a savior. Stringy and unkempt, he played harmonica, ate macrobiotics or some such stuff, and sang for free ( 'cause nobody would pay him), around Boston.

On occasion, he gigged with Boston University student Jim Kweskin. Mel would soon join Kweskin in a new group, The Jug Band.

All of the folk musicians of the era were working for free or eats in Boston and Cambridge; and nobody thought they could save a nickel or a dime, let alone the entire genre of folk music. Often the players would work in what they called 'Hat Clubs' - meaning they played for free, but the owners would let them 'pass the hat' to pick up a couple of bucks.

One night the owner of Vanguard records saw Jim Kweskin’s gratis Club 47 gig (47 was the Cambridge, Mass. coffee house where folk music was revived) and asked him if he wanted to make a record. Jim said, “sure if you’ll give me a couple weeks to put together a band.” He got Mel Lyman, Maria Muldaur and her husband Geoff, along with a granny glassed Jugger and Washboard Tub Bassist extraordinaire named Fritz Richmond. They had all played occasional gigs together but became an ensemble for the first time officially, after the recording deal was offered.

The newly formed “Jim Kweskin Jug Band” rapidly became successful and just as quickly Mel Lyman began to get weird and lay the foundation for a cult that became iconic and has remnants that exist to this day.

Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur succumbed to Mel’s charismatic aura, but Maria Muldaur left the group and also left Geoff and went on to great success as one of America’s finest vocal interpreters. She has had both artistic and commercial success. Her biggest seller is the exotic “Midnight at the Oasis”.

Back to Mel Lyman.

Around the Coffee House Circuit, if there were a vote, Mel would have won 'Most Likely NOT to succeed. This was a time when up and coming talent around Boston included Joan Baez, her sister Mimi Farina, Richard Farina, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, Tom Rush and many others.

At the time I was a student in Kenmore Square in Grahm Jr. College and I thought I had infinitely more chance of success than Mel Lyman. So did most of my classmates. We were going to be the next Walter Cronkite or John Cameron Swayze.

Some of us wanted to be comics. Such was the case of alumnus - Andy Kaufman. More about him some other time, in some other hub. He was a 1971 graduate of our Boston gang.

Anyway we all knew Joan Baez would be a star and Tom Rush (Urge for Going) - but we never expected much from Mel Lyman.

That said, within a year the Jug Band was everywhere on the charts and the club scene and Mel had started a commune in Fort Hill, one of the poorest sections of Boston. The group soon owned several houses and an avant garde newspaper called “Avatar”.

From the beginning The Avatar was loved by students and hated by the establishment. It sold for 25 cents for the first few issues, then the price went up to 35 cents. The paper came out every two weeks.

Hawked on the streets of Boston, the city's first and only underground tabloid featured rants and advice by Mel.

At various times he claimed to be Jesus, an E.T. sent to earth in human form, and of course, the greatest man in the world.

Mel started the practice of PRINTING IN ALL CAPS TO DENOTE ANGER AND SHOUTING. His street vendors began to be subject to arrest for what was in the AVATAR.

One of the things that most angered the old pols of Boston and Cambridge was the issue where Mel devoted the entire center fold to just two words. When Boston Mayor Kevin White opened his copy of the AVATAR these are the two words he saw spread across the entire two page centerfold…… “FUCK YOU”.

That F U was the sheet's swan song. It was forced out of business after 26 issues.

The stodgy Beacon Hill elite were able to throttle the AVATAR, but they could not stop the Fort Hill Commune. It kept growing and kept finding new ways of making money.

In 1965, Harvard Professor Tim Leary and his pal Tony Russo went to Mexico and discovered for themselves the infamous psychedelic mushrooms that were the precursor to his trips on and advocating for, LSD.

Leary and Russo began associating with Mel and his Fort Hill family and sharing with them, his mind twisting delights. Andy Warhol also was a friend and associate of the commune. It is reported that the infamous murderer Charles Manson was an admirer of Mel Lyman and his family.

One of the most bizarre aspects of the Mel Lyman family during the mid sixties was the involvement of a young panhandler/carpenter named Mark Frechette. He wandered into the Fort Hill area of Boston with an anger deeper than the pockets of the Kennedy family. Frechette began reading “THE AVATAR” and tried to get tight with Mel and the family but Lyman did not allow Frechette to join the clan ---- at least not until later-after Frechette became famous.

Frechette was ‘discovered’ on the streets of Fort Hill and immediately cast in the lead role of the film “Zabriski Point”. There are several versions of how he was discovered. They all revolve around an angry Frechette screaming at people or hitting people. One account said that he was yelling up at someone leaning out the window of a building. Another story is that he was slapping a woman. A third yarn has it that Frechette was standing at a bus stop raging and spitting out epithets like “Mother*****r” when spotted by aides of filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni who were searching for a star for the director’s upcoming film which would be THE AMERICAN EPIC. The aides told Antonioni that Frechette would be perfect for the role because ‘He is 20 and he hates.”

In a spot on the Dick Cavett show to promote the film, Mark uttered few words but did alude to his 'discovery' and hinted that the yelling up to the third floor window was what got him discovered.

Film critic Rex Reed tried to get Frechette to talk about the famed director Antonioni, but he had about as much success as Cavett. Even Mel Brooks failed to lighten the dreary interview.

The film -panned at the time- has gained cult status. It features notable music by groups such as Pink Floyd and The Dead.

The talent scouts plucked a second unknown (Daria Halprin) from the streets and she became the co-star of the film as well as Frechette’s on screen and real life lover.

After Frechette was chosen for the film, he was allowed to join the Mel Lyman commune and was allowed to give the family the $60,000 that he earned from Zabriski Piont. Daria also joined the Lyman Family but left after a few years to marry Dennis Hopper. She is still alive as of 2011 and presumably is retired somewhere in California.

As for Frechette…..I will tell you what happened to him after you watch the bizarre interview he and Daria had with Dick Cavett. Cavett had just finished a segment with the ever crazy Mel Brooks when he brought on the young couple.

Did you catch what Frechette said about Mel ?

He told Cavett. “The community is for one purpose and that is to serve Mel Lyman.”

In 1973, members of the Mel Lyman Family, including Frechette, robbed a bank.in Boston. One of the family was killed by police. Frechette was catptured and given a 6 to 15 year prison sentence at MCI Norfolk.

The second anniversary of the bank robbery, August 29, 1975, found Frechette increasingly depressed (according to friends) as he sat in his cell at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution.

A few weeks later, on the morning of September 27, an inmate walked into the prison’s weight room and made the grisly discovery of a lifeless Frechette. Frechette was lying on a weight bench and across his neck was a 200 pound set of barbells. (some versions of the incident say it was 150 pound set).

The official line is that Frechette was lifting and lost control of the weights, which came down on his throat and killed him instantly. The problem with this story is that according to several sources, there were no bruises on the neck!

The death was murder, suicide, or an accident. You choose.

Now speaking of death. In 1978 Mel Lyman died. Maybe.

Mel supposedly died of an unspecified illness. According to sources….no body was ever found. No funeral was held. No death certificate was issued. There is no proof he ever died.

His death, however, must be a reality because the Lyman cult may have been similar to Manson’s in some respects…but the Lymans were not killers. They used strong armed tactics, but their business ventures seem to be legitimate. Their construction company made so much money, that Jim Kweskin reportedly turned down stardom, California, and multi-million dollar record deals; to stay in Boston and run Fort Hill Construction.

The company (by 2011) has spread all over the entire 48 (contiguous) states, with its main headquarters in Hollywood. They are most likely building in your community right now.  If not in your town, they have projects near you.  You can go to their website and will find no mention of Mel. Jim Queskin, however, is listed as Vice President and one of the founders of this massive organizaiton. In their biographies of their top execs, Jim is profiled WITH NO MENTION OF HIS INVOLVEMENT IN MUSIC OR THE MEL LYMAN GROUP.  Other members of the executive team include people from Boston who have been with the company since the start of the commune.  All of these people are now based not in seedy Fort Hill;  but in California. 

Back to Mel;  Lyman had no reason to fake his own death. He was not wanted by police. He had hundreds of followers and untold wealth.

The only possible solution is that Mel Lyman ACTUALLY was an extra terrestrial sent to earth in human form….and his people called him back. That would explain the lack of a body and proof of death.

Case solved.

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